So we come to rule 13… This rule is also about something that you don’t want to eat but I promise rule #14 is going to make your day!

This rule is about dairy products.

I’m not going to get into all the vegan arguments about what we do to cows when we milk them and how gross we are that we drink other animals’ milk and not our own mothers’.

I’m not going to talk about the connection between dairy products and asthma, I’m not going to talk about how we drink cows’ milk but we find breastfeeding inappropriate and why breastfeeding is not just healthy for your baby but can also save you from breast cancer.

I’m not going to talk about it because this blog is about how to EAT THE CAKE AND NOT GET FAT.

My biggest problem with dairy products is this little minor thing called added hormones. 

People have been fighting for years about whether dairy products are good for people or not and I came to the understanding that there are good things in them (calcium and protein) but it’s not good for you.

However, drinking other kind of dairy free milk (soy, almond, rice etc.) is even worse because it is soooo processed.

I know many people who drink almond milk because it’s low on calories… They don’t even care that it’s high on so many other bad things (crazy amount of sodium, for example) All they see is the big label that says 40 calories a cup! And then they wonder why they don’t lose weight and in a lot of cases suffer from swollen face and arms.

I drink soy milk…it’s so bad for you that you can’t believe: soy is one of the most GMO (genetically modified organisms) food out there but drinking regular milk make my belly ache and soy tastes the best with my green tea latte… I love my green tea (but you know it from last week).

I made the decision to drink soy milk instead of regular milk but I keep on hoping one day my willpower will be strong enough to not drink it at all… But I’m not there yet (or close…maybe in like 15 years J )

This post it not about why drinking dairy free milk is good for you, because it’s bad for you as much as regular milk. This post is about why, if you do choose to consume dairy you HAVE to consume organic dairy products.

I’m not sure I’m being clear enough about it, so you HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE

To consume organic dairy products, and that is also one of the reasons why I drink soy milk because when I go to a coffee shop they usually have organic soy milk but they never have organic milk so it’s easier for me to stick to soy then consuming tons of hormones.

If you’re not an alien you have probably heard something about hormones and other stuff they give to cows and chicken (and veggies) so they would grow faster and make more product so they can have more money.

All those growth hormones make you grow more, so even if you don’t care about your health or about animals (I hope you do care), even if you care just about your size, drinking this kind of milk will make you fat.

What else does it do to your body? How about I start with the age girls in North America get their first period and how many problems they have because of their premature puberty?

My mom made for me and for my siblings organic food and I was the last of my class to get my period. Here in North America the average age is 12… that is not normal!

So many girls and women have so many problems because of it, with so complicated names I can’t even write so forget about pronouncing them!

You know what they tell those 12 year old girls to do? They put them on pills! Because if we give growth hormones to cows and make you sick we should give you more hormones to… I’m not really sure why… But a 12 year old shouldn’t be on birth control (they shouldn’t be having sex but If they do they should be on birth control).

How about I end up talking about what happens to the workers who give hormones shots to the cows? If they accidently touch it with bare skin…CANCER.

One word that summarizes it all . I know those people so I don’t try to scare you; I’m just telling you some stories that happened to my friends.

That is sad but it happened.

What they give to cows cause them cancer; how can you drink it and be safe?

Organic dairy products are not that expensive: the difference is less than a dollar!

And even if it were expensive…. have you priced cancer recently?

I just bought some organic yogurt to see how it affects my body… I promise to keep you updated… But if you do choose to consume dairy products (and that is completely up to you) I beg you to stick to organic. That’s one thing that is black or white for me… If you can’t get organic dairy DO NOT CONSUME IT AT ALL!

We consume so much dairy products on a daily basis that it becomes a matter of life and death.

If you do consume dairy products I suggest to not consume more the half a cup a day and I suggest to consume yogurt with probiotic as you dairy for the day.

That’s what I do and that’s how I EAT THE CAKE AND NOT GET FAT J.

Researched and Written by Dana Gat  2013 ©

Energy is probably the most important thing in life.

We all want it but if someone has too much of it we give them Ritalin to stop it (besides puppies -   everybody loves energetic puppies…)

To have energy is why we eat, sleep and drink.

