Odds are that future generations will only hear stories about the times when the word “breakfast” didn’t have “on the go” tacked to the end of it. As life gets faster and as our priorities become increasingly warped, the morning meal is quickly falling by the wayside, in favor of a foil-wrapped, junky sugar bar in the car on the way to work.

It’s tragic, really, given how important breakfast is. Obviously, you don’t eat when you sleep, so what you’re doing in the morning is genuinely “breaking a fast.” You’re restoring depleted nutrients and getting blood sugar back to livable levels. Doing this with “fake food,” as author Michael Pollan refers to it in his book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, just doesn’t work.

Processing depletes food of nutrients. True, the food industry tries to “fortify” those nutrients back in, but it just doesn’t work. Referring to a 2003 study from the University of Minnesota, Pollan points out, “Food science can add back only a small handful of nutrients . . . As the whole-grain food synergy study suggests, science doesn’t know nearly enough to compensate for everything that processing does to whole foods.”

“But, but, but,” you mutter, “I’m busy!” Well that’s not good enough! No sir! The morning meal matters, so I’m going to help you reclaim it in two simple ways. First, I’m going to suggest five extremely simple breakfasts that’ll take you no more than 10 minutes to prepare and consume. Then I’m going to show you how to find that 10 minutes.

Part One: Five Simple Breakfasts

Bowl of whole-grain cereal with low-fat milk
For all you sweet teeth, I’ll do this one with Kashi GoLean Crunch. There are “better” cereals out there, but this one has a nice balance of nutrition and yumminess. If the nutrition label reads between 20 grams (g) and 40 g total carbs and between 5 g and 10 g total fiber, you’re in good shape.

One cup Kashi GoLean Crunch
Half cup 1% milk

Calories: 241
Fat: 4 g
Saturated Fat: 1 g
Carbs: 43 g
Fiber: 8 g
Protein: 13 g

Fresh fruit and plain, low-fat yogurt
If your yogurt comes with added fruit, it probably also comes with added sugars or added artificial sweeteners. You’re much better off chopping up your own fruit. If you just can’t cope with the taste of real yogurt, add a teaspoon of honey.

One cup plain, low-fat yogurt
Six strawberries

Calories: 176
Fat: 4 g
Saturated Fat: 2 g
Carbs: 22 g
Fiber: 2 g
Protein: 13 g

Fresh fruit and low-fat cottage cheese
If you still can’t deal with the taste of yogurt, try this one. Cottage cheese is the unsung hero of the protein world. It’s loaded.

One cup plain, low-fat cottage cheese
One banana

Calories: 271
Fat: 3 g
Saturated Fat: 2 g
Carbs: 34 g
Fiber: 3 g
Protein: 29 g

Whole-grain or wheat toast, peanut butter, and fresh fruit
It’s easy to eat toast and an apple in a car. This is as on-the-go as you can get.

One piece of whole-grain toast
One tablespoon natural peanut butter
One apple

Calories: 257
Fat: 10 g
Saturated Fat: 2 g
Carbs: 39 g
Fiber: 7 g
Protein: 7 g

Scrambled egg on toast
It’s like your own, personal “Egg McMuffin.” Scramble one whole egg and one egg white. Microwave them for one minute. Stir them up. Microwave them for another minute. Cooking time may vary depending on your microwave.

One whole egg and one egg white
Half tablespoon vegetable oil-based spread
One piece of whole-grain toast

Calories: 197
Fat: 9 g
Saturated Fat: 2 g
Carbs: 16 g
Fiber: 2 g
Protein: 13 g

Part Two: Finding the Time

Still can’t find the 10 minutes to enjoy a decent breakfast? Behold the miracle of time management:

• Watch 10 minutes less television the night before. Go to bed 10 minutes sooner. Wake up ten minutes earlier. Ta dah!
• Save 5 minutes by laying out your clothes the night before. Save 5 more minutes by taking a shorter shower. Ta dah!

