Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I found this video on YouTube called Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World. You can see it in full here:

There are interviews with doctors, but the only proof that they bring to light is anecdotal. They show person after person who blames their problems on aspartame, but they don’t mention any peer reviewed studies.

One of the people being interviewed stated it clearly:

My doctors will NOT come out and absolutely put down in writing that this is caused by aspartame. They will NOT do it. They won’t put it in my record.

He goes on to say that they will give him an “aside” saying, “Thank god you’re off NutraSweet.” The reason why his doctors won’t put it in writing that his symptoms are caused by aspartame is because they don’t have the PROOF of it. Another interviewee stated that there was no real evidence that aspartame caused his brain tumor, but that it was only circumstantial, which might be enough to convict a murderer in a court of law, but science has a higher standard than law.

Their biggest arguments seem to hinge on the fact that the studies proving aspartame’s safety were all funded by Searle (the company who invented it). What these people don’t point out is that’s how ALL testing on new chemicals is funded. It’s the company’s responsibility to prove safety, whether the product is a food additive, drug, a new carpet fiber or a new mixture of gasoline.

When I worked at a research facility, we tested all of these sorts of products for safety and toxicity. The fact that the company funding the research wanted the new products to do well didn’t change the fact that sometimes the new carpet fiber caused horrible skin irritations or the new drug caused tumors. We were required to report all those findings otherwise the FDA or EPA would shut us down. The fact that NutraSweet research was funded by Searle isn’t an indication of wrongdoing. It’s the industry standard.

I’m not saying these people didn’t have an alleviation of symptoms when they stopped eating aspartame. I’m just saying that WE DON’T KNOW. Personally, I try to avoid the flavor of sweet, no matter what sweetener is used because I have a harder time avoiding bingeing when I’ve eaten sweet things, even if they are calorie-free.

Does aspartame cause brain tumors and other horrible neurological symptoms? The research available says no. Does it help you lose weight? The research on that ALSO says no, so the case for using artificial sweeteners isn’t very strong.

When I was a kid, I used to watch cartoons that promised that in the future, food would come to me in the form of a pill. I would be free from food and science would provide for my nutritional needs in one simple processed food patty. The older I get, the more I realize that I don’t WANT that promise. Real food hasn’t been chemically altered to please me as much as processed food, but it seems to fulfill me more. Should I eat food with aspartame in it? Maybe not. But I’m beginning to think that’s the case for ANY processed food.

Video via: ATLCX (Episode 18): The Truth About Sweeteners | Dr. David Getoff « Jimmy Moore’s Livin’ La Vida Low Carb Blog

There is something in the Atkins low carb shakes that hurts my stomach. I have NO idea what it is, but it really doubles me over within an hour of drinking one.

Not to mention the fact that they just taste wrong. Sure, they’re sweet and taste kind of like chocolate (or vanilla or caramel coffee), but they just don’t taste as good as I’d like.

But I like to have a low carb shake to drink in the morning, so I set out to create one. After a little experimentation and a lot of worrying about why cocoa doesn’t mix in with my almond milk, I finally figured it out. (more…)

When his wife bought an ice cream maker, the writer at Low Carb Confidential wanted to know, Can You Make Ice Cream With Atkins Shakes?.

Despite the warning on the shakes, he decided to give it a go. Unfortunately, it ended up a chunky mess.

Ironically, making low carb ice cream is pretty easy. There are a bunch of recipes on the Low Carb Friends forum. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Chocolate Ice Cream Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/3 cup half-and-half
• 1/4 cup Splenda
• 1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp Atkins chocolate syrup
• dash salt

Mix all thoroughly and put it into your ice cream maker. Turn on and watch for about 25 minutes – it should slow to a halt when it’s thick enough. You can easily double the recipe if you’d like.

Makes 2 servings 4g carbs per serving

French Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup half-and-half
• 1/2 cup Splenda
• 1/4 cup ice cold water
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• dash salt

Mix all thoroughly. Cook in a saucepan over low heat. This won’t thicken as much as a sugar-based custard will, but it will thicken so stir regularly. Cook 15-20 minutes until medium thick. Now put it in the fridge to cool down for at least an hour. Put the mix into your ice cream maker. Turn on and watch for about 25 minutes – it should slow to a halt when it’s thick enough.

Makes 2 servings 3g carbs per serving

Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1 cup half and half
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup strawberry juice/puree
• 7/8 cup Splenda
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped strawberries

Place a handful of strawberries in a blender or food processor to create the strawberry juice/puree. Mix the first 5 ingredients and add to machine, add the coarse strawberries once the mix has started to firm up.

If the mix is not solidifying, add 1 tsp of water and mix it in well with a rubber spatula, make your own determination of how to safely do this with the type of ice cream maker you have.

Strawberries are 1.8g / 4oz serving, in case you use some for decoration or consumption on the side

Makes 4 servings 3.5g carbs per serving

There are lots more recipes here:

• Low Carb Friends forum – Ice Cream Recipes

Be careful, though, some of those recipes use ingredients from Atkins products (like low carb peanut butter cups) and the carb measurements might not be accurate because they are using the Net Carbs.

I love this photo from Melissa’s Running Inspiration Pinterest Page.

It reads:

Yesterday, you said tomorrow.

It’s an advertisement for a hated brand of shoes and clothing, so I won’t mention it here, but the sentiment is so motivating that I just HAD to post it here.