Luckily for us, no matter where we go we can get some form of energy called coffee.

There are a few things I want to talk about.

First, coffee and caffeine are not the same.

There’s caffeine in coffee but not all caffeine is coffee.

I’m sure some of you heard that caffeine promotes weight loss.

It’s only half true.

Caffeine by itself does not promote weight loss but it keeps you up after 8 hours of work so you can go to the gym and going to the gym DOES promote weight loss.

It’s the gym, not the caffeine.

The only time caffeine helps your performance (like in a race or a competition) is when you abstain from it for a while and then consume it before the race.

Why? Because our body gets used to caffeine quickly, the more you consume it the more you need of it and the more you need it… like any other drug.

If you clean your body from it, then when you do consume it you’ll be going like the squirrel from the movie Hoodwinked: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lYo7gXuhg

When you consume coffee every day you make your body addicted to it (I’m sure you know it already but my job is to remind you of that) so for you to get the same “awake” feeling from it you need to consume more until at some point it will start to affect you blood; and when that affects your blood you’re at risk because clean blood = healthy body.

Can we really live our life without caffeine? I can’t!

Like I said before caffeine is not found only in coffee. We have caffeine in green tea (I LOVE green tea) and there’s caffeine in chocolate (you already know chocolate is the reason I wake up in the morning) and there’s also caffeine in sodas (I hate sodas…gross!)

I need my green tea and I need my chocolate but I don’t need coffee.

This post is about why not drink coffee, but if you can cut caffeine completely from your diet, just go and do it; I can’t, so I found what works for me and is not as bad for me.

Most of North Americans drink drip coffee.

Now let’s say you take you coffee black (I can’t do it) and you skip the cream and sugar and you save all these extra problems. You are still consuming  95mg of caffeine in every cup.

The North American average is 3.1 cups of coffee a day. That’s around 300 mg of caffeine a day! 2100 mg a week!

109,500 mg of coffee a year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Green tea has 20mg of caffeine per cup and that’s a lot too. I drink a cup a day and that comes to 7300 mg of caffeine a year.

It’s a lot but it’s less than what the average person consumes in a month!

So I do consume caffeine, but not as much as I would have if I were to drink drip coffee.

Coffee is bad for you.

It dehydrates you and it messes with your body’s natural metabolism.

A lot of people drink coffee instead of water and then they are surprised when they die young or just look really old and have tons of heart problems (if you don’t know why you should drink water go and read rule #7).

If I’ll try to explain to you why drinking coffee instead of water I’ll get so mad that I’ll probably punch something. If you don’t know why it’s wrong, then something is wrong with you (and I say it with love).

To all the females out there: try to not drink coffee next time you get your period and see how it affects you cramps.

That amount of caffeine just put your body in stress, so no matter how much you stretch your body would still be sore (or at least more sore then the person next to you, who did not consume as much caffeine), you increase your chance to experience PMS from hell, you make your organs work a lot harder than they should and you have a bigger chance to suffer from all kinds of inflammations.

I can’t cut caffeine from my life but I can cut the amount, and coffee is too much of it.

By cutting coffee you cut the amount but I still don’t want you to drink 8 cups of green tea a day because it comes with side effects too.

I want you to cut the amount of caffeine because it’s a drug (that we all love) but I also want you to cut coffee because it dehydrates you so much that your metabolism doesn’t work like it should and when your metabolism doesn’t work you become a fatty and nobody wants to be fat; we all want to EAT THE CAKE AND NOT GET FAT!

Cut on coffee is rule #12 for how I EAT THE CAKE AND NOT GET FAT.

I would like to wish Happy Passover to all the Jews out there and good luck with cutting yeast for a week.

I wish we can cut yeast completely from our life. J

Researched and Written by Dana Gat  2013 ©

We know that carbs are not the enemy. So what is the enemy?

SALT.

I hate salt more then I hate wheat.

This processed crap is killing you!

KILLING!!!

Before we talk about how cutting salt could help you EAT THE CAKE AND NOT GAT FAT I want to talk about how cutting it from your diet can affect your health.