The point is, it’s just 10 minutes. If you can find 30 to 90 minutes to workout, you can find another 10 to give your body the fuel it needs to get through the day, so take back your mornings, brothers and sisters! Peace out!

by Dennis Faye

Stress is a part of everyone’s life. And, as the tabloids remind us, even the most successful, fit, got-it-made-in-the-shade celebrities are not immune to it. It disrupts our ability to function at work. It affects our moods. It upstages the things around us which we should be grateful for. Stress distracts our attention and, when it does, it gains power in what becomes a vicious cycle of reacting to stress, and building on it. But even though we’re all susceptible to its evils, we’re also in control of how we let it affect us. Let’s take a look at a few ways to keep our daily stress to a minimum.

>As you might imagine, your lifestyle plays a huge part in how stress affects you. What you may not be aware of is just how important your diet is for how well your body can cope with it. It seems obvious that just eating better would help you deal with stress more effectively. Sure, but there are dissenting opinions over how if affects your body.

According to the American Dietetic Association: “It’s a common myth that our bodies use more nutrients when we’re under mental stress. Although pressures at home or work sometimes cause people to neglect eating well, we do not use any more or fewer essential nutrients while under stress.”

Since everything the body does alters its use of nutrients, this statement seems suspicious. According to Leo Galland, M.D., author of Power Healing (Random House, 1997), it’s just plain wrong. “Chronic stress is not just harmful to the heart, it depletes the body’s essential supply of magnesium, the nutrient most important for handling stress and contributing to sound sleep; relaxed, healthy muscles; and staying calm.”

He goes on to add, “The fight-or-flight syndrome causes magnesium to pour out of the cells, which makes you more vulnerable to anxiety’s negative effects. What’s more, the substances we often reach for when we’re tense—caffeine, sugar, high-fat foods and alcohol—leech even more magnesium from the body. Leafy vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds, on the other hand, are full of this nutrient. Load up on these foods if you’re under a lot of stress. And it’s not a bad idea to consider taking a magnesium supplement.”

Judith Wurtman, Ph.D., a research scientist at MIT, adds, “Complex carbohydrates are champion stress-fighters, too, because they boost the brain’s level of the mood-enhancing chemical serotonin. These include an array of vegetables (broccoli, leafy greens, potatoes, corn, cabbage, spinach), whole-grain breads and pastas, muffins, crackers, and cereals. Make them a part of your regular diet. Bananas also help quell anxiety.”

Is someone right or wrong here? It’s hard to say, exactly, but we can make an educated guess. History shows that western science is usually slow to embrace ideas which are intangible or which lack scientific study, which probably explains the ADA’s position. Common sense, however, makes a good argument for a nutrient-rich diet, regardless, since it would have many benefits beyond pure stress reduction. And, it must be noted, many of these unarguable effects, such as health, weight management, and fitness level, have the potential to reduce stress levels. Regardless, some caution should be used before embarking on a “de-stressor” diet of crackers and muffins.

The safe assumption is that if you eat healthier and pay closer attention to the details of eating, the level of stress in your lifestyle will most certainly decline. And if you feel more run down or sluggish as a result of stress, it can only help you to get back on your feet by making sure to get the proper nutrition from food and supplements. Here are a few ways to reduce the amount of stress in your daily life.

1. Take some time for yourself. Even if it’s only a few minutes a few times throughout the day, claiming some of your busy schedule for yourself in order to focus inward and relax can do wonders for your stress level. Of course, the more time you have the better, but the real key here is not time, but focus. Concentrate on yourself during this time and let those day-to-day troubles fall by the wayside.
2. Exercise. Since you’re reading this, chances are that you have already committed to exercise, but no study on stress ever leaves out its importance. Exercise makes your engine run smoother, removes toxins from the body, lowers anxiety, and makes you feel good about yourself. Nothing puts the brakes on a stressful day like a long walk, run, bike ride, or even a hardcore dose of P90X.
3. Drink water. We can’t stress (pun intended) the importance of drinking water. Water hydrates and cleanses your system, removes toxins, and makes you less hungry. Forcing yourself to drink a glass of water a few times a day is the simplest body regulator there is.

