(From the archives; Originally posted Feb 2010)

As a holistic nutrition practitioner who competes as a natural women’s figure bodybuilding athlete nationally, you see a lot of athletes & professionals telling their clients to use all sorts of calorie-free, fat-free or sugar-free processed food items for caloric reduction as a weight management technique.

As someone whose suffered from serious illness such as chronic fatigue & been healed naturally through holistic nutrition when medical doctors failed my health & body, I can promise you these foods actually limit the potential of your body & health to be at it’s best.

What is in, and what is not in your foods, that your body needs or doesn’t need, is determining your quality of health daily. The problem is most people don’t know have the knowledge of what their internal body systems are doing daily, or what they require to be well & function optimally.

While balancing energy in verses energy out does matter, it’s not quite that simple. Producing your best fat loss through energy is about clearing the path so your body can function at it’s best resting metabolic rate. Part of this is removing chemicals you challenge your immune system with that slow it down, and these include chemicals food in sugar-free foods.

Some of the top coaches & fitness professionals still recommend all sorts of metabolically destructive results-stealing foods even on a fat loss path like sucralose pumped drinks & topping, post workout sugar filled treats like pop tarts, slathering every food in digestion-disrupting sugar-free foods. It’s pretty mind-blowing with as far ahead we are as an industry in fitness, we’re still so far behind in nutritional advise even with some of the top fitness professionals as an industry. e3 Energy Evolved™ Rule: Just because what you ingest doesn’t carry a calorie energetically, doesn’t mean it doesn’t disrupt your body energetically.

Damian, Co-Creator of e3 Energy Evolved™ & my husband, lost 7 lbs in just under 2 weeks in 2008 when we made the decision to remove all sucralose / Splenda products from our bodies together as part of my natural healing work to eliminate my metabolic damage and auto immune illness successfully with no medications. Not to mention the quality of our health of BOTH our bodies has entered into homeostasis which is essentially completely balanced & functioning in wellness, with no health issues, since we removed these forms of chemicals and toxins from our bodies.

What is best for the inside of your body will always matter more than what appears to be best for the outside of your body, and this approach will always create better results than just taking a basic nutrition approach that has been referred to in the industry to as ‘clean eating’ known around gyms, fitness, The Biggest Loser type shows, and various publications, and yet is not clean eating if you asked your body what IT thinks. ;-)

 e3 Energy Evolved™ Rule: Just because what you ingest doesn’t carry a calorie energetically, doesn’t mean it doesn’t disrupt your body energetically. ~ Heather Dube’, Creator e3 Energy Evolved™

If you aren’t using an holistic nutrition approach that takes into account what feeds the internal body systems for optimal function & avoids health conditions such as cancer coming on in your lifetime, etc. than you’re missing out on the opportunity to…

• be healthier
• avoid disease
• heal disease & health imbalances naturally – from allergies, to skin conditions, to depression, neurological problems, diabetes, digestive disorders such as IBS, acid reflux, high cholesterol, and the list goes on
• and YES to have a lean body at ANY age that blows away those using calorie, fat & sugar-free foods in their diet

Sadly I’d estimate 70-80% maybe even more of professionals as a nutrition coach, fitness coach, doctors or RD recommend calorie-free, fat-free & sugar-free products because they’re not aware of the health, fat loss & metabolic downsides.

Here are 3 Ways Calorie, Fat & Sugar-Free Foods Are Sabotaging Your Best Health & Body….

1. All of these foods are sweetened with artificial sweeteners, the biggest culprit being sucralose/Splenda. Newsflash, Splenda is not a food – it’s a chemical created by Johnson & Johnson, yes the company that makes shampoos, medicines, cleaners. Sucralose is a chlorine bleach molecule which is how these chemical companies essentially make it a calorie-free food because the GI tract will not allow that molecule to pass through the large intestine wall as a matter of your survival as it’s a dangerous toxin!! So that is how it becomes calorie-free because your body simply won’t digest it. Your liver has to purge that from your system to keep your human body safe & alive, but anytime you up your toxic load you are lowering your body’s ability to have a higher metabolic rate to be healthier, in better shape & lose weight.

2. All of these foods also have other junk chemicals in them that disrupt your internal health unfortunately…excito-toxins, neuro-toxins, chemicals, on top of the artificial sweeteners. Here it is sweet & simple…if you can’t pronounce it or it didn’t come from nature, it is of no use to your body or health as a nutrient, so all you’re doing is adding stuff into the works that slows your metabolic rate & body from functioning as it’s best, while potentially welcoming illness down the road, and disrupting your bodies key systems such as its neurological system, hormonal, etc. For example, Xantham Gum – really? Does this sound like something your body makes hair, tissue, cells & ligaments from? Not quite. :-)

3. Fat-free foods are loaded with sugars and sweeteners which weigh down your immune system & metabolic rate, while ratcheting up your daily carbohydrate intake typically way over the % that your body needs to function, therefore storing extra kcal on the body & making weight loss harder. What many don’t understand is fat is most key macro-nutrient for optimal brain, body, cellular, neurological and overall health function, as well as hormone production – the key is getting the right fats, in the right amounts, at the right times based on your individual health & body needs & goals – most people are fat phobics & it’s leading to many health imbalances from neurological disorders, to depression, to miscarriages, to skin disorders, etc. and YES weight problems. If you remove a key nutrient from your food intake that the body needs to survive, you are wrongly cuing your body that it’s not going to get ample levels of fat, so as a survival response it will slow down your RMR (resting metabolic rate) & begin to store fat & food on your body as a defense mechanism so you’re not getting as lean as you could be if you were approaching fat as a nutrient in a healthy manner.

BONUS TIP – all of these foods components disrupt & delay your digestive processes, and anytime you disrupt your digestion you’re getting less of a lean body than you could be naturally & easily, as well as welcoming in health problems.

No matter what any “expert” tells you, fake chemical filled calorie-free foods that people use for weight management don’t come with a “free pass” — they actually delay your best health, fat loss, metabolic performance and welcome the risk of other health imbalances.

It’s why our country has ever-growing cancer rates, thyroid problems, allergies, skin issues, headaches, and so on. Your quality of health begins and ends on the inside of your body & no calorie-free, fat-free or sugar-free foods will ever circumvent the nutrient-driven truths & principles by which the human body functions.

Work to remove artificial or toxic sweeteners, and move towards natural sweeteners that are safe. Some examples are stevia, xylitol, fructose, raw honey, agave, maple syrup, & rice syrup.

But be mindful— you still want to choose natural sweeteners with a low glycemic load & low calories most often, such as stevia, as the alternative will lead to needless calories and immune-suppressive properties, which still can lead to health issues if taken in too frequently or in too large amounts.

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In energy for improved natural health, fat loss & fitness,

Husband & wife “athlete, coach, practitioner, teacher, writer, natural human body freedom” team

Creators of the e3 Energy Evolved™ System
www.e3EnergyEvolved.com

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Natural Metabolic Recovery & Conditioning Specialists

Creators of the e3 Energy Evolved System