The next time you think, “I’ll start my diet and exercise tomorrow,” STOP yourself! Stop right there and start NOW. Do a quick twenty-minute workout. Plan your meals for the next day and even prepare your lunch so you won’t have an excuse later. You can always do something NOW, so quit putting your life on hold until tomorrow.

When I’ve been eating low carb for a while, I start missing foods that I used to eat regularly. That’s why I’m really excited about this recipe for Low Carb Big Mac Pie. I can’t eat it in the car while I’m on a long road trip, but it will fulfill my cravings for one of my old favorites.

One thing that he addresses that makes the Big Mac so good is the “Special Sauce.” I had no idea that special sauce was just Thousand Island Dressing, but he has a low carb version. You can watch the video at the end of the post, but the ingredients are here:

Here are the ingredients for the Big Mac Pie:

Next time I’m craving a Big Mac, I think I’ll whip this recipe up. It looks delicious and sometimes I really need a way to get past my cravings. (more…)

This photo of a donut queen from Found in Moms Basement just highlights bad food to me. Every day I am bombarded with images of beautiful people eating food that is poison to me. Some reptilian part of my brain believes that if I eat that food, I would be thin and beautiful, too.

Maybe I could even be the Donut Queen.

The saddest thing is, the Donut Queen doesn’t become the queen by eating the donuts. She becomes the queen because she DOESN’T eat the donuts.

If you think this is a fluke, this Donut Queen thing went on for quite some time. I’ve seen photos from 1948-1951.

In fact, National Donut Week is still an event in the UK, supporting The Children’s Trust. Buying donuts to help children is an oxymoron. It would be better to just donate the money to The Children’s Trust outright than to go through a middleman like a donut bakery.

If you want to help people, donate money directly to them.

If you want to be the donut queen, you can never eat donuts.

What a strange world we live in.

Since I’ve started my Nothing Sweet Campaign, my beverage choices have been limited. At any restaurant, I’m pretty much restricted to just water. At home, there are various herbal teas I could drink, but really, it’s just easier to fill my glass with tap water.

I’ve gotten to the point where I feel as if all other drinks are contaminated water. They’re kind of what I need, but have been contaminated with sugar or artificial sweeteners. It’s not nearly as bad as sewage water, but I have the same feeling about it. If Diet Coke came out of my kitchen tap, I would call the city, worried about the quality of my water, yet I was willing to drink it for most of my adult life.

I don’t know if the contaminated water idea is a mental trick I’m playing on myself to make drinking merely water easier, but I don’t care. For years, I’ve known that I should just be drinking water instead of soda, but I never bothered to do it. Now that I have the concept of soda being contaminated water, I’ve had no trouble choosing contamination-free water.

This is a LONG video (27:34 mins) interviewing Dr Stephen Phinney, MD, PhD. It’s a great video talking about how to stay on low carb for the rest of your life. My biggest problem with Atkins was increasing the carbs after Induction. Every time I increased my carbs, I would start craving them again and go completely off the rails. This video talks about how to live on low carb for a long time.

He’s promoting his book, The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living, so I downloaded the book on Amazon, but I haven’t had a chance to read it. I really like in the video how he emphasizes when something hasn’t been proven scientifically. He’ll mention the theories, but clarify when it hasn’t been shown in clinical trials.

If you’ve been wondering how to lose weight AND maintain the loss with a low carb diet, this video is a pretty good introduction.

Update 05-14-12: The book is VERY technical and not very good for the lay individual. I was able to follow it, but BARELY and there was little in there for advice as far as adhering to the plan aside from adding more fat into your diet when you reach the maintenance phase (which is different than the original low carb diets suggested). This really just a book for you to give to your doctor so they stop telling you to reduce the fat in your diet. Skip it and buy The New Atkins for a New You instead. Dr. Phinney contributed to that book and it is much more helpful if you need to know how to eat low carb.

I was looking for something interesting to eat that was still low carb and I came across these Portabella Pizza Bites. The recipe was made all low fat, so they had to add an egg to help the low fat cheese melt. I took all that out and I’m going to make it FULL fat and low carb.

Ingredients:

• 6 mini Portabella mushrooms (or 2 large Portabella mushroom caps)
• 1/2 cup marinara sauce (Get the kind without any added sugar. Tomatoes have enough carbs on their own.)
• 1/2 oz. pepperoni (approx. 6 slices)
• 2 oz. black olives
• 3 oz. Mozzarella cheese

Directions

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Clean mushrooms and scoop out the insides and stem with a spoon.Place on baking pan and bake for 7 minutes.
• While mushrooms are baking, grate Mozzarella.
• Remove mushrooms from oven, and turn the broiler to High.
• On the mushrooms layer pizza sauce, cheese mixture, olives, and pepperoni slices. Return pan to oven and broil on High for 3 minutes or until cheese has melted and started to brown.

I can’t wait to try this on my own!

Recipe and photo via Portabella Pizza Bites – P90x Recipes – P90x Nutrition Plan » My P90x Nutrition Plan

In the ongoing effort to stop my bingeing, I have taken the vow of “Nothing Sweet.” No sugar, no aspartame, no Splenda, no saccharin, NOTHING that tastes sweet. It has helped a little bit, keeping me from obsessing over food, but I have absolutely NO science to back it up.

Sure, every once and a while, the media trots out the studies that have shown that eating artificially sweetened foods actually made rats GAIN weight, but they never provide links to the actual studies.

Yesterday, I found them: (more…)