4. Eat breakfast. Take time out for a healthful breakfast before your day starts. It will help you get going for your busy day and will keep you from feeling hungry just when you need to be gaining momentum. Keep in mind that breakfast doesn’t mean “Trucker’s Special.” A grapefruit, banana, or protein shake are much better options.

5. Drink tea. With zero calories and a host of antioxidants—which are basically stress-combatants—tea provides rationale behind the historical significance of “tea time.” This afternoon ritual was created with de-stressing on its agenda. Turns out this was a nutritionally sound practice as well. Just hold the scones with clotted cream.
6. Stop and breathe. Not everyone has time (or interest) to work on meditation, but there is no doubt that more meditation would lead to a less-stressed world. Mini-meditation sessions focused on breathing can be stress reducers. It’s as simple as taking a minute from time to time and just concentrating on your breathing. Sitting or standing quietly, take a deep breath, filling your belly up with air as you inhale. As you exhale, silently count “one” to yourself and empty your belly of air. Continue inhaling and exhaling until you reach the count of 10; repeat as often as you wish. It works.
7. Snack well. Don’t binge or just grab whatever is in sight once you get hungry. By taking some time to plan your snacks, you keep your blood sugar constant; nothing adds to daily stress more than a sugar crash. If food has ever altered your mood or made you feel sluggish, you know what we’re talking about, and if it hasn’t, you’re probably not reading this anyway.
8. Stretch. You don’t need a full-blown yoga session to alleviate your stress (though that will certainly help). Finding a few minutes to stretch each day will both center your mind and elongate muscles that tend to contract as you become stressed. Starting each morning with 2 or 3 minutes of light stretching as soon as you get out of bed can do wonders for your outlook on the day. Remember, however, that in the morning you aren’t warmed up, and when we say light stretching, we mean light. You aren’t trying to exercise; just get your blood moving and muscles warmed up.
9. Do yoga. If you do have the time, try adding some yoga into your life. There’s a reason it’s the fastest-rising exercise in the western world. Yoga is a full-on assault against the daily onset of stress. It’s a whole-body workout that combines body and mind to enable you to focus.
10. Supplement your diet. But not just with magnesium, as Dr. Galland suggests—though magnesium is good. Ensuring you have enough vitamins and, especially, minerals will help you ward off stress. Two other supplements that are particularly useful are fish oil and antioxidants—these are two areas in which our diets are often deficient.

Not much is as frustrating during an exercise program as when your results stop progressing. But it happens to everyone; and even if you’re training like a cage fighter, it will happen to you, too. When it does, the solution isn’t as obvious as you may think. While the logical answer is to kick your workouts up a notch, eat cleaner, or eat less, that might be exactly the opposite of what you should to be doing. Here is an explanation of why your results are bound to plateau and what to do about it when it happens.

What is the dreaded plateau?

It’s part of the body’s natural process to hit a plateau because it’s always trying to regulate itself. Its regulated state is called homeostasis. Your body is a creature of habit, but it doesn’t care whether those habits are bad or good. The more you do something to enact change, the more it adapts and tries to limit that change. This can be a good thing because less stress is placed on the body. But it’s a bad thing if you’re unhealthy because that is the state your body is willing to call homeostasis. If your goals are to change your body, you’ll want to keep that adaptive stress high until you’re fit and healthy.

Fitness trainers refer to the above-mentioned process as the adaptive phase of training, and any good fitness program is designed around it. The time it takes your body to adapt to something new varies by activity, your fitness level, and the effort you put into the endeavor. This process can take as little as 2 weeks to more than 12 weeks. In general, the fitter you are, the quicker your body adapts to a new workout routine.

