Kicking Sugar with James Goolnik
Hello our beautiful friends! Today we have a very special guest, an award-winning dentist James Goolnik BDS MSc. James is on a mission to help modern society kick sugar habits and redefine the understanding of food rewards. Recently James presented Kick Sugar cookbook, aiming to encourage people to take 14-day sugar challenge to help reduce sugar in their diet and regain the taste buds. Tune in now and discover the incredible benefits of a sugar-free lifestyle.
James is married with three children and recently launched The Rewards Project, a charity dedicated to transforming the rewards culture. His goal is to change the way we reward ourselves and our children with sugar for healthier alternatives. Following simple sugar-free guidelines and advice, James assures that it’s actually possible to remove sugar from our diet, reboot our health and experience instant benefits to our and our children’s wellbeing.
“Sugar is not about our teeth; it’s about our health, and therefore about the diet.” – James Goolnik
Having worked in the same practice for over 17 years, James has witnessed how sugar damages teeth on a daily basis. In this episode, the leading UK dentist explains that sugar does more damage to our bodies than we can realise – it affects our decisions, daily actions and emotions. Since childhood, we tend to treat sugar as a reward. If we feed ourselves with good real food since young and expand ourselves to various flavours and palates, we will have constant energy and won’t perceive food as something to reward ourselves with.
We need to take a step back and look carefully into our habits and emotions, acknowledging why we crave sugar, James advises. Sugar frequency is the main problem our society is dealing with. We have sugar too many times a day, and every time we have it, sugar releases an organic chemical dopamine that boosts our happiness. The more we have of it, the more we get used to it.
“Sugar is all about self-awareness. So, next time, before you have another bite of a chocolate cake, think if you are actually hungry, do you actually want food or is it just a habit. If you understand it is a habit and you want to get yourself out of it, then take a closer look at your emotional connection to food. There are lots of healthier and happier ways to reward ourselves and kids – meditation, walk, journal, book, sticker or just some me-time.” – James Goolnik
Kick Sugar book not only explains the history of sugar addiction, what sugar does to your body and where sugar hides in food; it also prepares you for 14-day sugar withdrawal challenge. With the help of leading nutritionist Jenny Philipps and two chefs, Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi, James has complied sugar-free healthy recipes.
Kick Sugar isn't a diet book, it’s a helpful guide on how to change your behaviour, control your environment and reduce the sugar intake. Cooking the food in these recipes will remind you that cooking is actually easy and fun, and it will re-awaken the flavours of real food and drinks. 100% of the profits from this book will go to the charity Rewards Project, helping to shift our mindset on food rewarding.
“Make a commitment to go through the sugar challenge, make a change, think about how you reward yourself and your kids, understand what your body is feeling and fuel it with the best food to give you the best results.” – James Goolnik
Hope you enjoyed this week’s episode with James, you can find out more about him and Kick Sugar here:
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Produced by Jason Sanderson - Podcast Tech
Show notes by Veronica Joce
