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Let’s Focus on Fructose

March 23, 2018/0 Comments/by Ritualize

Employee Engagement, Employee health, Exercise, Health, Health and Wellbeing

We have all heard of exercise is important and that a sedentary lifestyle has been linked to diseases. Recent evidence has shown that an active lifestyle can increase your life by up to 9 years. The World Health Organisation offer guidelines on physical activity which are detailed below but first it helps understand a little […]

March 21, 2018/0 Comments/by Ritualize

Nutrition

Let’s Focus on Fructose

March 23, 2018/0 Comments/by Ritualize

Employee Engagement, Employee health, Exercise, Health, Health and Wellbeing

Activate your Genes

March 21, 2018/0 Comments/by Ritualize

Nutrition

Let’s Focus on Fructose

Fructose – or ‘fruit sugar’ is found not only in fruit but also in small amounts in some vegetables, table sugar and honey. Fructose is a hot topic in the media and with good reason. We’re eating way too much of it and our bodies are not designed to cope with these large quantities. However, there are a lot of fad diets and opinions on how to manage our fructose consumption, which can be confusing. We’re here to give you sound information on this highly talked about sugar

The only fructose in the diet of our caveman ancestors was in the limited supply of honey, berries and other seasonal fruits. Today, the majority of our fructose consumption doesn’t come from fruit. It comes from the processed, convenience foods we have at our fingertips. Things like breakfast cereals, yogurt, soft-drinks, sports drinks, cakes, sweets, biscuits, store-bought pasta sauce and tomato sauce (and that’s just scratching the surface). It’s hard to avoid!

The association between sugar, obesity and disease is supported by the high intakes of sugar which health surveys are indicating. Whether fructose is the cause of this or just one of the factors of lifestyle choice, is debatable. However, it’s certainly not helping and that is something that can’t be argued.

So, what’s the issue with fructose?

To start with, a small amount of fructose is metabolised in the liver and is eventually stored as liver glycogen for energy, which is great if you’re very active. The problem is, most of us aren’t having a small amount so the liver ends up converting it to fat.

Not only do high levels of fructose lead to the synthesis of fat, they also fail to stimulate the hormone Leptin, which is responsible for sending messages to the brain that we’ve eaten enough and feel full. This means eating a high fructose diet can lead to overeating because, despite the amount we’re consuming, we don’t feel full and will end up overeating.

What about whole fruit?

With the media focus on fructose, many fad diets and so-called ‘experts’ have demonised fruit due to the fructose they contain. It’s important not to mistake low levels of fructose as the problem as it’s high levels that the liver can’t handle. Unless your body has problems absorbing fructose, eating 1-2 whole, fresh fruit each day is an important source of fibre, vitamins and minerals the body needs.

Does that include fruit juice?

So many of us grew up starting the day with a glass of orange juice and many are now offering the same to their kids under the guise of it being healthy. A glass of juice may offer vitamins, but through processing the fruit to juice, the majority of fibre is extracted and what you are left with is a glass of fructose. With its high levels of fructose, fruit juice is a treat food. Smoothies use the whole fruit, so are a better source of fruit than juicing. Many people now process the whole fruit with a bit of water to enjoy a glass of juice.

Which foods contain the highest and lowest amounts of fructose?

A good source of guidance on the foods that are highest and lowest in fructose can be found at this site: www.food-intolerance-network.com. As this site points out, however, some foods that are high in fructose can generally be tolerated better than others, partly due to the amount of glucose and other nutrients it is combined with.

March 23, 2018/0 Comments/by Ritualize

Employee Engagement, Employee health, Exercise, Health, Health and Wellbeing

Activate your Genes

We have all heard of exercise is important and that a sedentary lifestyle has been linked to diseases. Recent evidence has shown that an active lifestyle can increase your life by up to 9 years.

The World Health Organisation offer guidelines on physical activity which are detailed below but first it helps understand a little about the evolution of our species in order to understand why the way we move (as opposed to just doing any exercise at all) is so important.

Click here or scroll down to view the infographic

The way genes adapt to a changing environment is to mutate. Our species, ‘homo’ has been around for about two million years, with modern humans (homo sapiens) existing for around 200,000 years. The last significant gene that mutated (called the M168), occurred 45,000 to 50,000 years ago!

Since that time, there have been a few mutations, such as those to allow us to digest grains and dairy, but all in all, our genome hasn’t changed. However, our environment has changed (but we haven’t adapted to it).

Our ancestors moved a lot – today, however, many of us work in offices, call centres and due to our increasingly sedentary lifestyle, we move a lot less.

Steps

To be in line with our hunter-gatherer predecessors, we would need to take between 18,000 and 22,000. In fact, the average Australian and British office worker take just 3,000 to 5,000 steps per day. This is a significant shortfall and our health is suffering as a result.

Exercise is a powerful driver of gene expression and the famous American researcher and cardiologist Frank Booth once said,

‘We know of no single intervention with greater promise than physical exercise to reduce the risk of virtually all chronic diseases simultaneously’.

Incidental exercise

However, before you bring up lack of time to get to the gym, it’s important to understand that physical activity does not just mean an hour of sport/gym so many times a week or hitting a high step count. Both the global and Australian guidelines recommend those 18-64 years od:

Be active each day
Accumulate 15–300 minutes of moderate intensity each week
Accumulate 75-150 minutes of vigorous intensity a week
OR an equivalent of both moderate and vigorous
Do muscle strengthening activities at least 2 days each week

So, what does all this mean? Many of us are relying on 10,000 steps each day for health benefits, so where does that fit in with the recommendations? And what does ‘be active everyday’ look like for you?

To simplify things, we have created rituals around ‘Active Minutes’ to minimise the gap between 10k steps and vigorous exercise. We show you the reduction you achieve to your BioAge from movement in the shape of the ‘Active Minutes Ritual’ (this encompasses steps, movement snacks and high/moderate intensity activity) rather than relying on calculating your activity themselves.

A few ideas to help you increase your active minutes:

At a minimum, take 10,000 steps per day (or 70,000 a week). A great way to keep track is with a device such as a Fitbit, Garmin or Jawbone Up.
Introduce quick bursts of movement throughout the day (what we like to call Movement Snacks). Use TV advert breaks to do squats, push-ups or 30-second sprints.
Do three to five workouts per week – ideally a combination of vigorous activity and strength sessions. If you don’t view yourself as a ‘workout person’ don’t worry, workouts can be short and sharp and can be completed anywhere without equipment – our timed Ritualize workout videos are a great start!
Don’t sit for prolonged periods, as this along is a risk for chronic disease. Ensure you get up and move a little every 30 minutes or so.

What’s your personal target?

See how many active minutes you need to hit to reduce your BioAge each day by clicking Active Minutes on your Ritual Board and you’ll find it at the top of the page (on both app and desktop). What’s important for many people is you don’t need to be going to the gym for an hour every day to gain benefits of physical activity – all movement counts!

March 21, 2018/0 Comments/by Ritualize

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Let’s Focus on Fructose

Activate your Genes

Let’s Focus on Fructose

Activate your Genes

Let’s Focus on Fructose

So, what’s the issue with fructose?

What about whole fruit?

Does that include fruit juice?

Which foods contain the highest and lowest amounts of fructose?

Activate your Genes

Steps

Incidental exercise

A few ideas to help you increase your active minutes:

What’s your personal target?

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