Sugar and Carbohydrates are the real baddies, not Fat

Sweet things will make you fat, not eating fat, Free Image from Dreamstime by Serghei Starus

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For most of my adult life, I've heard that FAT is the main reason why people are unhealthy and obese. Most of the time I haven't taken much notice of this because being fat hasn't been one of my issues. One thing I do remember is people being grossed out because I've eaten the fatty part of bacon and ham. Because of what we've been told, most people equate fat on food with getting fat. The latest studies seem to disprove this.

A report in yesterday's Independent, points the chubby finger at carbohydrates, not at fats. Sugar and refined carbohydrates like white bread are increasingly being seen as the bad guys (rice and noodles?) and ironically these are the foods found in 'low fat' ready meals and other 'low fat' alternatives. I was really surprised that through eating 'low fat' products people were eating an additional 21 teaspoons of SUGAR a day, let me repeat that 'AN EXTRA 21 TEASPOONS OF SUGAR A DAY.'

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What's convincing about this report, is that it's an analysis of related studies that cover 350,000 people.

Eat meat, it won't make you fat!! Free image from Dreamstime by Marek Kosmal

So the latest evidence is that sugar and carbohydrates are worse for you than fat. Which reminds me, when I was just a kid, our fridge used to be fill of animal fat (dripping). Everything was cooked with dripping but that has changed over the past thirty years because people have become more 'fat' conscious. Now it seems that we have been mislead. Bring back the dripping?

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Heavy to Moderate Drinker - Thoughts

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One for the road, yet you don't get on the road until three or four later. Sounds familiar? It is to me. Whilst I'm a different drinker to when I was twenty and probably a more controlled one, I still advance from one or two drinks to five or six without thinking or even with any resistance. When I'm sober, I can cringe at my lack of control but as soon as I start I want to get happy (pissed).

Why can't my sober self moderate my drinking? Well, I've been thinking about this a lot over the pass couple of months.

First I think a lot of it has to do with how you perceived drinking as a child and how you started drinking.

When I was a kid, most of the adults in the house drank (I live with my grandparents, their friend and my dad). They drank to relax after a day's work. Guinness was their favourite and they drank in moderation. We were allowed to try and I enjoyed the fact that the head on Guinness made me sneeze. Anyway, I'm getting away from the point, to me, drinking booze meant that you were an adult. This was very strong in my mind and as I think most people can remember, every kid wants to grow up (that's until they've grown up and then many want to regress). So I think drinking is a very adult thing to do.

I drank some drink throughout my childhood but it wasn't until I was fifteen, coming on sixteen, that I really started to drink. It was very much an escape into another world. We had 'Mad' nights, where the intention was to drink as much as possible and go mad. Drinking gave us excitement and release as well as stories. Getting sick and nursing handovers didn't really matter that much, when you were telling a friend an anecdote from the night before.

The believes behind our drinking;

• The more, the better.
• It's cool to drink.
• Getting wasted gives experiences.
• Getting drunk is the point.
• Drink and be happy.

This basically drove my drinking habits through till I my thirties. In fact, moving to London added some new believes like

• Eating is cheating
• Halves are for 'poofs' (Well, I think this one is throughout the UK).
• Cheer up, have a beer/drink!

I do drink differently now to when I was in my early twenties. Then I just drank to get drunk (I fooled myself I was socialising) and achieved it 100% of the time, sometimes I ended up being sick. As I’ve got older I’ve cut back a little on drinking, I definitely drink less often and to a lesser extent. I still drink fast and without pause between drinks, though I now occasionally drink water with alcohol.

How to change to be a moderate drinker?

I need to disassociate ‘the more the better’ with ‘some is good but a lot is bad’. In an academic sense I know this to be true but when I’m in a bar, this is not what I think. I kinda go on autopilot, drink a drink, finish, get a new drink. Repeat until I feel tired (which I do now I’m older) or drunk.

I can work harder on replacing the thinking ‘the more the better’, with ‘some alcohol for a good time but a lot makes me feel bad.’ Perhaps, I can put this message in my wallet to remind me when I'm drinking.

I’m not sure why I drink so fast, perhaps it’s to get that ‘goodness’ from feeling tipsy. And I haven't come up with a way to try and tackle this yet.

I believe the area where I can make the biggest different at the moment is to wait between drinks. This is part of my drinking pattern that I believe is the easiest to break. There’s no need to get another drink straight away. Perhaps, I can set a stopwatch for 30 minutes so that I get a break between drinks or I just replace a ‘drink’ with water. I think if I wait, I'll feel anxious at first but it's a point in my habit that can be changed. If I wait it out enough times, it'll become a new habit.


