Day 21: Salt, Sugar, Fat III
Friday, September 27, 2013
9:45 am
My weight ticked up a bit. Discussed the dangers of salt, and particularly potato chips. Will refocus on sugar in the next video.
Video Summary:
Drink contains 5 tsp or 20 grams of sugar. I weighed myself this morning and I’m back up to 193.5, so I gained two pounds yesterday. I went out and had some food and drinks last night, so I probably won’t be weighing myself every day. I’m definitely losing weight, but I’m sure there will be some variability from day to day. If I achieve a weight loss of 1 or 2 pounds a week I’ll be happy.
I finished the book “Salt, Sugar and Fat” yesterday, and the final section was on salt. Broadly speaking, fat has been associated with heart disease and clogging of the arteries, sugar has been associated with obesity and diabetes, and salt has been associated with hypertension and high blood pressure. My blood pressure can be high but is sometimes normal too. So I probably should be concerned about salt. This series concentrates on sugar, but it is helpful to consider the three substances: salt, sugar and fat that we have ancient desires for. The food conglomerates are adding them to processed foods to make us consume more of them than we normally would.
The main takeaway I got from the salt section is that I probably am consuming too much salt. I was most interested in the danger of potato chips. As I have been doing this sugar withdrawal program I have been eating chips (or Doritos or Fritos) as a treat (I’ve also been eating cheese which contains saturated fats). So maybe I should be cutting those out.
Here was an interesting study: “In 2011, the New England Journal of Medicine published results: Every 4 years since 1986 participants had exercised less, watched TV more, and gained an average of 3.35 pounds. Researchers found that the largest weight-inducing food was the potato chip! accounting for 1.69 pounds vs .5 pounds for sweets. So this particular study which had 120,000 people in it attributed most weight gain from chips rather than sweets. I found that interesting.
So the message I’m getting from this book is that I’m going to cut out sweets, and, in the fat category, cut back on cheese and processed meats, and finally, cut back on chips in the salt category. These videos concentrate on sugar, but its good to have these other ideas in the back of my mind.
Another section on the correlation of sweetened drinks and obesity: “[Dunn] sees soda as a leading cause of obesity. Trend lines are a perfect match. Soda consumption took off in the early 80s and, while it has dropped in recent years, the intake of other sugary drinks has risen sharply, by that measure no one should expect that people would be getting healthier.” In an earlier section they had measured the high correlation (.999) between soda consumption and obesity. Recent research also shows the connection between sugar and obesity.
Although this book covers salt, sugar, and fat, I personally think sugar is where the biggest bang for the buck is. However, I did learn about areas to cut back on, wrt salts and fats. So I would definitely recommend this book. I will look at labels more carefully as I shop, and I now realize some of the games the food conglomerates are playing to get us to eat to too much of certain unhealthy foods.
The next book I’m going to read is “Fat Chance” by Robert Lustig. He’s the guy who produced the semi-viral video on YouTube “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” which explains the newest theory that perhaps the greatest cause of obesity and diabetes in America is from the concentrated fructose found in table sugar and high fructose corn syrup.