How could I say such a thing? Sugar makes soda sweet, coffee worth drinking, and is in literally every sweet treat or baked good you crave when you're on your period. Imagine this; you're making cookies.. and you skip out on the sugar. Enjoy your chocolate chip biscuits. Which by the way will be hard and dry without the presence of sugar. Sugar adds moisture to baked goods. It locks onto the water molecules and keeps your cookies, scones, and cakes soft and moist (Why do people hate that word again?). Anyway, without sugar, you wouldn't have ice cream, donuts, macaroons, bagels, alcohol, oh and forget any drink EVER that isn't water or seltzer. Sugar makes our taste buds happy, it makes us excited to eat. How could this be a bad thing?
Well... sugar is addicting. Actually, sugar is just as addicting to our bodies as cocaine. We feel our bodies needing it throughout the day, and we add it to food and drinks just because we're used to our food tasting sweet. I want to clear something up really quick as well, sugar has multiple identities. High fructose corn syrup, sucralose, sucrose, glucose, honey, agave, etc... are all forms of sugar. But not all sugar is created equal. They all have different effects on our bodies. Some better than others, but mostly bad. You see there's this thing called a glycemic index, also known as GI. The GI measures the rate our liver metabolizes these sugars. The higher the GI, the faster we metabolize the sugar, and this is what causes spikes in our blood pressure. When our liver is flooded with fructose, it has to act fast to be efficient. So what our liver decides to do is turn that sugar into fat and store it in our bodies ( mainly the midsection area) for later. That's right, sugar = fat. People trying to lose weight or eat healthier often grab fat-free foods. I mean it sounds effective, right? Less fat in your food, less fat in your body. But that's where you're being tricked. Because fat-free foods taste, well.. bland.. these manufacturers add sugar to them to make them taste better. So you can get skim milk in your latte, but you're not doing your body a favor. You're actually increasing your chances of gaining fat. Skim milk contains more sugar than any other milk you can find.
Sugar is in everything, and seriously, I mean everything. Did you know that sugar is in iodized table salt? Go grab your salt. I'm not kidding, do it. My brother's girlfriend told me this one day and I said no way. But low and behold, there it was, sugar in my salt. WHY. Are they going for some sweet and salty thing?! That's what chocolate covered pretzels are for. Let me give you an example of something you're probably used to eating without even thinking about the amount of sugar in it. Let's take white rice for example. Two cups of white rice (a normal portion at any Asian restaurant) contains 90 grams of carbohydrates. These carbs break down into sugar, and 90 grams of carbs breaks down into 22 teaspoons of sugar. Want a picture?
This is the best comparison I could find so let's just say, eating a portion of white rice at a restaurant is equivalent to drinking a whole mountain dew AND some. You'd probably never guess that right? I mean rice doesn't even really taste that sweet. This is the sad truth with a lot of foods containing carbohydrates: white bread, bagels, cereal, potatoes, white flour, crackers, the list goes on and on.
Sugar might secretly be in most of the foods we consume every day, but you are not doomed. There are TONS of ways to cut sugar out of your diet, and honestly you might even feel withdrawals in the beginning. You might wake up in the middle of the night and reach for that Ben & Jerry's Half Baked pint (best flavor, hands down), but after just a week or two, I promise those cravings will begin to disappear. Let me give you some ways to cut sugar out of your diet. Eat whole grains in every way you can. Buy whole wheat flour, whole grain cereal, brown rice and whole grain bagels. Also, sweetened beverages of any kind are a huge no. Yes, that includes juice. Juice might be a "naturally sweetened" beverage, but it's still going to spike your blood pressure in the same way. And if you can, completely cut out any white flour products. Anything with the word "white" in it might as well mean sugar. I've talked about foods that have a high GI, but there are foods that have a low GI too. I am going to provide a chart to show you what foods and fruits are digested slower in your body.
This gives you an idea on what foods to eat more of, and what to stay clear from. And of course, anything in moderation is okay. So be more conscious of how much sugar is really in your diet. Check everything, you'll be surprised what ends up containing sugar, and just how much is actually in everything you're eating. A rule of thumb is to buy things that contain no more than 9 gram of sugar per serving. This is the amount the liver can metabolize without being flooded and turning all the sugar into fat. And I promise by cutting down on your sugar, you will see a difference in your weight, and you will always feel better without it.