To get the most out of an exercise program, you need to break habits from time to time. This is why most training programs are broken up into phases or blocks that generally look something like this:

Foundation phase: building base fitness—the time this takes varies per individual.

Adaptive phase: learning to master the movements or cadence of a new workout program—takes between 1 and 12 weeks.

Growth or Mastery phase: once mastered, your body has a limited time to make accelerated performance gains—generally 1 to 4 weeks.

Recovery phase: when results level off, your body needs to recover from the stresses of hard training—generally 1 to 4 weeks.

Most athletes train in 4- to 6-week blocks; during this time, they work on one energy system at a time. Each block is broken down into the above-listed phases. As each phase is mastered, the body begins to plateau, which is a signal to begin a recovery phase and move into the next training block.

If you graph the desired results of your exercise program, the line should look like a ski slope (heading up or down depending on your goals) because you’re making rapid changes. Once your body gets good (or efficient) at these exercises, they don’t cause as much trauma, and you begin to get less effect out of the same program. The “ski slope” begins to level off and starts to resemble a plateau. If this program is continued as such, the line will go completely flat, or even start to dip the other way because of overuse.

A good exercise program is designed to keep your graph looking like a ski slope by altering what you do regularly. Let’s use a comparison of Power 90 and P90X as an example of how two programs might look. Power 90 is an introductory program and P90X is an advanced program. They both follow similar patterns but the timing of each is different.

Phase I: Foundation phase. Power 90 begins with the I/II workouts. P90X begins with a fit test, meaning that your foundation should be complete prior to beginning the program.

Phase II: Adaptive phase. This is where the biggest changes in the programs occur. Power 90 doesn’t change much because it may take an untrained individual up to 12 weeks to adapt. At the P90X level, adaptations are very quick and will happen in 1 to 2 weeks.

Phase III: Mastery or Growth phase. This is the most intense period of training. Once the body adapts to exercise, there is a short window wherein very rapid improvement occurs.

Phase IV: Recovery phase. Exercise intensity is reduced to allow microtrauma to heal. If timed correctly, fitness improves during this phase, until the body is recharged and ready to begin Phase II again. If done for too long, Phase I should be repeated. The recovery phase, which can also be called a transition phase, is a major part of P90X. Power 90, due to the variable adaptive phase, doesn’t have a recovery phase built in.

Plateau: occurs when Phase III is extended too long.

Most sound fitness programs follow a similar plan. This alone does not keep plateaus from occurring. They affect everyone who engages in any exercise program, from couch potato to Olympian. In fact, the more finely tuned your body is, the harder it is to avoid plateaus, mainly because there is less margin of error to play with. But even though they are a natural part of the process, it does not mean that you have to give in to them. At some point along your fitness path, you are going to encounter a plateau. Here are 5 tips to help you snap out of it:

