Is Your Coffee Causing Cardiovascular Disease?!

This article is about information and habit change nutritional changes. It’s all about how you can change your life by taking small steps and having the knowledge to make better decisions. If this style of learning and nutritional education interests you, please reach out to us, info@enlightenedathlete.com We would love to set up a free consult to see if you’re a good fit for our nutrition coaching program.

Let’s talk about coffee. It’s one of the best things about modern civilization in my opinion. You can stroll to almost any street corner and get a wonderful cup of warm, hand crafted, cup of caffeinated gold. If you couldn’t tell, I’m an eternal fan of coffee.

There was once a time in my life where I viewed coffee as a drink for the weak. If you needed it you needed to sleep more and eat better. Holy cow, the ignorance of youth on display at its finest am I right? Little did I know the powers that coffee contained. It is a productivity power house. My brain feels like it runs at higher RPM’s after a solid cup. The aroma, the taste of a GOOD cup of coffee is amazing.

So we’re all in agreeance that coffee is great. Unfortunately though, our beloved liquid life saver has been hijacked by an all too common fiend. Coffee’s innocence and benefits have been transformed into an insulin raising monster. SUGAR.

Sugar has infiltrated our supply of coffee at every possible vendor. Some may say it’s due to our addiction to sugar that companies have started dumping sugar into all of the pre-made coffee, and specialty coffee drinks at all major chains. Our desire for it justifies doing this and keeps the products on the market. I don’t agree with this statement as some of you may know. I believe it is an education issue.

You know the drinks I'm talking about. In bottles and perfectly colored to look like caramel, or huge cups of sweetened liquid with a hug dollop of whip cream and sprinkles on top. That's not coffee. That's blasphemy. 

Diabetes in a cup. :)

Most of the people I have talked to don’t even realize that the coffee they’re drinking is a fucking liquid candy bar. It’s not an innate desire, the cause is sneaky tactics by corporations and sugar lobbyists to get you hooked to their drinks and stay hooked to the SUGAR.

If you think this sounds like conspiracy, read the book, “The Case Against Sugar” by Gary Taubes. This sneaky adding and justification of sugar has been going on since the industrialization of sugar cane.

Just take a look for yourself at the sugar content of some well-known candy bars, and then at the content of specialty coffee drinks which many of you probably currently consume.

Ranking of Candy Bars by Sugar Content

Okay, even if you didn’t read that great article the smallest amount of sugar out of the 17 bars listed was 19 grams. THE LOWEST. In one bar! Whew, my pancreas is sweating reading that. Here comes the alarming part, some of these common “coffee” drinks make those candy bars look like a health food.

20 Coffee Drinks With More Sugar Than A Can of Coke

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Seriously, my mind is blown. Almost all of those drinks have at least 40 grams of sugar, with one reaching over 90 grams of sugar. That is just completely insane. You are literally drinking multiple candy bars in a single drink.

For reference, a moderate amount of sugar for DAILY consumption according to the American Heart Association, is 20-36 grams of sugar. Which is still to high honestly for most sedentary people. That’s for an entire day. One of your morning drinks may contain up to 2 days’ worth of sugar. So no wonder you’re having trouble losing weight. You’re filling your body with hidden sugar.

So let’s go over human physiology just a little bit. What happens to your body when you consume this sugar with absolutely no fiber attached to it?

The sugar enters your body, it raises your blood sugar very rapidly and overwhelms the body. The sugar has to then be turned into fat by the liver for storage (this is how you accumulate body fat directly from sugar intake). Chronic over-consumption of liquid sugar leads to accumulation of visceral fat, fat around your internal organs.

It will make you fatigued, sleepy, sick, and lower your immune response drastically. This also leads to things like Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and cardiovascular disease. Pretty shitty huh?

That’s why I want to bring up the fact that you are consuming sugar without even knowing it, it’s hidden from you and you are unconsciously consuming it.

I want to show everybody that nutrition doesn’t have to be so complicated. Small changes like avoiding sugar laden drinks as a first step will undoubtedly move you towards the direction of health. You do not have to overhaul your entire life in order to get healthier.

Being cognizant of foods that are stealing your health and having the knowledge to make better choices (even something as simple as switching your coffee choice) can lead to drastic changes in your health.

If this information and habit based style of nutrition education piqued your interest, please reach out to us at info@enlightendathlete.com We would love to set up a free consult for you to see if you’re a good fit for our nutrition coaching program. We help a lot of clients make better decisions that lead them to a life of health and vitality. We would love to have the chance to work with you.

The Quickest Way To 5X Your Results In The Gym

Are you wasting all those hours you've put in at the gym?!

I see it all the time. People go into the gym, they bust their a**, stay hydrated, do what they need to do to recover.

You're doing everything you think you can to make progress in the gym. You do this day in and day out for months at a time; with NOTHING to show for it.

You haven't lost that stubborn belly fat, your biceps aren't as big as you thought they were going to be. You still feel soft and weak and begin to think this whole health thing is for the birds.

This eventually causes you to give up completely on your dreams of fitness. BUT WAIT!!!

