Did you know that sugar is everywhere in your diet?  It’s not just in candy anymore. Go look in your pantry and fridge. Check out the food labels. You’ll see that sugar is in salad dressing, pizza, soup and even in your bread!

What the heck is going on?

It’s the perfect storm that has created a health crisis.

Many years ago, a researcher named Ancel Keyes looked at heart disease in many different countries. His study was called the 22 Country Study.  The end result was that he concluded that fat was the reason that people were getting heart disease.  This one study spawned 30 years of medicine preaching no and low fat diets.

The problem is he may have been wrong.

And what manufacturers discovered was that low fat food tastes terrible.  They learned that if they added sugar, it was tasty enough that people would buy it. Unfortunately, what we now know is that fat does not convert into fat but sugar does. And those high doses of sugar we’re eating in our low fat food is what is making us fat.

Being overweight is the precursor to diabetes, heart disease and stroke.  It also causes inflammation which is the precursor for all diseases such as arthritis, cancer, and others.

Consider that at the turn of the last century, people ate about 25 pounds of sugar a year.  Today,we consume 151 pounds a year! (Haley, S. (May 2011). Sugar and Sweeteners Outlook: USDA).

The American Heart Association has created a guideline for how much extra sugar we should have in our diets.  Women should have 100 grams per day and men 150.  One gram is four teaspoons.  One gram is also 4 calories.

For example, one regular coke has 39 grams of sugar.  If you divide that by 4, you get 9.75 teaspoons of sugar.  39 grams x16=156 calories from sugar.  Guess what? The can states there are a total of 140 calories per can.  It is simply liquid sugar. Same with juices and caffeine loaded soft drinks and ice tea.  Next time you’re at the store, check it out.

Another problem with sugar sweetened beverages is that we don’t compensate for the calories.  If you know you are going to have a big celebratory dinner you may cut back during the day because you want to “save up” your calories.  Studies have shown that we don’t do that when we are drinking our sugar.  The pounds can easily creep up over a year when we consume those extra calories.

If you want to painlessly lose some weight over the course of a year, stop drinking sugar sweetened beverages. Not just soft drinks but juice, ice tea, etc.  If you really love juice, I suggest cutting it in half with water, to cut down on the sugar.

Sugar from natural sources like fruit are fine because they contain fiber to slow down the metabolism and they have vitamins and minerals that your body needs.  These other processed foods do not.

If you can think of sugar as a treat and not something to be consumed every day all day long, you will find the pounds pouring off!

If you’d like help in giving up sugar, a potentially difficult task made so much easier with some help, email me at Vicki@yourhealthystructure so we can set up a free consult.

To your good health!

Vicki

 

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