Sugar. It’s something you need to avoid. But, what’s really so bad about sugar? And, how much sugar is acceptable?

Truth About Sugar - Jane Mukami.fwA Primer On Glucose

The first thing to realize is that all carbohydrate rich foods will be broken down eventually into glucose, which is another name for sugar.  It’s this glucose that supplies energy for all your body’s cells. Doesn’t seem so bad, right?

The problem is that some foods convert much more quickly to sugar in the body (or worse, enter the body as pure sugar) than others do.  When this happens, they will spike blood sugar levels, which then triggers the release of a hormone called insulin from your pancreas, which then rapidly removes all this sugar out of the blood stream.

Where does it take the sugar? To your body fat stores or fat cells. The faster you get that rise in blood sugar, the more likely you are to gain body fat…you literally gain weight every time your glucose spikes drastically.

Instead, when you eat foods that break down more slowly in the body, they don’t produce this spike in blood sugar and as such, simply deliver slow, usable energy to the cells over time. It is therefore important to eat slow digesting foods that will not spike your blood sugar.

So while all foods will eventually end up a sugar, it’s how they get to that state that really matters in terms of whether or not you gain weight.

Other Issues Related To Sugar

In addition to potential weight gain, other problems with sugar include:

  • Increased risk of tooth decay
  • Low energy levels (after a temporary energy high)
  • Increased risk of diabetes
  • Increased risk of heart disease
  • Increased risk of nutritional deficiencies (as foods rich in sugar often contain little nutritional value)

As you can see, eating a high sugar diet is simply not a desirable move if your health is important to you.

Sources Of Sugar To Know

Remember that sugar comes in more forms than just the table sugar you sprinkle on your cereal.  Sugar is everywhere, yes including the sugar in fruits, in tomato pastes, and many other items we buy from the store.  Start reading food labels to find out where it lurks.

Here are just a few of the common sources of sugar and the amount included:

  • Yogurt – 10-25 grams of sugar depending on the brand and flavor. Always chose plain or vanilla.
  • 1 cup of Mango – 23g of sugar depending on how ripe – a bar of chocolate has about 26g go sugar
  • 1 cup of juice – 29 grams of sugar more than a bar of chocolate

Ideally you should aim to get no more than 10% of your total calorie intake from sugar with the average daily consumption being about 35-45%

Pay more attention to hidden sugar, stay away from the obvious sources and remember, the less sutra you eat, the quicker the weight will melt off.

What is you like sweet, what do you do? Then take stevia

Stevia unlike other sugar substitutes, stevia is derived from a plant.

Stevia has no calories, and it is 200 times sweeter than sugar in the same concentration and doesn’t raise blood sugar levels like sugar and other artificial sweeteners do.

According to a 2017 article in the Journal of Medicinal Food, such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension.

My preferred type of stevia is in liquid form and 2 to 3 drops can sweeten a cup of coffee or tea. The bottle lasts about 3 to 4 months and is the healthiest, most natural and safest sugar in the world.

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