Eat Smarter Quotes

“Research published in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology revealed that dramatic changes in blood sugar (shifting from a high blood sugar spike to an impending crash) can increase anxiety and trigger hyperactivity in the amygdala. An additional study reported that the increased activity in the amygdala reduced memory recall, lowered inhibitory control (the ability to delay or prevent acting on impulses), and increased psychological distress.”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“When our blood sugar is too low, the human body naturally responds by releasing the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline to raise it back up. But the catch is that those hormones can also lead to strong irritability. A deficiency in our nutrition inherently leads to changes in our neurotransmitters, hormones, and profound changes in our brains. Put”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“A study cited in the Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal disclosed that sitting down to a family meal helped working parents reduce the tension and strain from long hours at the office. The researchers found that, even if test subjects had major stress at work, if they could make it home in time to eat dinner with their family, their employee morale stayed high. However, as work increasingly interfered with the ability to eat dinner with their family, levels of dissatisfaction at work began to creep up.”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“What I’m really striving to communicate here is that none of the processes of metabolism can take place without the presence of water. It is truly that important. Simply drinking water provides an immediate boost to your metabolism because it makes everything work better. Millions of people who are chronically dehydrated have put themselves at a metabolic disadvantage and don’t even know it. A big part of eating smarter is to ensure you’re getting the right amount of hydration for you.”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“Some of the best sources of insoluble fiber are berries, beans, lentils, okra, spinach, cocoa, sweet potatoes, whole grains (which we’ll talk about momentarily), apples, walnuts, and almonds.”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“Insulin is triggered most aggressively when glucose is in our blood, so we generally have the biggest insulin response when we eat carbohydrates.”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“Here are a few notable things that can spark inflammation and depress the function of your liver: Alcohol overload—This is relatively well-known. Your liver is largely responsible for metabolizing alcohol, and drinking too much liquid courage can send your liver running to cry in a corner somewhere. Carbohydrate bombardment—Starches and sugar have the fastest ability to drive up blood glucose, liver glycogen, and liver fat storage (compared to their protein and fat macronutrient counterparts). Bringing in too many carbs, too often, can elicit a wildfire of fat accumulation. In fact, one of the most effective treatments for reversing NAFLD is reducing the intake of carbohydrates. A recent study conducted at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and published in the journal Cell Metabolism had overweight test subjects with high levels of liver fat reduce their ratio of carbohydrate intake (without reducing calories!). After a short two-week study period the subjects showed “rapid and dramatic” reductions of liver fat and other cardiometabolic risk factors. Too many medications—Your liver is the top doc in charge of your body’s drug metabolism. When you hear about drug side effects on commercials, they are really a direct effect of how your liver is able to handle them. The goal is to work on your lifestyle factors so that you can be on as few medications as possible along with the help of your physician. Your liver will do its best to support you either way, but it will definitely feel happier without the additional burden. Too many supplements—There are several wonderful supplements that can be helpful for your health, but becoming an overzealous natural pill-popper might not be good for you either. In a program funded by the National Institutes of Health, it was found that liver injuries linked to supplement use jumped from 7 percent to 20 percent of all medication/supplement-induced injuries in just a ten-year time span. Again, this is not to say that the right supplements can’t be great for you. This merely points to the fact that your liver is also responsible for metabolism of all of the supplements you take as well. And popping a couple dozen different supplements each day can be a lot for your liver to handle. Plus, the supplement industry is largely unregulated, and the additives, fillers, and other questionable ingredients could add to the burden. Do your homework on where you get your supplements from, avoid taking too many, and focus on food first to meet your nutritional needs. Toxicants—According to researchers at the University of Louisville, more than 300 environmental chemicals, mostly pesticides, have been linked to fatty liver disease. Your liver is largely responsible for handling the weight of the toxicants (most of them newly invented) that we’re exposed to in our world today. Pesticides are inherently meant to be deadly, but just to small organisms (like pests), though it seems to be missed that you are actually made of small organisms, too (bacteria”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“Insulin and glucagon both take a proactive job to man the doors of the cellular theater to allow fat in or out. Insulin opens the front doors to the theater to allow fat in. Glucagon opens the exit doors to allow fat out. They hold the keys. And nobody is going anywhere without them. And”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“Fat is able to exit your cells primarily through the actions of three enzymes called hormone sensitive lipase (HSL), monoglyceride lipase (MGL), and adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL). Each of these enzymes are like little ushers that help move fat out of your cellular theater after the show is over. Again, without them, the fat would just stay seated in the cell taking up space. Now, the head usher responsible for the mobilization of free fatty acids from adipose tissue (i.e., lipolysis) is considered to be HSL. It’s more easily acted upon by hormones we can influence (thus the name hormone-sensitive), so, for our enzymatic fat loss communication, that’s where we’re going to put our focus. HSL is an intracellular lipase that has broad substrate specificity (meaning it can break down all kinds of fat). If you watched the cartoon Scooby-Doo when you were younger, you probably remember a time or twenty that someone in the crew had a “skeleton key” that was able to unlock any random door they wanted to get into. While other enzymes are like specialized keys that can break down one type of fat, HSL is like a skeleton key that can open the door to break down many types of fat.”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“Combinations of different foods, macronutrients, and fiber (which costs calories to process, too) will influence how much energy is required to digest the meal and what your net caloric profit actually is.”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“Proteins may require as much as ten to twenty times more energy to digest than fats because our enzymes must unravel the tightly wound strings of amino acids from which proteins are built. Yet food labels do not account for this expenditure.”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“It’s generally accepted that protein takes the most energy to digest, with approximately 20 to 30 percent of total calories in the protein going into digesting it. Approximately 5 to 10 percent of the calories in carbohydrates are used just to digest it, and the caloric energy used to digest fats is usually in the range of 0 to 3 percent. Again, it’s vital to understand that it costs calories to absorb calories. This is called the thermic effect of food. As a quick example, say you eat 100 calories of protein. Your body will require 20 to 30 of those calories (right off the bat) just to digest and absorb it. In actuality, you’re only receiving 70 to 80 calories from the 100 calories you consumed.”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“But this is the essential thing to understand: Your body’s use of fuel works on a hierarchy. It will go for glucose first, then glycogen, and only then will it proactively go through the work of breaking down deposited fat to use it for fuel.”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“the number of fat cells in your body will remain relatively constant throughout your lifetime. You can cut calories, you can exercise, you can try to fight your fat cells into submission. But that doesn’t mean they’re going anywhere. Genetically, you have a certain number of fat cells in your cards, and “gaining fat” primarily means packing more stuff into those fat cells. It’s generally”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“Generally speaking, the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn during activity and at rest.”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life

“20 ounces of 100 percent pure orange juice, is not far behind with 56 grams of sugar (for a whopping 14 teaspoons!).”
― Shawn Stevenson, Eat Smarter: Use the Power of Food to Reboot Your Metabolism, Upgrade Your Brain, and Transform Your Life