I’m not trying to put you on a diet; I’m trying to make you healthy, and salt does not make you healthy!

These are some of the health risks that come with eating too much salt (I’ll explain how much salt is too much, don’t worry): high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes, osteoporosis and stomach cancer.

That’s pretty scary, but how much is too much? Well, do you add salt to your food?

Then you are eating too much salt and you at risk of getting one or more of these “fun” symptoms.

There is salt in pretty much everything we eat.

From dark leafy green to the oat you eat.

You do not need to add salt to your food – it is already there:

1 cup of Chard Swiss – 76mg

1 cup of Carrot – 38mg

0.75 cup of Oat – 320mg

2 tblsp ketchup – 334mg

1 whole egg – 60mg

And that’s just some of the food that you eat on a daily base.

That not even one meal on you almost reach the recommend daily allowance of salt.

The recommend daily allowance is 6 grams per day for adult = 1 teaspoon of table salt per day.

Be honest: do you eat more than one teaspoon of salt a day?

You probably eat a lot of table salt and then of course there’s all the salt that you get from your food anyway to add. So the actual amount of salt in your diet is out of control!!!!

You’re not healthy.

Stop adding salt to your food!

I’m not saying “do not have sodium in your diet”; what I’m saying is that if YOU won’t add salt to your diet you would be able to EAT THE CAKE AND NOT GET FAT.

Sodium is a mineral and your body needs it.

There’s sodium in salt but salt is not sodium and those two shouldn't be confused.

Rule #11 – don’t add salt to your food.

I think it’s simple and you’ll be surprise as to how fast your taste buds get used to it.

Don’t add it when you sit and eat don’t add it when you cook or bake, don’t add it at all.

J

Researched and Written by Dana Gat  2013 ©

I told you last week why you should eat carbs. Now I’m going to tell you why you should eat proteins and confuse you even more.

First of all, the body is considered a protein.

That’s why eating beef or poultry is considered as eating proteins.

Humans, just like cows or pigs, are made from proteins.

I don’t know if you knew it (I only found out this week) but apparently fried people (yes, I said fried) smell like bacon. GROSS!

As we grow and develop we need more of it.

When you’re trying to build muscles mass you develop your body, meaning your body needs more body. And what is the body made from? PROTEINS!

I told you what would happen to your body if you work out without carbs but what would happen to your body without proteins?

Well, in our amazing first world protein deficiencies happen to lazy people and the symptoms are: menstrual irregularities, severe weight loss, weight gain, weakness, headache, poor wound healing, stomach pain, nausea etc.

Your body needs proteins just like it needs oxygen. Literally!

There’s protein in our red blood cell, some cells that carry oxygen to our tissues.

There are also proteins in every other cell of our body and in our hormones (insulin and thyroid).

So we know what happens if we eat too much carbs. But what would happen if we eat too many proteins?

Well, a healthy body can deal with excess intake of protein (the amount we need varies  for every person of course) for a specific period of time. After a while you might suffer from one or more of those symptoms: severe weight gain, weakness, lower back pain and heart problem.

The key for eating protein? Just like everything else – balance.

But you knew that. J

This post not going to be as long as last week’s because if you read this blog you care about your food so you’re already eating proteins and of course you read last week’s post so you know to eat your carbs in the AM and early PM and your protein later in the day, right? PREFECT!

It makes me happy that you know all that.

What I want you to understand from this post its not that you need to eat protein - because you know it already; what I want you to understand is that YOU ARE PROTEIN.

That’s why you need it and that’s why you don’t need too much of it.

I’m sure you’re waiting for the part of the post when I’m telling you how eating proteins helps me to EAT THE CAKE AND NOT GET FAT so here we go:

·         I eat more of it after 2pm then before.

·         I eat a small portion of it after workout (emphasis on small).

·         I don’t eat too much of it (I balance it with my carbs and fat intake).

·         I eat a lot of plant-based protein (legumes and beans).

·         I sprout a big  variety of legumes and other plant-based proteins.

·         I know where my animal protein is from (this rule is so important that it is actually rule #17) 

·         I know that carbs are my fuel and proteins are my body.

That’s pretty simple. Now go and make yourself a falafel.