There's a secret to avoid this pitfall and it's the thing you need to 5X your results in the gym. "What is this miracle secret, Shae?"

I'm glad you ask, the secret is nutrition!! Yep, that's right. The food you eat, how much you eat, and when you eat it. 

Dialing all of these variables of nutrition has been shown to increase your overall results by up to 5 TIMES.

That means 25lbs lost instead of 5. That means 20 points off your blood pressure instead of 4.

It almost sounds too good to be true. It's not, I assure you. It's FOOD. The fuel you put into your body makes all the difference.

If you're not eating enough, or eating too much of the wrong things at the wrong time, your results will suffer. It is SO IMPORTANT to have nutrition dialed in if you're seriously trying to change your health.

It can be very confusing with all the misinformation out there today. That's why we've put together some fantastic, easy to understand nutrition programs for all of our followers to dig into and take their results to the next level.

These are based on science! They are not some fad or gimmick diet, it's based off real world clients and proven methods. Life rewards ACTION TAKERS. There is no reason to have your results and your health suffer.

The only question left to ask is, "Am I truly ready to make the commitment to myself to reach my goals?"

If you answered yes, head on over to our nutrition coaching page and get ready for the best results of your life.

>>>>>>> NUTRITION COACHING <<<<<<<

No B.S. Blueprint: Eat Like A Beast!

If you apply these principles of eating with an effective , science based training program you are destined to see results you have never experienced before. Take a look at our Super-Effective training program Complete Athlete Formula!

Are the foods you are bringing home the cause of you and your child’s uncontrollable weight gain? Have you been tricked into buying foods that are touted as healthy and eating yourself and your family directly into Diabetes? Have you been consuming foods you’re told are “healthy” but still gained weight, had higher blood sugar, or even developed metabolic diseases? If you’re following the current guidelines of “health food” you are feeding your family in a way that is making yourself and them SICK!

This may seem like a lot to take in, and it is. Remember that it is your quality of life and well-being you are fighting for here and that’s worth putting a ton of energy into if you ask me! So remember that while reading what I’ve written below.

As added bonuses I provide a downloadable food list and at the end of this post I provide 4 tips to help you start eating for mental and physical performance immediately!

I'd like to say something important; Dietary fat will NOT make you fat. There are three macronutrients: Protein, Fat, and Carbohydrate. Dietary fat is something we will cover later on in detail in this document. Refined and processed carbohydates = problems. Fats, proteins, and unrefined carbohydrates = solutions

So, basically the issue is refined and processed carbohydrates containing no fiber. Things like ALL breads, rice, cereal, pasta, ALL types of crackers, hot pockets, pizza, doughnuts, ice cream, almost anything that’s labeled as a breakfast or health snack bar, flavored yogurts, ALL pops (diet and regular), any type of fruit juice, jams and jelly, syrup, ANYTHING that is marketed as reduced fat; reduced fat means they took the good stuff (fat) out of the food and have most likely DOUBLED the sugar content, not good. Other problem foods include: starches (white potatoes, white and brown rice, corn)

Another confusing marketing trick companies use is the whole grain or multi grain option for pastas and breads. Your body does not care if it’s white, whole grain, or multigrain, it will break it down into sugar and cause insulin to spike rapidly.

None of these options are any healthier than ice cream.  Carbohydates of all forms are broken down into sugar. Cheez-its, oreos, cheerios, pop-tarts (just to name a few) and all of the other items that are refined or processed carbohydrates will turn directly into sugar and cause you massive problems.

SUGAR= POISON

Remember that.

In high doses, sugar is a toxin. According to the American Heart association, moderate consumption of sugar is 5-9 teaspoons a day. 4 grams of sugar is one teaspoon and in most typical American diets that “moderate” amount is reached before breakfast alone is over.

Like I stated before, all of those processed carbohydrate foods are not blatantly white table sugar, but they eventually turn into nearly the same thing inside of your body so you must limit or eliminate the intake in the way you eat. Sugar is snuck into almost all foods. Read nutrition fact labels and ingredient lists and you’ll see it’s in ketchup, salad dressings, and spaghetti sauces in HIGH amounts so be wary of those as well.

Sugar can be hidden in almost every food you eat if you’re not alert to the all the ways sugar is added to the food at the supermarket. It’s hidden by many different names, listed as other ingredients, and there is also no recommended daily percentage next to the amount on labels. All of these things are confusing, misleading, and they are meant to be that way.

Sugar: The Ingredient with Aliases

Sugar is undoubtedly snuck into our food. The process of getting more sugar into food is simply performed by renaming sugar. Large food companies are aware of the claims that sugar is linked to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and many other metabolic diseases like fatty liver disease, overactive and underactive thyroid. When the public started avoiding sugar, The Sugar Association (that’s a real association) had to figure out ways to keep adding it in mass quantities to our food.

Knowing sugar is a buzz word people will avoid forced the association to develop up to 56 different names for sugar! For quick identification of sugar look for ingredients with the suffix –ose. Glucose, high fructose corn syrup, maltose, dextrose, lactose, and fructose. Not all the names for sugar end in –ose though.

