Nutrition: 8 Rules to follow when it comes to making health food choices:
1. Focus on first 3-4 ingredients when reading labels: When reading a label, if the first 3-4 ingredients are enriched flour, sugar or high fructose corn syrup, don’t buy it.
2. Avoid refined sugar at all cost: White sugar and high fructose corn syrup have no nutritional value.
3. Avoid corn (for 10 weeks): Corn is what they feed pigs and cattle to fatten them up, AND, if they can make a syrup form corn, that tells you something!
4. Avoid white flour or enriched flour: These are empty calories with little-to-no nutritional value. Avoid it at all cost.
5. Count sugar grams: If something has more than 6 grams of sugar in a serving, don’t eat it.
6. Don’t be fooled by advertisers: Many food items like cereal, cereal bars and yogurt are advertised as healthy food choices, but in reality they aren’t. Too much sugar!
7. Don’t let fat-free fool you: If it says fat-free, they most likely added more sugar to make up for the loss of taste. Exceptions: cheeses and sour cream. Choose fat-free on these since no extra sugar is added when the fat is taken out.
8. Drink low-fat or skim milk: Whole milk has loads of saturated fat. Look at the sugar count on all milks; they can have up to 11 grams of sugar or more per serving. If you’re trying to lose weight, keep milk to a minimum until you’ve reached your goal.