Sugar is the devil

So over these last 2 weeks, I've become convinced that sugar is my mortal enemy. I've always known it has an addictive nature, but I never wanted to believe it because I love it so much (doesn't sound like an addiction at all...riiiiight). Here's what I've realized: My body and mind are completely addicted to sugar and sugar alternatives via processed foods like most other Americans. Overall--I am composed of sugar and fake sugar. (That's why I'm so sweet, eh? Don't know why I went Canadian on ya.)

I've battled with healthy weight maintenance, cravings, will power, and a bottomless-pit stomach all my life and have always wondered why. So consider this a little experiment to see if a lifelong consumption of products including added sugar can lead to the above problems. How am I going to do this? By cutting down my sugar intake tremendously. Come along for the ride...

Just a little fact before we get started: I don't add real sugar to anything. nada. zip. When I add sugar, it's Splenda. But let's not lie...sugar alternatives are not the best idea either. There are a lot of opinions and studies out there disagreeing on whether or not sugar alternatives are bad for you. When it comes to maintaining a healthy weight or trying to lose weight, the problem with sugar alternatives is that they are sweeter than regular sugar. Your body ends up craving sweets more often. Yes they don't have any calories, but they aren't natural so your body considers them toxins and has to just get rid of them. Like I said, a lot of controversy out there on this topic, so go search for yourself. When it comes to sugar alternatives, I've found the best reports on Stevia and mixed, but mostly positive, reports on Splenda. My experiment is an attempt to lower my sugar intake and diminish my cravings so I'm cutting out fake sugar as much as possible.

Here's a rule of thumb for limits of added sugar (not including fresh fruits and vegetables) based on a report using American Heart Association data:

men should consume less than 36g of added sugar per day

women should consume less than 20g of added sugar per day

children should consume less than 12g of added sugar per day

This is much harder than you think if you eat a lot of packaged foods. Some things have upwards of 40g of sugar in one serving!! It's nuts.

So I've decided to start by not consuming more than 30g per day because my busy schedule encourages me to eat a lot of packaged foods. Once I've realized I can do that comfortably, I'll cut it down by 5 or 10g.

My experiment started with a trip to the grocery store (ruh-roh!) It's amazing what you notice when you look at the ingredients and grams of sugar for every packaged food you touch. I'm not kidding when I say low-fat, low-sugar, or other "healthy" products are devils in disguise. Here's the real problem--they (this infamous "they" of which no one ever knows exactly who "they" are) puts sugar in EVERYTHING. Then you look at the ingredients and see all kinds of names you can't pronounce, it's most likely the devil in disguise. Here is a good list of names of sugars listed on the Ingredients part of the nutrition label of packaged foods from Dietriffic. If you are interested in eating less sugar alternatives also, be sure to look for other words too including, but not limited to, aspartame, splenda, saccharin, and neotame.

Next week, my post will be a diary tracking my first week of "sugar is the devil". Here is a preview of how day 1 went...

"Day 1--mayyyyyyyyyyybe successful.

So my calculations put me right at 30g for the day. The hardest part was the coffee-to-tea switch. I can drink green tea without Splenda, but I can't drink coffee without Splenda. What I didn't realize is how much I depend on coffee mentally. It has been a part of my daily routine for years. At least I can get my caffeine with green tea so that I don't turn into a de-caffeinated monster. I like the tast, but it's not my coffee. Freakin mental addiction. My first big battle will be transferring the positive associations my brain makes with coffee to green tea (and to not get tired for no reason by noon, which totally happened today). As far as other drinks go, I don't really drink juices and I really only drink diet soda with Jack Daniels, which is not common at all either."