1. Back off. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t exercise; it just means that if you ease up a bit, you’ll likely recover and get stronger. Oftentimes your body is over trained, exhausted, and just in need of a break. If you are finding it suddenly difficult to get through a workout that was easy the week before, this is most likely the case. You should cut down on your intensity and focus on technique and flexibility. It’s a perfect time for a recovery-specific workout like Slim Series: Cool It Off!, Tony Horton’s 10 Minute Trainer Yoga Flex, or some easy cardio, yoga, and/or stretching workout. Another option would be to lower your workout weight or pick easier workouts. Gauge this so that you finish workouts feeling refreshed rather than knackered. When your energy level returns, launch back into your original program, or a more difficult one, harder than you did before.
2. Turn it up a notch. The antithesis of backing off, because a plateau may also happen when you’re purely bored and/or listless. The easiest way to increase intensity is by adding resistance. Change bands or add weight so that you start failing at around 6 to 8 reps on all of the exercises, which changes the energy system you’re using. This added intensity will force your body to adapt and turn that improvement line skyward again. You’ll know if this was the right tactic in one of two workouts because you’ll either respond by feeling energized or you’ll hardly be able to finish the workout.
3. Streamline your diet. Most of our diets could always use a little improvement. If you’ve been giving yourself little rewards for a job well done (a good idea in general), then it’s time to stop. Try a super-strict week wherein you do everything perfect. If you don’t have a great example—like the P90X diet—sign up for a free account and check the message boards or join the club.
4. Add some morning cardio. Twenty minutes or more of easy- to moderate-level cardio in the morning on an empty stomach can help get your metabolism steamrolling again. You can train your body to more efficiently use stored fat as fuel, and this is one of the easiest ways to do it.
5. Add or subtract 500 calories per day. If everything else seems fine and you’re at wits’ end, then try this. Your diet might just be miscalculated and you could be under- or overfeeding yourself. This is common, especially as you get fitter, because your body composition changes, which is why adding calories is one of the main ways our members kick themselves off of plateaus. Five hundred calories per day works out to 3,500 per week, which equates to a pound. Keep in mind that this will only work if you are eating proper nutrients. If not, try #3 first, and then try altering the number of calories you’re eating.

This is the question on a lot of people’s minds in light of recent studies that link artificial sweeteners to everything from weight gain to Alzheimer’s. Fake sugar has been around for a long time but, until recently, has been able to stray from the crosshairs of legal scrutiny. There’s always been scuttlebutt surrounding its safety but, for the most part, it’s been dismissed as shoddy research and hippie science, which has allowed the sugar substitute industry to nearly triple over the last decade. Let’s take a deeper look into the history of artificial sweeteners, the latest scientific warnings, and some realistic alternatives to playing the part of a human lab rat.

What happened to “calories in, calories out?”

As it turns out, calories may not be the be-all-end-all of nutrition when it comes to obesity. It’s already well established that it’s the types of calories that you eat, not simply the amounts, that matter when it comes to general health or athletic performance. But common diet lore has been that your weight is purely a function of a number assigned to the energy in your food that’s deemed a calorie—a simple and convenient wrapping that’s allowed the “no cal” industry to flourish.

The latest research strongly hints that maybe everything we eat, not just calories, is responsible for not only our health but our weight. Before we analyze the latest evidence, let’s take a brief look at the history of sweeteners and how these odd combinations of chemicals became an integral part of our diets in the first place.

A brief history of fake sugar

In 1879, a Johns Hopkins University researcher accidentally spilled a synthetic chemical on his hand. For some reason, he took a lick, discovered it was sweet, and saccharin was born. Nearly a century later, it was found that it could cause cancer in lab rats. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) immediately tried to ban it, only to meet with overwhelming opposition from dieters and, surprise, the diet food industry. Congress settled the matter by requiring a warning label on any products containing saccharin. With a veritable wrist slap as a deterrent to disclaim a risk of cancer, the race for the perfect artificial sweetener was officially on.

Despite a slew of lawsuits, weird science, and other anecdotal evidence against it, the artificial sweetener business has chugged along with increasing effectiveness. Since 1987, the number of Americans who consume artificially sweetened products has more than tripled to nearly 200 million. During this same period, obesity rates have risen from 15 percent to over 30 percent. Here’s a quick rundown of seven of the major players.

