Following up from last week, if you haven’t already guessed it. Ingredient 1 was sugar and ingredient 2 was gluten. These were the two ingredients that once I took out of my diet, changed my health for the better. But what do these two ingredients actually do to my body?
SUGAR
Sugar is one of the most widely consumed ingredients in current society. Estimates state that the average person consumes between 130 and 180 grams of sugar per day! Meaning they eat roughly 80kg of sugar per year! To put this into perspective the World Health Organisation recommends no more than 36 grams for males and 24 grams for females per day. If you still aren’t sure how much this is, one can of coke contains approximately 39 grams of sugar.
Sugar is the most inflammatory food that we can consume and this inflammation can lead to pain all over the body.
Sugar also plays a role in causing:
– Tooth decay
– Diabetes
– Insulin Resistance
– Insomnia
– Heart Issues
GLUTEN
Gluten is one of the lesser-known ingredients that has the ability to cause disruption to normal bodily function. It’s estimated that large numbers of people are walking around without realising that this ingredient is affecting them. Many people attribute the symptoms associated with this ingredient as normal bodily functions but in reality the symptoms should not be occurring.
Gluten has the ability to cause:
– Bloating
– Gas
– Abdominal Pain
– Cramps
– Hyper-Intestinal Permeability (Leaky gut syndrome)
– Lowered immune health (due to leaky gut)
– Whole body inflammation
– Increase in joint pain
– Fatigue
– Extreme tiredness when waking in the morning (struggling to wake)
Gluten seems to have the stigma attached to it that it’s only a health fad that you see weird people taking part in. Resulting in many people being affected by it and not realising. The best way to see if it affects you, is to go gluten free for a period of 30 days, only 1 month. This will give your intestinal tract time to heal. This means no breads, pasta, spaghetti, oats, sauces and processed foods. At the end of the 30 days, go back to having gluten and see how you feel. See if you notice any of the symptoms, which you didn’t notice before. Ask yourself did you feel better during the gluten free weeks?