Here are the common additional names sugar goes by on our food labels:

Cane juice, Dehydrated cane juice, Cane juice solids, Cane juice crystals, Dextrin, Maltodextrin, Dextran, Barley malt, Beet sugar, Corn syrup, Corn syrup solids, Caramel, Buttered syrup, Carob syrup, Brown sugar, Date sugar, Malt syrup, Diatase, Diatastic malt, Fruit juice, Fruit juice concentrate, Dehydrated fruit juice, Fruit juice crystals, Golden syrup, Turbinado, Sorghum syrup, Refiner's syrup, Ethyl maltol, Maple syrup, Yellow sugar

Without even knowing it you could be consuming insane amounts of sugar on a daily basis and have no clue. You must be aware of how much sugar you eat in a day if you want to be truly healthy and avoid blood glucose levels that are regularly pre-diabetic.

 Just to reiterate this point; low fat, reduced fat, and no fat food (this includes skim milk) items are complete bullshit and they are basically the cause of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes. Low, reduced, or no fat means tons of sugar. Avoid this marketing trap like the plague.

Now you’re probably saying, “Well jeez Shae, can I eat anything at all?” The good news is, yes you can!

There are a ton of things that are going to help stabilize your blood sugar and promote weight loss. These foods will also increase your body composition which means more muscle and less body fat.

Download this food list HERE. Print it off and take it with you to the store. Start buying quality food as soon as possible.

Carbohydrate Sources

You want to be eating a diet with tons of colorful and leafy green vegetables, spinach, kale, collards, chard, lettuce, bok choy, mixed greens salad with arugula, spring greens, baby spinach, and any herbs or spices you enjoy.

Include broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, cabbage, artichoke, sauerkraut, mushrooms of any kind, cucumbers, onions, carrots, radishes, asparagus, brussels sprouts, garlic, tomatoes, and any other non-starchy vegetables you enjoy or find at the store.

You can include fruits, but only in smaller amounts, things like blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, apples, oranges, zucchini, and squash (Last two are low sugar fruits). Fruit still contains a good amount of sugar and can cause spikes in insulin but you’re getting the fiber as well so that is a benefit.

Protein

Next up, protein. The sources of protein you choose should be from whole sources such as chicken breast, steaks, roasts, lean ground beef, ground turkey, pork chops, filets of any kind of fish, or tuna in water, shrimp with no breading.  

Lamb, whole organ meats, bison, chicken, turkey, duck, ostrich, veal; wild game. Lean lunch meat is acceptable but know that it is processed and whole sources are a better option. Lunch meat would still be a better option than any form of processed carbohydrate so keep it handy when you’re in a pinch.

Eggs are a fantastic source of protein and healthy fats. The yolks are the most nutrient dense part of the egg and are necessary for your health, remember dietary fats are good for you. Use eggs in any fashion you can think of, hardboiled, scrambled, over-easy, poached. A good reminder for protein is; Meat, Fish, Fowl, Eggs.

Fats

Lastly we cover fats. It’s unfortunate that body fat and the macronutrient fat have the same name because they are very, very different. Dietary fat is necessary for your body to build hormones and key for many vital functions. We’ve been tricked into believing that fat is the enemy and this is a lie. Fat is a little more calorically dense than the other macronutrients, but that small fact pales in comparison to the health benefits.

Eating a diet high in dietary fats has been shown to decrease a whole host life threatening diseases and ailments.

Healthy sources of fat include: Extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil (great option to cook eggs in and other foods as well), avocados, grass-fed tallow and or pasture-fed butter, ghee, almond milk, coconuts, olives, nuts and nut butters (almonds, walnut, brazil, pecan, pistachios, cashews), cheese (except for blue cheeses), and seeds (flaxseed, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, chia seeds)

Tips for Actually Purchasing, Eating, and Living Healthy

How do you actually avoid causing inflammation, uncontrollable weight gain, low mental performance, and lack of energy in your life? Start to change the way you eat and look at food for starters. I wrote a post suggesting 5 documentaries to help you do just that.

Here are some tips I’ve found helpful for buying and eating quality sources of food.

1. Sticking to the outside edges of the store.

The interior aisles are just filled up with processed, packaged junk food. Stick to the outer edges of the store for fresh produce.

2. Shopping at local farmers markets.

This is a great way to get QUALITY sources of food at a VERY cheap price. Utilize this resource.

3. Starting a garden.

Play a role in the procurement of your food and the growing process, it’s incredibly rewarding and you know exactly whats been put on your food. This is a huge one, get the whole family involved.

 4. Always reading ingredient labels.

Do not just look at nutrition facts, read the ingredients list to find hidden chemicals and sugar in your food.

There you have it! Follow this and you will be thinking, performing, and looking like a total BEAST!

In summary we are trying to remove sugar laden foods that contain absolutely NO fiber from your lifestyle.

Basically you should be striving to eat a lot of lean meat & vegetables (low starch), healthy sources of fat, some fruit and NO sugar.

This will be difficult at first, but if you stick to it you will ABSOLUTELY see results and feel better!