1. Saccharin (aka Sweet ‘N Low). The oldest and most scrutinized chemical sweetener has been under fire pretty much ever since, well, foods could actually be under fire in the mainstream media. In the 1990s, it was discovered that rats and humans were physiologically different, so the mechanism that caused cancer in the rats didn’t apply to us. The above-mentioned warning labels were scrapped, but then, in 2003, the National Cancer Institute released another study saying something along the lines of, “Oops, maybe it does cause bladder cancer after all.” But, so far, no word on digging up those labels again; however, below you’ll see that saccharin may have bigger fish to fry soon if it’s going to stay on the market at all.
2. Stevia (aka Sweet Leaf or Honey Leaf). An herbal sweetener from South America, stevia is the only sweetener on this list that hasn’t received FDA approval. In fact, due to studies on rats and hamsters showing that large doses of stevioside, the active ingredient in stevia, caused low sperm counts and abnormally small offspring, you’ll probably never see it approved from the FDA or Health Canada, the European Union, or the World Health Organization. The upside is that it’s been used by indigenous cultures for thousands of years, some of which don’t seem abnormally small. Because it’s natural and time-tested, it’s become trendy with the whole-foods sect and can be found at most new age markets, sold as a supplement.
3. Sucralose (aka Splenda). Take sugar and chemically combine it with chlorine, and voilà! You have a product the human body can’t process, so it passes right through. Sucralose has been animal tested and FDA approved. However, there are a few researchers who claim sucralose shrinks the thymus gland and enlarges the liver and kidneys. They also point out that this sweetener was discovered in 1976 and, therefore, hasn’t been around long enough to show any long-term effects. Time will tell, but this is currently, despite the warnings, the fastest-rising sweetener on the market.
4. Aspartame (aka NutraSweet and Equal). This synthetic derivative of a combo of aspartic acid (an amino acid) and phenylalanine is a popular favorite for diet soda drinkers. The only people who absolutely shouldn’t consume aspartame are people suffering from phenylketonuria because excess levels of phenylalanine in their blood can cause neurological, behavioral, and dermatological problems. Other research indicates that people can be aspartame-sensitive, receiving headaches from consuming it. Also, there are dozens of theories floating around pinning aspartame with brain tumors, chronic fatigue syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, and so on. Although no study has ever proven any of this, whether or not this compound is truly safe remains to be seen. Lately, negative research related to diet soda has been piling up, which is aspartame’s monetary wheelhouse.
5. Acesulfame (aka Sunett). A sumptuous blend of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, sulphur, and potassium whipped up by the Germans in the 1960s, acesulfame isn’t metabolized by the human body. Numerous studies suggest that acesulfame causes tumors in rats and mice, but the FDA has thrown out these studies for various reasons. Regardless, it’s hard not to question the safety of this sweetener until more solid positive evidence is presented.
6. Sugar alcohols (aka isomalt, hydrogenated starch hydrolysates, or anything on an ingredients list ending in “-itol”). Not really sugar or alcohol, these are sugars fused with hydrogen. The body has a hard time digesting this combination—it usually does so in the intestines, meaning fewer calories absorbed per gram than other carbohydrates (usually about one or two). So you still get calories, only fewer. With no major side effects or even anecdotal bad news, this stuff could be a dieter’s dream. Unfortunately, it’s associated with regular minor problems, mainly intestinal upset. Common side effects of sugar alcohol are gas, bloating, and diarrhea.
7. D-Tagatose (aka Naturlose). A “natural” sweetener derived from dairy products, tagatose is similar to sugar alcohols in that it does have some caloric impact—1.5 calories per gram to be exact. The reason for this low number is that the enzymes in the intestines can’t process the stuff, so most of it passes through undigested. The downsides of this can be bloating, nausea, and other more audible signs of gastric stress.

The entire history of sweeteners has been controversial but, until recently, not much of the evidence against them has struck a chord with the public. Not surprisingly, the only two that have seen anything affect their market share are the oldest, saccharin and sweet leaf. And, oddly enough, the only one of these that’s been “permanently” removed from the FDA’s approved list is the only natural one, sweet leaf, which incidentally is also the only one not produced chemically by a large corporation (generally synonymous with having the weakest legal team).

Some new studies could be changing the sweetener world as we’ve known it. While yet to be declared in any definitive way, each successive study has thrown fuel onto the anti-sweetener fire without a bit of evidence that’s been able to slow the blaze. Given that most sweeteners on the market (even with FDA approval) haven’t been around long enough for definitive long-term studies to be conclusive, that is a pretty strong indictment that we may want to use at least a little caution in regards to how much we consume.

