I've been so preoccupied talking about bigger things on my blog that my actual day to day stuff has been pushed aside a bit. But now, time for a bit of rambling again. Another injury, yay. Just because my ankles playing up in May wasn't enough to screw up my progress, now my knee has done itself in! It actually happened on Tuesday,...
I started thinking about a possible interview situation last night. I've applied for a part time job at this big health food & supplement store and I just created a small scenario in my head - what could they ask me, how I would respond and so on. And it really got me thinking about my reasons behind applying for such a job....
Weight loss is probably a multi billion pounds business nowadays. All the different products advertised on TV - low fat this, low calorie that. But how many people actually have a look at the nutritional information before buying the product thinking, that they've picked a really good product that will not harm their weight loss?
Sugar.
Yes, sugar. It's not good for you, but still all these products advertised as low fat or low calorie are loaded in that stuff. Sugar is empty calories, it's bad for your liver (as your liver is the poor thing that has to process all the sugar people consume nowadays), it damages your teeth and it will make your blood sugar spike (which in turn will make your levels crash after a while, making you crave more sugar). I could go on for ages but all the info is out there for everyone to read.
I try to avoid as much sugar as I can, for the above mentioned reasons AND because of my high risk of diabetes. But it is incredibly hard, even the healthy options have way too much sugar in them. As a rule of thumb, less than 5g of sugar per 100g is considered low in sugar, over 15g of sugar in 100g is high in sugar. I always try to aim for anything close to the 5g mark, I tend to leave the product on the shelves if the amount passes 10g.
And also the fat content of all these products can be absolutely mind blowing (especially if the product is advertised as low sugar). 5g of saturated fat per 100g is too much, 1.5g per 100g is good. You really don't need much of this stuff for it to be bad for you.
The bad stuff
All you really need to do at the supermarket is to just look at the fat and sugar contents of the stuff you think is good for you. I've pulled a few examples from Tesco's website for the purpose of just demonstrating how things we associate as healthy are really not.
The good stuff
Thankfully there is some decent options around, too! Obviously only a drop in the ocean, they are really getting better at giving us the real healthy stuff.
Be mindful of what you buy, don't let the sugar and saturated fat surprise you! Even things like Cheerios have insane amounts of sugar in them. I'd highly advise parents to read into this stuff too, it's not good to feed your children so much sugar!
And it's not just about the products that are advertised as healthy - have a look at your bottle of ketchup. You'd be surprised how much sugar you find in those.
Sugar.
Yes, sugar. It's not good for you, but still all these products advertised as low fat or low calorie are loaded in that stuff. Sugar is empty calories, it's bad for your liver (as your liver is the poor thing that has to process all the sugar people consume nowadays), it damages your teeth and it will make your blood sugar spike (which in turn will make your levels crash after a while, making you crave more sugar). I could go on for ages but all the info is out there for everyone to read.
I try to avoid as much sugar as I can, for the above mentioned reasons AND because of my high risk of diabetes. But it is incredibly hard, even the healthy options have way too much sugar in them. As a rule of thumb, less than 5g of sugar per 100g is considered low in sugar, over 15g of sugar in 100g is high in sugar. I always try to aim for anything close to the 5g mark, I tend to leave the product on the shelves if the amount passes 10g.
And also the fat content of all these products can be absolutely mind blowing (especially if the product is advertised as low sugar). 5g of saturated fat per 100g is too much, 1.5g per 100g is good. You really don't need much of this stuff for it to be bad for you.
The bad stuff
All you really need to do at the supermarket is to just look at the fat and sugar contents of the stuff you think is good for you. I've pulled a few examples from Tesco's website for the purpose of just demonstrating how things we associate as healthy are really not.
Advertised as low in fat - 15.1g of sugar in 100g
Advertised as 0% fat - 12.5g of sugar in 100g
"Lighter cereal bar" - 22.8g of sugar in 100g
12g of sugar in 100g
The good stuff
Thankfully there is some decent options around, too! Obviously only a drop in the ocean, they are really getting better at giving us the real healthy stuff.
7.8g of sugar and 0.2g of saturated fat in 100g
4.4g of sugar and 0.6g of saturated fat in 100g - avoid the chocolate version!!
Be mindful of what you buy, don't let the sugar and saturated fat surprise you! Even things like Cheerios have insane amounts of sugar in them. I'd highly advise parents to read into this stuff too, it's not good to feed your children so much sugar!
And it's not just about the products that are advertised as healthy - have a look at your bottle of ketchup. You'd be surprised how much sugar you find in those.
Argh. It's like taking two steps forward and one step back. I have a brilliant week and then the next I gain. I know I've stuck to my calories really well, I've exercised a lot all week and apart from the other half treating me to Domino's on Monday, I haven't even eaten anything sodium heavy that might tie water in (because I...
Apologies for the long gap between posts. Real life has it's ways of interfering with things. :) I've really been able to find some kind of serenity by the sea in the middle of everything that's been going on. I've just automatically gone to the beach instead of somewhere else when I've gone for a walk. It's just so beautiful and quiet over...
Our younger dogs just love charging up to the bed in the mornings. They're just so incredibly happy when you wake up (or well, when they decide you should wake up) and go absolutely insane. One of them will just run around the bed, lick your face like there's no tomorrow and if you try to hide under a blanket, she will start...
So happy! Only 500g away from the 10kg benchmark now! Other than that it seems to have been a slow month progress wise, but then again any positive progress is good enough for me. :) I'm hoping that going to the gym is the thing that's been speeding the weight loss, because that'll surely motivate me to go and work out every single...
It's been a good day today! Got up relatively early and headed out pretty much first thing this morning. We actually had an appointment with a mortgage advisor, just talking through our options and so on. :) The other half also decided to treat me to lunch after our appointment so we went to Subway. I really fell in love with their mango...
I bought these shorts back in late April. I ordered them online so obviously had no idea if they'd fit me or not. And well, at the time they didn't. They'd go all the way up but I couldn't button them and the zip would stop about half way. However I didn't want to send them back because I really loved them and...
A very uni filled day again. Been fighting with one of the tasks pretty much all day and I am finally getting somewhere! This task was about a person in either film, graphics of typography who has had a big influence on the medium. We were assigned to design a "hero page" for them and write a little something about the person. I've...
Right, one week of use behind me, time to have a better look at this thing. :) You probably remember me mentioning that it didn't work with my phone (and the app hadn't come out for tablets) and I had to use someone else's phone to sync the band with the app. Well, I found a way to "hack" the app on my...