August 24, 2008
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Healthy Thoughts/Healthy Actions
Weight Watchers Newsletter #20
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 Hi Everyone!
Well the festival is over...phew! So now my brain can go back to full time Weight Watchering and Life Coaching. I know many of you came to the festival and either volunteered (thank you a 1000 times!), or came as customers (thank you 1000 times, as well). And those of you who did not, it was quite a busy, crazy, dusty, wild weekend and all I can say is...YAY! I get my life back.
This issue I decided to focus on sugar substitutes, as I found a new one on the market that looks quite good, so thought it might be interesting to explore the different kinds out there and the pros and cons.
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Meeting Topics: Late August
Early September
This week we are talking about our Comfort Zones: how to recognize them and have them be an essential part of our weight loss journey.
And the first week of September we will be exploring the idea of keeping our weight off for good!! I know many of you feel fairly confident you can lose weight but the keeping it off part seems improbable, if not downright impossible. Let's explore what can be done to make it happen!
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RECIPES FOR THIS ISSUE
Below I am introducing a sweetener I just found and am pretty excited about. Here are a couple of recipes from their website. They both sounded so interesting and yummy I had to put them both in. Let me know what you think!
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 Pickled Beets
2 lbs beets
1 cup ZSweet
1/2 cup white vinegar
3 sticks cinnamon
Instructions:
1) peel and slice beets
2) place into pot beets, ZSweet and vinegar.
3) add water 1/2 inch above beets
4) boil at low heat 45 minutes
5) cool down and refrigerate
This is a nice summer side dish-
Goes great in salads!
0 pts and this is a Core recipe
 Pumpkin Muffins
Ingredients:
1 ½ cup all-purpose flour (whole wheat or kamut work well too)
1 ¼ tsp. baking powder
1 15 oz. can pumpkin
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 ½ tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 cup ZSweet
¼ cup brown sugar
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Put paper muffin cups in a 12 muffin pan.
Whisk together flour and baking powder in a small bowl.
Mix
together pumpkin, oil, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, ZSweet, brown sugar,
baking soda and salt together in a large bowl until smooth. Fold in
flour mixture until just combined.
Divide batter among muffin cups
Bake until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean, 25-30 minutes.
Cool in pan on a rack for 5 minutes and then remove them from the pan and cool on rack.
2 pts each!
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Sugar Substitutes
 I am always getting asked about sugar substitutes and their safety. So I finally went on line and found out some very interesting information which I will share with all of you.
First of all, what was really interesting to me is the information coming out now that using artificial sweeteners can actually add to the problem of obesity! When I first heard this several months ago I thought it was some sort of propoganda put out by the sugar companies, but here is the logic. Certain data indicates that the body learns to predict caloric intake by
the taste and texture of certain foods. When artificial sweeteners are
introduced into the mix, our body sends the appropriate sweet signals
to the brain but never delivers the sugar punch, hence our cravings are never really satisfied and we want more sugar. Yipes!
Now here is the skinny (ooh clever pun...) on the various artificial sweeteners, and then some alternative natural sweetners.
Saccharin (Sweet n Low) Although many years ago it was thought that saccharin caused bladder cancer, studies have not proven this to be true. However, it is found that some people can have allergic reactions to it, such as breathing difficulties, headaches and diarrhea.
Aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal, Sugar Twin) has also gotten a bad rap over the years, but does not hold up to the criticisms in scientific data, and seems to be completely safe. But like Saccharin, it has been shown to cause headaches, depression, bloating, nausea, and has been linked to fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis and lupus.
Sucralose (Splenda) is the new kid on the block, and has proven to be quite popular and safe. However, the down side of it is that although chemically it has a structure like sugar, it was actually discovered while trying to create a new pesticide! It is made by treating sugar with trityl
chloride, acetic anhydride, hydrogen chlorine, thionyl chloride, and methanol in
the presence of dimethylformamide, 4-methylmorpholine, toluene, methyl isobutyl
ketone, acetic acid. I can't pronounce those words, so am not sure I want to ingest them!
Acesulfame K and Neotame are both sweeteners which are somewhat secretly added to foods and although they have been FDA approved they have not been thoroughly tested and are still unknowns. They contain methyl chloride, which is a known carcinogen.
So here are some alternatives to the non-nutritive sweeteners listed above. These sweeteners have some nutritional value, as opposed to the ones above, and can generally be found in health food or better markets such as Olivers, Pacific, etc.
STEVIA: This South American plant is referred to as the "sweet herb". It is substantially sweeter than sugar and can be found as both a powder and a liquid, and even comes as flavored (vanilla for example). It has no calories, and is much sweeter than sugar, which presents measuring challenges. Also it has a flavor which some people do not like, but it is becoming quite popular.
XYLITOL: I have been promoting this sweetener for quite awhile. It is from the family of sugar alcohols that include Sorbitol, Manitol and Maltitol. Xylitol looks, feels, tastes and reproduces exactly like sugar, and dentists have been prescribing it for years as an aid to tooth decay, as it is a natural bacterial inhibitor in the mouth! It does have calories, although half of sugar, and it can cause some diarrhea in certain individuals.
And now read below for the sweetener I have just found!
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Product Recommendation
Zsweet
This sweetener is made from a natural forming sugar called Erithritol. Unlike some of the other "tols" on the market, it passes through our system unchanged, so does not affect our intestinal tract the way others might do. It is 0 on the glycemic index, has no calories, has no artificial ingredients or processing, is organic and has the look, feel, taste and exact same qualities as sugar. I tried it for the first time yesterday and it was delicious!
www.zsweet.com
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For Your Information..
Life Coaching
Besides being a Weight Watcher leader, I am a certified Life Coach specializing in weight managment issues. You may be coming to meetings, knowing full well what you should be doing, but not doing it. Would you like to understand why? Life Coaching goes far beyond Weight Watchers and explores what goes on deep inside that keeps us from seeing our dreams become reality.
Lifecoaching also addresses any manner of life change. Would you like to change career? Is your relationship causing pain? My goal is take you from a place of hardship and sadness to resonance and joy.
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"The power of imagination makes us infinite"
Lots of love and joy to all of you!
- Janet Ciel
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