Formosa Fitness

 Yes, I'm going to enjoy writing this post as much as you'll probably enjoy reading it. This is high on everyone's list of favorite topics. And unlike a lot of other trainers, I'm not going to tell you to forgo all of life's little pleasures like Boston Cream Pie. Instead, I focus on how to enjoy these little delicacies while not having them destroy your health.

So first of all, this topic arose from a discussion I had with a client and I hope she doesn't mind me sharing it with you. My client has had great success getting fit with us but this past week, she ate a lot of cookies at work because she was hungry. From that I realized that she and most of all of us don't realize how to best eat sweets.

The first mistake she made was to eat a sweet like cookies when she was hungry. Tip #1: when you're hungry, eat a meal or something as close to it as possible. When you're hungry, you need food, not sweets. Sweets, especially mass-produced junk food, are amazingly low in nutrients. They're just poor quality food. Being poor quality, you have to eat lots of them to feel full. And surprisingly, most of it has intentionally been produced to get you to eat more of it. Yes, companies manipulate ingredients to get you to eat more of their product. It helps sales. Eating junk food when you're hungry is therefore the worst possible time -- you're at your most vulnerable.

If a meal isn't possible then use tip #2: have a backup meal replacement like a whey protein shake available. The variety of protein shakes available today is staggering and they are very useful. Mix the protein with maybe half milk and half water and you have the ideal meal -- high in protein, moderate in carbs and fat. That's exactly how I advise people to eat anyway and your protein shake reflects that. BTW, we carry the Biochem protein flavors because they are ideal for fat loss, being naturally a bit sweet but high in fiber. They are great to kill a sweet tooth while giving you a boost of nutrition. I highly recommend the hemp flavor!

There was a time when sweets were dessert and they were consumed after a meal. That was simply the way to do it properly and it still is. Eat your meal first and then have something small and rich for dessert. You will eat less of the sweets since you're either full or close to it already. And the richness of the sweet will signal your brain to be satisfied.

We got away from doing this for various reasons, perhaps one is that eating dessert become associated with how rich people eat. So the masses never picked it up. The problem is that the more affluent the family, the thinner they tend to be. Ever notice that? Dessert is likely part of the reason why. But by displacing sweets away from their role as dessert, they became everyday snacks we eat between meals, making their impact of us more profound.

So stop eating sweets between meals and have a small sweet after a meal, instead. Or drink a healthy protein shake. That way you can have your cake and eat it, too.