Archive for year: 2016

What is sugar?

Sugar is a carbohydrate. If it ends in a “ose,” it’s gonna be a sugar.  If that’s all you’d like to know, feel free to move onto the next section, as I’m about to get all Mr. Wizard up in here.There are different kinds of sugar, starting with simple sugars (called monosaccarides) like glucose, fructose, and galactose. Then there are also more complex forms (called disaccharides) like sucrose, maltose, and lactose.

Here’s the cheat sheet to naturally occurring sugars:

1. Let’s start with glucose: It occurs naturally in plants and fruits, and is a byproduct of photosynthesis. In our bodies glucose can be burned as energy or converted into glycogen (essentially: liver and muscle fuel). Our bodies can actually produce glucose when needed.

2. Next, fructose!  This is fruit sugar, occurring naturally in…you guessed it, fruit!  It also occurs naturally in cane sugar and honey, and is incredibly sweet in weight loss vacation.

3. Onto the more complex sugars, starting with Sucrose.  This sugar is found in the stems of sugar cane, the roots of sugar beet, and can be found naturally alongside glucose in certain fruits and other plants.

4. Last but not least, we have lactose, which is essentially milk sugar!  This is something that is created as  result of a process happening in our bodies: children possess the enzyme necessary to break down the molecule into lactose to be used by the body, while some adults don’t. These are the lactose intolerant folks.

So, we have a few key types of sugar.  But where does sugar actually come from?  It is USUALLY created as a result of the processing of one of two types of plants: sugar beets or sugar cane.  These plants are harvested, processed, and refined to eventually resemble the white sugar you’ve come to know and love (or loathe).  This sugar has absolutely no nutritional value: it’s just pure, refined, sugar.

What does sugar do to your body?

Sugar is the lifeblood of the cavity creeps! Beyond that, your body processes sugar in a very specific way. When you consume sugar, your body has two options on how to deal with it in weight loss vacation:

1. Burn it for energy. WEEEEE!

2. Convert to fat and store it in your fat cells.  BOOOOO!

Depending on your genetic predisposition, your body might be better equipped to process sugar as energy, or you might be more likely to store it as fat.  Think of this like you think of people with faster metabolisms vs. people with slower metabolisms. Problem is, there’s a LOT more room for fat storage, and a lot less room to burn the sugar as energy.

So, we have this sugar in our body and blood stream. What happens next? When your pancreas detects a rush of sugar, it releases a hormone called insulin to deal with all of that excess sugar. Insulin helps regulate that level of sugar in our blood; the more sugar in the blood stream, the more insulin is released.  Insulin helps store all of this glucose in the liver and muscles as glycogen and in fat cells (aka adipocytes stored as triglycerides). Now, oftentimes our body struggles to get that balance right (with us putting way too much sugar in our system very quickly). TOO much insulin is released, which ultimately results in our blood sugar dropping below normal levels.

This is called hypoglycemia, essentially a sugar crash: Our bodies respond by telling us: WE WANT SUGAR!

So we cram sugar down our throats and the process starts again. Unfortunately, the more often this process takes place (the more sugar you consume), the more severe the blood sugar spike is, and the more insulin is required. This means it becomes easier and easier to skip using sugar as energy, and go straight to extra insulin and fat storage.

Examples of good Sugar:
1. Apples
2. Bananas
3. Agave Nectar
4. Pineapples
5. Beets
6. Yogurt
7. Whole Wheat Bread
8. MOST fruits

If you are currently looking for a complete life and body makeover, and want to start getting expert training at our weight loss vacation, check out our Year End Closeout Sale! Act soon as we have limited spots available. Our clients are trained from the top fitness guru’s in the world, and let’s not forget the tastiest customized meal plans from our expert nutritionists at our islands retreat.

Live in Fitness!!

Live in Fitness Retreat hope’s you had a very special Christmas with your loved ones, unwrapping presents, baking cookies and making delicious meals! We know how hard it is to get back to your daily routine after such a fun filled weekend, so we wanted to help by giving you some ideas to motivate you to workout. As hard as it may sound, don’t forget we need to get you ready for that New Years Eve party! It’s time to put on something fun and sexy to get you ready for the new year.

Here are 5 tips on how to workout after a cozy Christmas:

If you ate too much: Although we can’t get fit over night, a workout will help boost your confidence and get you feeling a lot more energetic. We tend to get lazy after big holiday meals but it’s important to maintain your health and remember, nothing is better than knowing you are taking good care of your body and mind. Here is a quick 10 minute Full Body Workout video we prepared for these occasions.

If you are visiting your family or at a hotel: Can’t get to your gym? No worries. You can find things in your room to use for exercising that will help get your body pumped. Even your suitcase can be used as makeshift weights!

Holiday drinking: Did you have one to many cups of Eggnog? It may seem like it was a great idea then, but now your body is trying to cope. Nothing’s wrong with a having a great time! Just make sure to stay hydrated the next day and a little bit of Yoga will help tremendously. Here are 2 amazing liver detox recipes that will have you feeling better than ever in no time:

• Beet Liver Boosting Juice: 1 beet/ 1 carrot/1 peeled lemon/ 1 handful parsley
• Detox Green Smoothie: 2 peeled oranges/ 1/2 rib celery/ 1 peeled lemon/ 1/2 cup dandelion greens

Feeling Lazy all day:  If you have the day off and simply don’t want to leave the bed, we can understand that too. Great thing is that you can actually do a few exercises all in the comfort of your bed! Here are some ideas:

• Stretching
• Yoga
• Planks
• Sit ups
• Rear leg lifts
• Side Leg lifts

Lastly, If you are getting ready for an NYE event: Trying to get those arms and legs looking sexy for a dress you’ve picked out? Have someone special you want to impress? Here is an amazing 10min Full Body Workout that will get you back on track and feeling sexier than ever!

If you are currently looking for a complete life and body makeover, and want to start getting expert training at Live in Fitness Retreat, check out our Year End Closeout Sale! Act soon as we have limited spots available. Our clients are trained from the top fitness guru’s in the world, and let’s not forget the tastiest customized meal plans from our expert nutritionists at our islands retreat. 

Live in Fitness!!