An Interview with health and wellness expert Dr. Julie Gatza
Fall is officially here! The beautiful weather and changing of the colors are preparing us for the upcoming Holiday season. Halloween is right around the corner and Health and Wellness Educator Dr. Julie Gatza is here to share some scary facts about sugar. Be warned…sugar is much more frightening than you may think.
4 Scary Facts about Sugar and How to Kick the Habit:
Wait – we can’t remember. What does sugar do to your brain again?
Research shows that sugar is detrimental to your memory and ability to learn by affecting the connections in and function of your brain. The frightening conclusion: “Higher intake of sugary beverages was associated with markers of Alzheimer’s Disease.” Perhaps forgetting to eat the Red Vines is a good habit to remember.
It’s never enough.
What is super spooky is that sugar gives your brain the same feel-good chemical, dopamine, that some illicit drugs do. The really frightening part is that your brain needs more dopamine each time you indulge to get the same effect. That’s why once you start chomping on Mike & Ikes, you actually need to eat more and more of them because your brain starts to crave the reward of the pleasurable feelings. The terror is that it takes higher levels each time to get a comparable feeling. That’s called sugar addiction folks, and research is proving it.
It does a body fat.
Sugar is considered “empty calories.” If you consume too much of it, your liver can’t metabolize it to use it for energy, so the leftovers are converted into fat. Resulting in low-energy levels. That means you’ll eat more and be less inclined to get off the couch, both of which negatively impact body weight.
It’s the common denominator in disease.
We’re not going to sugar-coat this. Over consumption of added sugars may cause weight gain, leading to obesity, thereby reducing heart health. Sugar also causes inflammation and is directly connected to diabetes. So, run from the bonbons like a cheerleader being chased by zombie in a horror film if you want to do sweet things for your health.
Halloween may only come once a year, but giving into candy temptations can get you hooked on bad eating habits all year long. Dr. Gatza offers these tips to kick your sugar cravings:
Eat smaller, more frequent meals:
If you can manage to regulate your blood sugar levels throughout the day, you will take a big step towards beating your sugar addiction. That’s because every spike in blood sugar is followed by a crash. Eating huge meals is one thing that can certainly spike your blood sugar, and it is equally certain to result in sugar cravings shortly afterward.
Toss out sugar and sugary foods:
Empty the cookie jar, throw out bags of white sugar, fruit juices, and snacks containing hi-fructose corn syrup.
Don’t rush things: Quitting cold turkey is rarely a good idea.
You can make your journey to a sugar-free life much more comfortable by gradually reducing your sugar consumption. You can start by cutting in half the amount of sugar that you eat. Try it for a week and then reduce the amounts again. After 2-3 weeks you should find that you have almost eliminated sugar from your diet.
Curb sugar-hungry Candida with yeast-fighting herbs:
Candida albicans is a type of yeast that is naturally present in everyone’s digestive tract, and because it is yeast it needs sugar in order to grow. Intense craving for sugar is a warning sign that Candida levels in your digestive tract have become excessive and need to be brought under control. Dr. Gatza says one of the most effective and efficient ways to curb yeast growth is a natural anti-yeast/anti-fungal herbal extract from New Zealand’s horopito plant — available to U.S. consumers as Kolorex. The extract attacks and kills yeast colonies and allows beneficial intestinal bacteria to flourish — drastically reducing cravings for sugar and refined carbs.
ABOUT DR. JULIE GATZA, DC, Co-founder of the Florida Wellness Institute
Health educator Dr. Julie Gatza is one of the nation’s top chiropractic physicians with more than 30 years of clinical practice during which she assisted thousands of patients resolve a wide variety of physical ailments. Using her understanding of the nervous system, nutrition, and alternative therapies, Dr. Gatza’s mission with each patient is to enhance their body’s own potential to heal itself. Dr. Gatza regularly lectures and educates audiences on how to maintain optimum health with a focus on the role that digestion plays in maintaining a healthy immune system.
