Thursday, January 21, 2016

The No-Empty-Calories-Challenge

Today I want to talk about one of my New Years resolutions...

... I told you back in this post in a sidenote that I have this little challenge going on for the year 2016. I will not eat any white flour nor any refined sugar during the entire lenght of year! Oh yes! Today I want to tell you a little bit more about this challenge and why I decided for it :) 

Maybe you have heard of the term acid-base-balance!? In case you havent, let me just tell you a little bit about it... our blood basically needs the right balance of acid and basic (alkaline) compounds to function properly. Kidneys and lungs work to keep the acid-base balance. So food is digested in our bodies and is broken down to a kind of ash residue, which determines alkaline vs acidic foods. This ash residue can be either neutral, acidic, or alkaline. In general alkaline foods contain higher amounts of potassium, calcium, magnesium, and iron, and will leave an alkaline ash, while acidic foods contain higher amounts of sulphur, phosphorus, and chlorine and leave an acid ash. 

Food such as meat, eggs, dairy products, sugar, coffee, white flour, and soda ar highly acidic! A diet high in acidics is responsible for various diseases such as arthrosis, gallstones, high blood pressure, depression, fatigue, etc. etc. etc.

Now as you may guess I am already doing pretty good eating loads of alkaline foods, since I am not eating any animal products (which are all highly acid). However, I still used to eat white flour and refined sugar from time to time. Because I want to get an even better balance when it comes to my acids and alkalines, I decided to stop eating refined sugar and white flour - for now I say for one year, maybe it will be forever after this one year :)  


Now that I wrote a little bit about the background let me continue with how the challenge went so far. First of all, leaving out the white flour and the refined sugar I realized that I end up leaving out all the empty calories, so this challenge somehow also became a no-empty-calories-challenge to me. Since January 1, everything I put into my body is rich in nutrients and can actually be used by my body - it does not stress my organism (as meat and dairy products, sugar, white flour, etc. do). Do you wanna now how I feel since?

Its been three weeks so far and I have to say that the first few days without sugar have been a little hard for me. Those of you who have babies too, you know how much you are craving energy when you are breastfeeding. And sugar is the fastest and easiest way to get energy. When I left out the sugar, I ate even more to get all the energy I need. The first few days this was difficult to me but now, three weeks later, I feel great with it! I do not have any cravings for sugar and I enjoy eating a loooooot of carbs to get the energy I need (without gaining any weight). I do not miss white flour at all, to be honest. I love my whole wheat pasta, my whole grain spelt pancakes and my whole grain bread. I need to find a place where they have whole wheat brezels though, cause I begin to miss pretzels ;) 

So I feel GREAT and I am happy that I decided for this challenge... but this does not mean that its easy or even possible not to eat refined sugar and white flour! Why? Let me tell you! 

In almost every processed product there is sugaar! Go to the wholefood shop and take any hummus, any vegetable broth, any sandwich spread - in every second of the products you will find SUGAR! So far I was not able to find a vegetable broth without sugar so I cannot say that I am doing perfect in my challenge, because I still use the broth. Also white flour - in Germany, when a bread is declared as "whole grain" it must only contain 80% whole grains so the 20% left is white flour in every second bread. Also, there is sugar in almost all breads. Hence, in case you do not do EVERYTHING by yourself, it is more or less impossible to go 100% sugar and white flour free! 

I realized from the first day on that I will not be able to make this challenge 100%. I do not yet know great alternatives to vegetable broth that do not contain sugar (any ideas?), I cannot bake my own bread every day (we do aorund once a week but sometimes we also buy organic whole grain bread) but I am getting better every day :) I am totally fine with the fact that I am not doing it 100% because I know that I do my best and I feel already a difference. Also I know that those traces of white flour and sugar will not have much impact on my acid-base balance nor on my intestinal flora (which is the second reason for who I do this challenge - a healthy intestinal flora is key to good health and wheat and sugar are destroying the healthy bacteria down there (as do animal products by the way))). 

By the way, there are of course also some processed foods who are very alkaline and I am definetly going to share a few with you on the blog throughout the year :) 
I will also share more background information on why sugar and white flour, next to animal products, are bad for your intestinal flora and for your health in general - so be ready for that ;) 

So far, I hope you enjoyed this post! Have you every thought about if your acids and alkalines are in balance? What do you think about my no-empty-calories-challenge? Could you do without refined sugar and white flour for a year or even longer? I would love to know!

Sending muuuuuch love!  

30 comments:

  1. Sweet 😍 yummy !

    _____________________
    www.justynapolska.com
    fashion & makeup

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  2. Sounds great!!
    XX

    Mónica Sors

    MES VOYAGES À PARIS

    NEW POST: WHITE ON WHITE LOOK... IN THAILAND!