Some sweet science

While stories have been appearing regularly in the news over the last year, one of the most interesting tidbits of information is a hot-off-the-press study that showed that rats on diets containing saccharin gained more weight than rats given sugary food. The study was published in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience and found that the calorie-free artificial sweetener appeared to break the physiological connection between sweet tastes and calories, driving the rats to overeat. This information could be damaging to the entire industry because the link may have more to do with the calorie-free stimulus of artificial sweetener, which means it could be an effect associated with any of the artificial sweeteners on the market. Furthermore, it enhances the credibility of a large-scale study that linked diet soda drinking with obesity. We’ll get to that in a minute, but let’s take a brief look at the rat study.

In the experiment, funded by the National Institutes of Health and Purdue University, nine rats received yogurt sweetened with saccharin and eight rats received yogurt sweetened with glucose (sugar). After receiving their yogurt snack, the animals were given their usual food. At the end of five weeks, rats that had been fed sugar-free yogurt gained an average of 88 grams, compared with 72 grams for rats that ate glucose-sweetened yogurt, a difference of about 20 percent. Rats fed sugar-free yogurt were consuming more calories and had 5 percent more body fat.

Since this required further explanation, more research was done. In another experiment, two groups of rats were fed sugary and artificially sweetened drinks to measure changes in their body temperatures. Body temperatures typically rise after a meal because it takes energy to digest food. This effect, known as thermogenesis, is the desired effect of most “fat burning” supplements.

The rats in the saccharin group experienced a smaller average temperature increase, a sign that regular consumption of artificial sweeteners had blunted their bodies’ responses to sweet foods, making it harder for the animals to burn off extra calories. Normally, sweet tastes signal the body that it is about to receive a lot of calories and the digestive system prepares to react. When sweet tastes aren’t followed by lots of calories, as in the case of artificial sweeteners, the body becomes conditioned against a strong response. The most interesting irony here is that the study suggests that most “diet” foods will likely counteract the beneficial effects of most “diet” supplements.

This becomes more provocative when we look at the next study, which featured real people. In this one, scientists gathered dietary information on more than 9,500 men and women ages 45 to 64 and tracked their health for nine years to record general health trends as they related to lifestyle.

Overall, a Western dietary pattern, which includes high intakes of refined grains, fried foods, and red meat, was associated with an 18 percent increased risk for metabolic syndrome, while a “prudent” diet dominated by fruits, vegetables, fish, and poultry correlated with neither an increased nor a decreased risk. Metabolic syndrome doubles a person’s risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, or stroke, according to Dr. Ramachandran Vasan of Boston University School of Medicine.

While this was nothing to be surprised about, the researchers then stumbled on a more puzzling statistic—that the risk of developing metabolic syndrome was 34 percent higher among those who drank one can of diet soda a day compared with those who drank none.

Lyn M. Steffen, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota and a coauthor of the study, which was posted online in Circulation on January 22, 2008, stated that they weren’t sure if the increased risk was due to some kind of chemical in the diet soda, or something about the behavior of diet soda drinkers. Then, in reference to the Purdue study, she was reported by the Los Angeles Times last week as saying that it offered a possible explanation.

Another study published last year cited the effects of soda drinkers versus non-soda drinkers. In this one, approximately 6,000 middle-aged men and women were observed over four years. The results showed that those who drank one or more soft drinks a day had a 31 percent greater risk of becoming obese, a 30 percent increased risk of developing increased waist circumference, a 25 percent increased risk of developing high blood triglycerides as well as high blood sugar, and a 32 percent higher risk of having low high-density lipoprotein or “good” cholesterol levels.

Again, the news was not exactly shocking. Then the researchers analyzed a smaller sample of participants on whom data on regular and diet soft drink consumption was available. Those who drank one or more diet or regular sodas per day had a 50 to 60 percent increased risk for developing metabolic syndrome. Clearly, something is rotten in the state of Denmark or, you know, something like that.