You need a recipe? Fair enough.

EAT THE CAKE AND NOT GET FAT BAKED FALAFEL:

Soak 1 cup of green lentil for a night (or use the lentil you sprouted for extra point)

Heat oven on 400F

In a large mixing bowl:

 2 cups of shredded carrots

1 cup chopped parsley (or cilantro if you prefer)

1 – 2 eggs

The lentil you soak/ sprouted

Mix it all together and make little balls

Put them in a large pan and bake for 35-45 minutes.

OK.

That’s it for now.

LOVE

Researched and Written by Dana Gat 2013 ©

Rule 9…Carbs are not the enemy (GMO food is).

We all love Kate Middleton, she’s a pretty, nice princess and she has the cutest baby bump ever! She also had to spend a few days in the hospital due to “severe morning sickness” or, as the rest of us call it – poor health.

Why is her health so poor? Because low-carbs diet is not just unhealthy - it can be dangerous.

A few years ago when I was younger and dumber I went on a low-carb diet.

I lost weight so fast it was crazy!

How can I not love it?

I eat all the food I love (2 of my favourite foods are fish and eggs) and I lost weight!

My muscles got bigger but you know what got weaker?

My heart!

 I was 19 at the time and heart problems is not something a “healthy 19 year old” should have, but I wasn’t healthy.

It came to the point where I felt like my body was overflowing with protein. I was so weak I couldn’t do more than 5 minutes treadmill on 0% incline and 3.5km; just for your comprehension - 3 days after I started to eat carbs again I went back to do 60 minutes on a treadmill on 12% incline and 4.2km.

When something affects your heart it’s a matter of life or death!

Low-carb diet will kill you.

I don’t like to eat carbs, it’s true. Most of my diet is still about protein. I need to make myself eat carbs.

I still hate wheat but I like potato, yams, quinoa and rice pasta (I don’t like rice but if you like it - go crazy, it’s good for you).

I also want to talk with you about what are carbs and why eating them can prevent you from getting type 2 diabetes.

Carbs are our fuel. If you want to do something you need fuel, just like a car.

Carbs is a big word - carbohydrate - for a lot of thing, 2 of them being sugar and fibre.

I’m not sure what you think you know but we need sugar.

Diabetes doesn’t happen just to obese people; it happens to someone with  unbalanced sugar level. So next time you order fat-free, sugar–free vanilla latte think of it.

Trying too much to be skinny -  you might end up with diabetes.

Have you ever seen a meal plan for someone with diabetes? There are more carbs in their diet then mine.

After years of eating mostly protein I’m trying to pump up my carbs intake now so I can be healthy and have energy.

Our cells feed on sugar for energy, don’t forget it.

How do you support EAT THE CAKE AND NOT GET FAT if you can’t eat sugar?

Sugar comes in so many shapes! We have the sugar in pop drink and we have the sugar in tomatoes and other veggies.

 They’re both sugar. How do we know which one is best for us?

I’m not going to talk about biochemistry of sugar but I found this trick to be very helpful: if it has a commercial it’s not food.

Ever saw a commercial for soda or some kind of pop? Yes

Ever saw a commercial for broccoli? NO!

I eat carbs for 2 main reasons:

·         They give me energy so I can live

·         Fibres

Fibre – this amazing thing that cleans our body and gets rid of unwanted crap.

Animal protein has zero fibre in it. Other sources of protein like legumes and such actually have decent amounts of fibre (we will talk about protein next week so don’t worry)

Makes sense?

I mumbled a lot this time so I’m going to round it up now.

You want to EAT THE CAKE AND NOT GET FAT? Eat carbs!

Look at carbs as fuel.

There is not really any reason to eat lots of carbs before you go to sleep so try to limit your carbs intake after 5pm.

In the AM try to make sure 95% of your food come from carbs.

You need energy for the day and if you’re trying to lose weight this rule is even more important for you because until you put energy in your body your body would hold on to the energy it has and this is when your body transforms the sugar (kind of carbs) to fat.

The fat in your thighs and butt.

You won’t drive your car without fuel right? Don’t do it to your body.

Researched and Written by Dana Gat  2013 ©