Is an Apple a Day Really Good for Your Health?

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Everyone has heard the old adage, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” But is it really true? Is an apple a day actually good for your health? Let’s find out.

A medium sized apple has only 95 calories and is loaded with restorative
phytonutrients. A recent European study found that those eating more than an apple
a day cut their risk of colon cancer in half. Not only that, an apple can teach us how
to better understand our hunger cues.

Most of us have had the experience of digging into a high calorie snack even though
we weren’t hungry. The high fat, high salt, and high sugar stuff goes down easy. Since junk food bypasses our satiety cues, we keep on eating, whether we are hungry or not.

However, unlike junk food, an apple triggers natural hunger awareness:

  • First, if you aren’t hungry, an apple doesn’t sound so good. Do you think food scientists are designing products that someone eats only when they’re hungry?”
  • However, if you are hungry, an apple sounds great.
  • And then, when eating an apple, the mix of fiber and nutrients triggers our satiety mechanism so that even after just 100 calories, we feel fuller.

An apple can also tell you how tuned-in you are to your appetite system. If an apple never sounds good, the chances are you aren’t tuned in at all, because your system has crashed from an addiction to fat, sugar, and salt.

So how does the apple diet work? Bring an apple to work and place it on your desk. If you have an urge for one of the donuts in the break room, look at your apple and ask, “Am I hungry, or not? If not, skip the donut. If you are, eat the apple.”

It might sound crazy, but honestly, asking myself if I’m hungry enough to eat an apple really has helped me identify when I’m having good hunger cravings vs just bored hunger cravings.

What do you think? Could this trick help you?

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