The American Heart Association, which publishes Circulation, made a statement that people should understand that the study in their publication did not prove that diet sodas cause heart disease, and it may still be better to have a diet drink than a full-calorie soda. Regardless of this backpedal, it’s not difficult to see that some bad things are happening to people who drink diet soda regularly.

The alternative: sugar

This begs the question: why do we need to take all this fake sugar anyway, especially if it’s a risk? The answer is because we like sugar. We like it a lot. We now, as a society, get more nutrients from sugar than anything else. In fact, sugary soda is the single largest source of calories we consume, accounting for around 13 percent of calories consumed worldwide. And excessive sugar in your diet, as you’ve probably heard, can cause a lot of problems (refer to “Sugar vs. Fat: Which Is Worse?” in Related Articles below).

There’s no doubt that sugar, especially a lot of sugar, is something we should avoid if staying healthy is our goal. But at least we understand sugar. We know how it works and, whether we want to or not, we can easily understand how to make it a healthy, or at least an acceptable, part of our diets. The same can’t be said for any artificial sweetener on the market. All we know is that they lack calories, and now we’re not even sure if that will keep us from getting fat.

So since sugar, in moderation, is fine and artificial sweeteners are, at best, an unknown, rational thought should lead us to choose real sugar when we crave something sweet. Our big problem is that too often we’ve been conditioned to want things to be too sweet. So here are five ways to limit your sugar consumption because, if you can minimize your sweet tooth, you’ll have no reason to gamble with artificial sweeteners at all.

1. Portion control. Not unlike Rome in its final throes, we have become a society that craves excess. A sign in a Denny’s window states, “Remember, an apple a day.” It offers a perfect metaphor of our obesity epidemic: an apple surrounded by about 2,000 calories of sugar and fat. Our society has gone crazy for “bigger is better.” After dinner, your body is not hungry. You don’t need 2,000 extra calories. You don’t need 200. If you savor a square of chocolate or a tablespoon of Ben & Jerry’s slowly, it will curb your cravings without a noticeable effect on your diet.
2. Don’t snack on artificial sweeteners. Gum is probably the worst snack because it creates a stimulus-response reaction that causes you to crave sweet stuff constantly. Sugary gum is bad for your teeth, but at least it runs out of flavor quickly. Artificially sweetened gum turns you into one of the rats in the above-mentioned experiment. When you feel as though you need something sweet, go ahead and have a little sugar. Then brush your teeth. You’ll find this satiates your cravings without putting your body into a constant stimulus-response mode.
3. Add some fruit to your sugar. Fruit is sweet, healthy, and filling. The problem is that fiber can dull its sweetness enough to keep you from choosing it first. But you can dress up fruit with a very small amount of “real” dessert and make it pretty darn decadent, offering you a nutritious and filling dessert that you can still burn off.
4. Make sure you have some complex carbs in your diet. This may sound boring, but complex carbs, like whole grains, sweet potatoes, rice, and beans n’ stuff, all slowly break down into blood sugar. If your blood sugar is steady, you won’t crave sugar. You might still habitually crave it, but that’s a lot easier to deal with than a sugar-crash craving, which usually leads to bingeing.
5. Try the protein powder trick. Most protein powders have a small amount of sugar and a touch of artificial sweetener, and are 90 percent protein. If you can find one you like you might be able to curb your cravings with a high-protein snack (try Whey Protein Powder packed with 18 grams of protein per serving). Chalene Johnson, the creator of Turbo Jam®, uses chocolate protein powder as a base for pudding, and Beachbody® Advice Staff Denis Faye sprinkles it on cereal. Get creative and you’ll get the added benefit of ensuring you have enough protein in your diet to fully recover from your workouts. And this, in turn, also helps reduce sugar cravings.by Steve Edwards, with Dennis Faye