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  3. I was reading about "acid-food" a lot. It is not easy to escape all "bad food" but it would be great if we care about acid- basic balance, and step by step introduce healthy type of our daily food.
    Anyway, thanks for remind me for this.
    Kiss, Silvy

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  4. Amazing post :)

    mystylishcorner.blogspot.ba

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  5. Lovely post dear! Have a great day! xx

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  6. Good for you! I love whole grains. It's really all I eat when it comes to breads, rice, pasts, etc., but I do eat white flour in sweets. I need to get better about that for sure!

    Amy Ann
    Straight A Style

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  7. I've done without refined sugar for a year but I would not beable to survive without flour! It's hardest at first then it becomes super easy. Loved this post!! And no, never thought about the balance xx

    <a href="http://talisatalksbeauty.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/dermalogica-active-moist-moisturiser.html”>Dermalogica Moisturiser</a>

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  8. You are a STRONG woman! I have no idea how you are having a baby at home and taking on such an ambitious food challenge. May I ask what is it you think refined sugar does to the body that is so adverse? Does this mean you are not able to eat at restaurants? I am proud of you!!!!

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  9. This is an awesome idea! My husband and I have been talking about cutting out refined sugar, but it is so hard because like you said, almost EVERYTHING has added sugar! I just don't understand why it has to be added to just about everything. Looks like we will be making a lot of things from scratch now, but hopefully that will be fun. :) I can't wait to hear more about your food choices, and I would love to hear about any tips you have!

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  10. Happy HAPPPY NEW YEAR! Here's to a super healthy and happy 2016!
    kisses
    xoBeckerman Girls

    www.BeckermanBlog.com

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  12. thats such a hard but very brave resolution,i wish i could do that, please do keep motivating us with such posts
    Keep in touch
    www.beingbeautifulandpretty.com
    www.indianbeautydiary.com

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  13. You got me by the awesome Picture. Great article dear. Loved to read this inspiring and great Motivation.
    I wish you have a wonderful friday and happy Weekend.

    Love,

    www.kelpasdiary.com

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  14. It was great reading about acid and alkaline with food! Hats off to what u r doing, inspiring!!
    Thestyletune.blogspot.com

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  15. Awesome! Have a fun-filled weekend.


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  16. Great post dear!

    http://helderschicplace.blogspot.com/2016/01/easy-breezy-beautiful.html

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  17. i wish i would do without sugar and white flour .i envy you
    Its surely a nice challenge to take up

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  18. Thanks a lot, dear :D

    Ohn, perfect post. I'm addicted to healthy food and healthy life :D

    NEW BRANDING POST | Ana by Herself: be different
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  19. Very interesting post - I really like to read people views about healthy food, however the more I read, I see that there is really a looooooooot of different opnions on it, even scientists dont agree with each other. So in my opinion the best thing is to "listen" to your own body, what makes your body and mind better:) And I'm curious have you heard the theory that you should have a certain diet based on the group of your blood? I have heard it somewhere, but I didnt get any more details. Thank you so much for sharing your opinion about vit D - actually I also think it may be the case of pharmaindustries lobby, but I'm not sure. I was asking you this question, cos of some reason - my students who recently went to the regular doctors' check up, found out that all of them suffer from lack of vitamin D. And I mean all of them, 6 to be specific. Thats way I was concerned. And the doctor told them to drink this tran-oil. Of course I have read about it and to be frank, I have found mostly good reviews on it (some of them said its even anti-cancer product), but I also wanted to know your opinion and I really appreciate it. Hmmm, so I guess I will have to think about it, I think I will give it a try, but like I said I will listen/observe my body and in case of not feeling good, I will resigne from it. This healthy food isnt is easy to understand:) Have a great weekend, hugs:)))

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  20. Liebe Larissa, einmal mehr bin ich davon beeindruckt, wie bewusst Du Dich ernährst - und vor allem auch wie gesund! Ich bin überzeugt davon, Dein Körper wird es Dir danken. Ich selber bin da nicht so intensiv dabei wie Du, wobei ich auf Süßes generell nicht extrem stehe, mit Ausnahme von guten Desserts und Kuchen :) Ein schönes Wochenende für Euch!
    xx Rena
    www.dressedwithsoul.com

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  21. Das stelle ich mir auch sehr schwierig vor, Zucker ist ja leider fast nicht zu vermeiden! Immerhim gibt es mittlerweile ja auch Alternativen, die du alle in deinem Jahr sicher ausprobieren wirst.
    Alles Gute!

    -Kati

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  22. Thats really great..the blog is such a motivation for all us..keep up the hard work..

    http://www.colossalcloset.in/

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