Is sugar sabotaging your weight loss success?
Are you struggling with energy? Can’t shift the weight?
Then it could be that sugar is sabotaging your diet efforts. Even if you are not on a diet and suffer with mood swings, energy dips, water retention, fuzzy head making a small but controversial change to your diet could make all the difference.
Since 1990 sugar consumption in the UK has increased by 31%! But we are buying fewer bags of sugar. So where is it all coming from?
Well since we were told that fat was bad for us and the food industry went all loopy for low fat foods we’ve seen an increase in our sugar consumption. The reason? When fat is removed from food it’s tasteless. Imagine the difference between a roast potato and a boiled one. If you’re anything like me, you’d prefer your boiled potatoes with some butter on! So since the reduction in fats, we’ve seen a huge increase in sugar in all manner of foods. From crisps, to soups, to cereals, to savoury sauces. You’ll probably find sugar in dried fruits, meat pies, sausages and mustards too. There are few manufactured foods that won’t have the touch of the the sugar fairy at some point.
I even saw in an article this week that Slim Fast drinks are made up of over 60% sugars. It’s no wonder the diet industry is unsuccessful at meeting it’s clients needs.
And there’s the rub. Because we needed to add so much sugar to our low fat, processed foods the food manufacturers needed to find a way to make that process cheaper. Welcome to the stage high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners. Both ingredients so very sweet and addictive and bad for our health that is has been linked to the rapid rise in obesity. Of course it’s not just obesity, but diabetes, cancers and heart disease too from being over weight and over sweet.
So what’s the answer? Surely we are programmed for sweetness? Yes we are and we have a sweet taste bud so that would suggest that sweet foods are part of our make up. But the overly sweet foods we’ve become addicted to does need to change. By cutting back on adding sugar to drinks, cereals (does anyone still do that?!) and reducing the sugar in your home made cooking will all help. Choosing full fat foods rather than manufactured low fat ones will give you taste, energy and appetite control that sugar won’t do.
To get sweetness more healthily choose fresh fruit, dried fruit, organic honey, unsweetened fruit preserves, home baked goods with 1/3 less sugar than the recipe suggests and 70% dark chocolate.
To find out more register for our free “Winning at Losing – Fast Fat Loss Formula” seminar on
Tuesday 16 April at Cantley Lodge in Wokingham Eventbrite – Winning at Losing – The FAST Fat Loss Formula
Thursday 18 April at Bracknell Leisure Centre Eventbrite – Winning at Losing – The FAST Fat Loss Formula
To keep you going until then, here’s a wonderful granola recipe that’s great for breakfast or as a natural yogurt (full fat of course!) topper. Enjoy!