Health threat of sugar is vastly underestimated

New Advent calendar ‘stocked’ with a personal review of the year in 24 + 1 pictures, concealed behind the calendar doors.

The Advent calendar with own pictures of the best moments in vibrant colours

Even snapshots from mobile phones offer happy surprises in this type of photo calendar.

Many who like to make a loved one happy with an Advent calendar, will have wondered how to prepare a modern ‘zero-carb’ version of the traditional Advent calendar? Photo Advent calendars, where personal memories recorded in pictures, replace the calorie bombs, which traditionally hide behind the 24 doors, are an exciting alternative to chocolate Advent calendars. Zero-calorie calendars have a growing fan base in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The Advent gift for people who have pictures of their favourite events

The photo calendar is the ideal Advent gift for people who have captured beautiful moments in pictures, and love to share with friends or relatives. The 'zero-carb' gift from the photo enthusiast is now, in addition to the A4 format, also available in the larger A3 size, with room for bigger prints.  

A review of the year’s most beautiful events as a gift for Advent!

A delight for the true love or sweetheart, for families and those who are close. This new photo calendars for Advent is the perfect present, to put friends in a festive mood. The picture calendar can provide a little joy every Advent day anew, with a picture or a memory of a shared moment.

Half the classic Advent calendar is made up of sugar - and

"the health threat of sugar is vastly underestimated,"

this is what US researchers say in a study, published in the journal “Obesity”. The lead author Prof. Robert Lustig, a paediatric endocrinologist says that this is evidence that “a calorie is not a calorie".

To this day, we celebrate traditional festivals such as Easter, Advent and Christmas like our Ancestors did: with an abundance of food, that you could call gluttony. Unlike previous generations, the modern European has few opportunities to burn-off the resulting accumulation of fat, contributing to the obesity epidemic. The consumer urgently needs help, to develop strategies to eliminate large amounts of calories from his or her daily consumption. Replacing a chocolate calendar with a photo Advent calendar, reduces the calorie consumption in the run up to Christmas by about a 1,000 kcal - a welcome contribution for better health!  

Artificial sweeteners are fattening over time

Artificial sweeteners, even though they do not contain sugar, nonetheless have a direct effect on the body’s ability to utilize glucose. Glucose intolerance ... is the first step on the path to metabolic syndrome and adult-onset diabetes. [Source: Better-Health-Post]

To make an Advent calendar with own pictures, it takes 25 digital images in landscape format. Smartphone snapshots are often very suitable for this product, too. The website’s text tools allow to write words, wishes or vouchers, to be hidden behind the Advent calendar’s little doors. On the photo lab’s website, for example in the UK http://fotoinsight.co.uk/photo-calendars/chocolate-advent-calendars.html or Ireland  http://fotoinsight.ie/calendars/chocolate-advent-calendars.html , the images can be uploaded and assigned easily, to order the photo calendar print.

 

 

NEW Photo Advent calendar A3 (42x29,7 cm)

RRP UK £9.99 + p&p / Ireland €10.99 + p&p

Photo Advent calendar A4 (35x24 cm)

RRP UK £7.49 + p&p / Ireland €8.99 + p&p

Material: Extra strong cardboard with a silk matte coating (300g/m²); scratch resistant and cleanable.

Processing time according to the supplier: Six working days

How to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way!

Following a diet will make you think of food all day.

Any diet which excludes entire food groups (e.g. meat, carbohydrates etc.) is a bad idea, at any age. Anyway, diets and counting calories make you think of food all day, apart from the fact that for the human metabolism not all calories are equal. Not helpful. To lose weight in a sustainable way better follow a few simple ASSSS rules:

 - Have a comprehensive breakfast with foods that take time to digest (e.g. egg, wholemeal bread, sausages or an egg, but eat fruit, too).

- If you get hungry during the day, then eat, but avoid high-carb snacks! You can even eat some nuts or heavy stuff like cheese, but don’t eat them in the evening (they add pounds).

- When you eat, eat consciously! That means: sit down at a table and concentrate on the food. Don’t eat while watching television or while playing on a computer etc.

 

- Chew every bite at least 38 times.

 

- Eat little in the afternoon, avoid eating at night.

 

- Avoid everything that is sweet, because sweet things make you hungry. The exclusion also covers artificial sweeteners (farmers use artificial sweeteners to fatten pigs).

 

- Avoid light carbo-hydrates (pizza, pasta, chips, ketchup) and avoid all snacks.

 

- No sweet drinks, either.

 

- Drink lots of water (that fills your stomach and slows down your digestion).

 

- Eat raw fruit and vegetables (raw food takes longer to digest).

- Add cinnamon to your meals to burn belly fat!

 

- Less processed foods (e.g. wholemeal sourdough bread) are preferable over more processed foods (e.g. white toast).

 

- Avoid all alcoholic beverages (they have many calories).

 

- Built exercise into your daily life: walk up the stairs instead of taking the lift, practise some press ups in front of the telly, … ideally you should also practise some endurance sport (with activities lasting over 45min), like cycle touring, nordic walking, swimming or zumba.

 

- Avoid busses and cars. Walk instead or travel by bike.

You will feel great, not only because you will lose weight, but also because you will do more exercise and eat a quality diet. This will have a positive impact on intestinal flora, which will help against cravings.

Why low-calorie sugar substitutes cause weight gain over time

German farmers have used artificial sweeteners in pig fattening for decades. It was always assumed that the sweet taste increases appetite and therefore calorie intake. The researchers Dr. Eran Elinav of the Immunology Department and Prof. Eran Segal of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics Department of the Weizmann Institute published their test results in the scientific journal ‘Nature’, suggesting that the fattening effects of artificial sweeteners are much worse! Artificial sweeteners are affecting gut bacteria in a way that is contributing to the obesity and diabetes epidemic.

Prof. Segal: “The results of our experiments highlight the importance of personalized medicine and nutrition to our overall health. We believe that an integrated analysis of individualized ‘big data’ from our genome, microbiome and dietary habits could transform our ability to understand how foods and nutritional supplements affect a person’s health and risk of disease.”

Artificial sweeteners, even though they do not contain sugar, nonetheless have a direct effect on the body’s ability to utilize glucose. Glucose intolerance – generally thought to occur when the body cannot cope with large amounts of sugar in the diet – is the first step on the path to metabolic syndrome and adult-onset diabetes.

Source: Weizmann Institute 

I actively avoid sweeteners!