I think working on these two points will help me moderate my drinking, once I’ve started. From my experience so far, I’ve found it easier not to drink than to drink a little. Now I want to solve that problem, by changing the habit of my drinking.

Are you in a similar position? Do you want to moderate your drinking? Do you have any suggestions on how to moderate (not give up!)?

Thanks for reading.

From a sober Chris - good night.

Changing Habits

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We are creatures of habit. I'm sure that's a quote but who's? I don't care.

Someone once wrote that 90% of the things we do everyday are the same as the day before. We run on auto. We buy the same things, we do the same things and we do them, near enough at the same time.

Sounds boring, but that's just how we are. Or is it? Perhaps it's more accurate to say that's how we run but not who we are. Habits are like genes, they mutate over time and some can turn into bad ones. I started smoking as an excuse to talk to girls in nightclubs, but I didn't start so that I could have a fag break at work, which at one point that habit developed into.

So, being creatures of habit and wanting to get healthy, we need to identify bad ones and replacement them with good ones.

Changing Habits

Changing a bad habit can be difficult and the New Years Resolution approach doesn't help much. The big bang approach maybe works for a few days but once there's a small failure many people just capitulate. Also the New Years Resolution approach doesn't prepare people for the change. Some friends who wanted to give up smoking, choose New Years Day to stop, but on the run up to New Years Day, they smoked as much as they could, which to me, make it seem that smoking was a pleasure. To be fair to one of them, he still not smoking (except for a sneaky drag when his girlfriend isn't there).

A better approach is one describe by Leo Babauta. He advocates changing one habit at a time and starting small. For example, if you wanted to do physical exercise five times a week, make it the most important thing for that month (or perhaps two months) and get to the target by the end of the time period, not the beginning. In the first week, perhaps, you walk three times, building up from 15 mins, to 20 mins to 30 mins for the third walk. Then, as the weeks progress, you introduce a forth day, starting running some of the time, maybe take up swimming. The important thing is that you get there gradually and that you treat each step like a victory.

In my next post, I'll tell you how I gave up smoking, which essentially follow the path suggested by Leo Babauta. Later in the year, I'll want to change my drinking habits from heavy drinker who's unsure when to stop to moderate drink, who drinks two or three and then stops. I'll also used this approach for getting more physical. How exciting, I bet you can't wait.

Why Sugar?

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Since the start of the year I’ve been refusing food with refined sugar in it (well mostly). I want to rid it from my diet, to see if feel better for it. But why do it?

It’s a haunch, I guess ever since I read that (refined) sugar has no nutritional value, I had my doubts about it. Also, it was banned in my house when I was about 10, though I need to find out from my dad why. But despite this background, sugar has crept more and more into my diet.

Most obviously, I like soft drinks, especially fizzy ones but I dramatically cut down last November after a trip to the dentist. Over the past couple of years, I have also got back into ice creams, especially as they are free with many meals in Taiwan. Also my girlfriend loves cooking and over the last half year has been making lots of cookies and some cakes.

Here are top reasons for me but there are sites that list over a 100 reasons to give up sugar.

• It’s terrible for your teeth

• It lowers your immune system’s ability to fight disease.

• It releases its energy incredibly fast. This leads to unstable blood sugar levels resulting in mood swings, headaches and fatigue. The more sugar consumed, the more unstable blood sugar levels are. When blood sugars are extremely unbalanced diseases such as diabetes can occur. Also unstable bloods sugar levels can also be a contributing factor to depression.

• Because sugar releases it energy quickly, unless the body has an immediate use for it, the sugar gets converted into fats. This is done to help regulate the blood sugar level. I don’t have scientific events to back this up but I believe that sugar contributes much more to weight gain then ‘fat’. I mainly believe this because ‘sugary foods’ don’t fill you up or provide your body with the nutrients it needs, and fairly soon afterwards you want to eat more but a cooked meal with meat and some fat tends to fill you up.

• Sugar becomes sticky in the blood system and contributes to a process called ‘glycation’. Sugar sticks to proteins, which in turns reduces the elasticity of the body’s organ. Commonly known as aging.

How’s the war on sugar going?

It’s going pretty well. I’ve been offered things with sugar in them numerous times and I’ve refused them all when before, I’d probably accepted. Well, nearly, my girlfriend made some bread with white sugar in it. Why it needs sugar I don’t know, but after initially refusing, I gave into her protests.

I think the amount of refined sugar in my diet must have been dramatically reduced since the start of the year. I’ve been reducing the amount of sugar in my diet since having two new fillings last November. Then I stopped drinking soft drinks.

How do I feel?

Well, so far I don’t feel any better. Yesterday, afternoon I felt very tired but that mainly from being a bit drunk the night before. Before yesterday, I think my energy levels maybe a bit more constant though. Nothing dramatic.