Why Sugar Makes us Fatter than Fat- how to kick the habit




Do you like ending a meal with something sweet? Do you constantly battle with a craving for sugar? Do you want to stop the impulse to snack on sweets? Everyone has some kind of relation to sugar and it has a great influence on our health. Here are some facts, what to look out for and, finally, how to kick the habit.


Health experts now know that sugar is a an even greater culprit than fat in the growing problem of obesity in the developed world. Hidden sugar in processed foods (such as bread, cereal, ketchup, yogurt and ready made meals) is a contributing factor to the high sugar consumption these days.

Now that most packaged and processed foods have hidden sugars, it’s useful to know what they are and avoid them by reading the labels. All words ending in –ose, as in dextrose, fructose and glucose are all  added sugar, even to food that is already quite sweet.

This is how sugar affects you when you eat sugar from the moment you put it into your mouth.

1. As you chew…
The sugar is mixed with the bacteria always present in the mouth. The result is a kind of acid that starts breaking down the protective enamel of your teeth. Sticky sweets are the worst (such as caramel, toffee, or things like marshmallows) as they adhere to the teeth. Chewing these sweets makes the sugar stick even harder to the teeth.

2.  Into the stomach.
It takes about 15 minutes for the digestive system to start breaking down the sweet food. Here, it differentiates between glucose, the most common energy source of the brain and the rest of the body, and fructose, also known as fruit sugar. Both glucose and fructose are converted to fat when there is a surplus. A surplus of glucose influences the levels of insulin in the body in a negative way, while a high amount of fructose is connected to high levels of triglycerides, which is a form of fat that settles around internal organs and around the waist, a common picture in overweight people and diabetics. (That said, I'd like to point out that fresh fruit is excellent food. It's only when the fructose is concentrated and put into processed products that it's bad)

3. Through the bloodstream .
After 30 minutes, the level of glucose is at its highest. The pancreas is working on overdrive to produce insulin while the liver is doing its best to convert fructose into fat.

4. What happens in the brain.
The insulin gives signals to the brain to make sure that the absorption of glucose is high. During the next two hours, you will feel energetic and your mood changes. You will feel happy. The brain needs glucose to function at a high level and produces drug-like feel-good hormones called dopamine and serotonin. On top of that, you get a sugar high that increases the pleasurable feelings.

5. Into every cell in your body.
After two hours, the body will have converted the sugar to energy and the surplus will be stored as fat. This is when the insulin levels start to diminish and your mood is affected negatively. You’ll feel tired and lot less happy. Your body will start giving you signals that it wants more sugar and if you reach out for that bag of sweets/candy/bar of chocolates/Danish, the whole cycle will start all over again.

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Generally, it's receommended that women should not eat more than about 50 grams of sugar per day and a man 56 grams. Translated into sugar cubes, that means a maximum of 15 cubes for a woman and 20 for a man.

Don’t you feel virtuous when you skip the sugar in your coffee and say no to the Danish and have a smoothie instead? Wrong!  200mils of a smoothie contains a minimum of 4 cubes of sugar, often more. The same amount of ice cream contains the equivalent of 6 cubes of sugar . Only 100 grams of boiled sweets (candy) contain a whopping 13 cubes of sugar. A can of coca cola, 8 cubes,  a spoon of marmalade, 4 cubes, 100 grams of chocolate, 13 cubes and so on and so on. Beware of products labelled ‘light’, they might be low in fat but are often very high in sugar. But there is no fat, I hear you say. Yes, but remember that sugar gets into the fat stores a lot faster than actual fat and it also has that addictive quality, creating  a kind of vicious cycle that is hard to stop. All the sugars I mentioned are added to the hidden dextrose, glucose, fructose, etc that we find in bread, cereals and other ready made foods, so it is very easy to clock up an astonishing amount in one day, if you are not careful.

How to kick the habit.

Now that you understand the bad effects of sugar to your weight and general health, it’s important to also understand that sugar is very addictive and then do your best to avoid it. It doesn't take long to get used to eating less sugar if you have enough motivation. It’s hard in the beginning but after a while, you’ll get so used to less sugar in your diet, you won’t even want it.

1. Understand yourself
By this, I mean take a look at why you are so addicted to sweet things and why you find such comfort in them. It could be that you turn to sugary things when you are sad, lonely, stressed, tired, frustrated, even angry. Delve into those areas in your life and take the decision not to  turn to food but to do something else to feel happier, such as meeting friends, watching a movie, reading a book or a magazine, listening to your favourite music.

2. Say goodbye to bad foods.
Do away with all the things that contribute to your sugar cravings. Make up a food diary, where you write down exactly what you eat. Then try to ditch all those fast food/refined/sugary things like cakes, cookies, fizzy drinks, ice cream, jam, white bread and every modified starch product you can find.

Clear out your cupboards and get rid of all sugars and those foods that hide it, like white bread, pre-cooked and tinned foods. Sugar can hide in tinned mackerel, frozen berries, ketchup, soy sauce,  chips/crisps, mixed nuts, pasta, fruit juice, fruit yogurt, canned drinks and many breakfast cereals. Read the labels make sure there is no such thing as one of those ‘-ose’ ingredients.

3. Eat complex carbs, fruit and vegetables.
If you start the day with whole-wheat bread, muesli and fruit, you will also make sure that your blood sugar stays on an even keel and you won’t feel that craving for a quick fix any more. Add some snacks between meals in the form of more fruit or nuts and you’ll feel so much better and will have more energy.

4. Move around more.
A brisk daily walk is a great way to detox and help your body get rid of stored fat and toxins. Take it one day at a time and don’t beat yourself up if you fall off the wagon from time to time.

5. Eat foods that will stop the cravings. Here is a number of foods that can help reduce your need for sugar.

Eggs
Chicken
Fish
Shellfish
Yogurt (unsweetened)
Olive oil
Cheese

Good carbohydrates:

Lettuce
Carrots
Cabbage
Peas
Onions
Tomatoes
Beans/pulses
Paprika
Avocado
Berries
Whole rice
Bulgur
Quinoa

Remember not to skip meals and to have some kind of healthy snack mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

Finally

If you feel that life is not worth living without sweets, allow yourself one day a week when you can eat something you love. This way, it might be easier to stay away from it for the rest of the week.

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