Imagine going into a restaurant and ordering a plateful of glue and a cup of crushed glass.  This sounds like an awful meal, right?  Well, as ridiculous as it sounds to eat glue or drink glass that's essentially what we're doing every time we eat large quantities of saturated fats or refined sugar.

            When people say it's bad to eat things like cheeseburgers or fried chicken it isn't just because these foods contain fat, or that fat is inherently bad for you, but because of the kind of fat.  Saturated fat, which is found in most animal products like meat or dairy, has a tendency to be a solid in our blood vessels.  While this may not seem like such a big deal at first, when you consider how small our veins and arteries are you start to realize just how easy it can be to clog these tiny little passageways.  Because saturated fats stay solid in the blood they tend to build up along the walls of the blood vessels, which may cause high blood pressure, blood clotting, and other even worse health risks.

            As for refined sugars, like those found in soda or candy, they can potentially be just as harmful.  As refined sugar makes its way through the blood stream, its rough edges can tear away at the lining of our blood vessels.  When this happens the blood vessel begins to scab where it has been cut, much in the same way a cut on your finger does.  If the blood vessel keeps getting damaged from all the sharp refined sugar rushing through it, the scabs can eventually become large enough to obstruct the flow of blood.  The clots can also break away from the wall of the blood vessel and flow to other parts of the body such as the brain or the heart, potentially causing a stroke or a heart attack.

            So next time you go out to eat consider ordering water instead of a soda, or the grilled chicken sandwich instead of the fried chicken strips.  This isn't to say you have to completely give up cheeseburgers and soda entirely or right away.  Changing old habits can be difficult, but it's time to weigh the risks of ignoring our wellbeing and continuing a lifestyle that is dangerous to our health. (Matthew is currently a student in the Lexington Healing Arts Academy personal training educational program. He is doing his internship at Fitness Plus.)