60 Minutes with Dietitian Suzanne Himka – Sugar, Gluten, Detoxing and More!

Suzanne Himka, fitness expert, enthusiast and Dietician joins the show and gives some really useful information about diet including: sugar, gluten and junk food. To get the most out of this interview we suggest listening to the show and subscribing in iTunes. But if you can’t listen or for some weird reason you like to read… Here are 3 of the highlights. Sugar – Sugar is 7 times more addictive than the drug cocaine and in a can of soda there are about 35-45 grams of sugar. 1 teaspoon of sugar is 4 grams, divide 45 by 4 and you get about 11 teaspoons of sugar in one soda/soft drink. The recommended intake for sugar is 6 teaspoons per day so that means with one can of soda you are consuming close to twice the recommended sugar intake. Furthermore, kids are drinking about 4 sodas per day so that means 8 times the recommended sugar intake for the day and that’s just soda, not to including anything else! Suzanne also describes how sugar affect the immune system, while your body is trying to figure out what to do with all of the sugar that’s coming in your immune system has to work very hard and it can’t pay attention to anything else leaving you wide open if there is some kind of sickness or virus. With all that being said it’s safe to assume that eating too much sugar and being sick all the time can go hand in hand. Finally, she tells us to ditch the high fructose corn syrup because it is stored as fat. If you’re going to consume sugar use it sparingly and use natural sweeteners like: Agave, Raw, Cane Sugar or Stevia (for diabetics). FUN FACT – Splenda was discovered in the lab originally as a pesticide! Gluten – Gluten is actually ok for 99% of the population however that 1% suffers from Celiac Disease which can actually lead to death! What happens when a person with Celiac Disease eats gluten? There is a weird response in the stomach where the way we absorb nutrients is turned off, so over time the body isn’t getting its nutrients and suffers from malnutrition. However, another 15% of the population is gluten insensitive which will cause a person to have headaches and feel tired all of the time. Both a person with Celiac and who are gluten insensitive should stay away from gluten. Detoxing – Suzanne tells us how the detox process works and how our bodies are naturally good at detoxing but in order for our bodies to be able to detox we need to stop adding toxins! A good way to detox for a day would be to juice. The best way to juice would be to use organic fruits and veggies because you want to make sure that there are no pesticides on the foods that will have an adverse effect on what you’re trying to do. If you can, use a juicer but a blender will work fine too. These are just 3 of the great tips I could remember! For more great info and fun listen to the entire show! In addition to dropping knowledge bombs on us in the podcast Suzanne also helps kids, families and the community stay in shape and get their diets in control. She is so much fun and if you’re looking for someone to help you she is available for hire. She does one on one coaching as well as whole family coaching from diet to exercise you can find her at her website: SuzanneHimka.com She and her husband offer Ninja style fitness camps for kids where they get to try some really cool obstacles! You can find out about that at Here: NinjaCamp We would like to thank Suzanne for bring her years of experience and energy to the show! Fun fact: Suzanne competed in an episode of American Gladiator! Please tell me you remember that show otherwise I’ll fell really old…