Why You Might Not Be Seeing Progress Even If You “Quit Sugar”

It’s almost a buzzword these days, “Oh yeah.  I’m quitting sugar.”  Or, “I’m off sugar right now.”

Slowly, slowly people are catching on to the fact that a high carb, low fat diet is not actually good for you. Thanks for those marketing ploys, Mr. 1970’s government.  They’re still wreaking havoc on our health in 2016, but more on that later…

Anyway, with things like coconut oil and Paleo diets getting lots of attention these days, people are starting to realize that sugar may not be so innocuous after all.

But can we take a minute and define our terms a bit?  Because I still think people are eating way more sugar than they think they are.

In the broadest sense of the word, sugar is just another word for carbohydrate.  That’s right…get some carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms together, and you have created some form of sugar.

Let’s look at an example, shall we?  Take that health halo off of the brown rice and let’s look at its chemical makeup for a second.  While brown rice does contain a bit of protein (about 5 grams per cup) and a tiny bit of fat (about 2 grams per cup), it consists predominantly of carbohydrate (51 grams per cup).  (Yes, I know 1 cup of cooked rice is quite a lot of rice, but you’d be surprised how much rice is actually underneath those stir-fried vegetables.)  Those 51 grams of carbs are composed of glucose and sucrose.  Anything ending in an “ose” is sugar. Not the end of the world.  Don’t go burying your head in the sand over this.  Just something to know.

Now let’s take a look at brown rice’s glycemic index.  The glycemic index essentially measures the effects of different foods on your blood sugar (and this is the important thing!).  The average brown rice scores a  68 on the glycemic index!  Just for the sake of comparison, a white frozen bagel gets a 72.  So, lest we don our health halos a bit too quickly, consider the fact that we’re still taxing our bodies and our insulin levels with that brown rice not all too differently than we do eating a bagel!  (A Snickers bar gets a 51, if that makes you feel even more horrified.  Yep, other junk found in Snickers bars left aside, your insulin levels are better off with the candy than with that huge helping of the oh-so-healthy brown rice.)

Now, why do we care about insulin levels so long as we’re not diabetic or borderline diabetic?  Because study after study appears to show that high insulin levels are associated with weight gain and fat storage.  Insulin is released into the bloodstream after we eat meals.  It sends nutrients to our cells and tells our cells to use glucose as energy.  This is not a terrible thing altogether, but, if you’re trying to shed some fat, it’s a whole lot harder to tap into burning fat as fuel if you’re constantly eating carbs, which your body will always prioritize.  Not to mention the fact that free radicals are produced whenever you burn carbs as fuel.  Enough said?

It’s not typically my style to be so heavy handed, harping on people about all the things they put into their mouths, but here’s the thing:  Many people truly think they’re making big strides toward a healthier life, but end up not seeing any progress, feeling confused and frustrated, and giving up.  I’ve seen it too often, and I don’t want that person to be you.

So, now that we’ve come to grips with the truth a bit and defined some terms, we can start making some actual progress toward “quitting sugar.”  Here are some of my top tips to start significantly reducing the sugar in your diet.

  

1. Recognize it for what it is, wherever it is, and however it’s named.  Call them carbs.  Call them sugar.  If it ends in an “ose,” it’s sugar!  Even be willing to recognize that “healthy” sugars affect blood sugar as well, and we can’t just go eating them willy nilly.  Too much fruit, maple syrup, or that health halo-ed organic, raw, local honey can be too much sugar.  I’m not going to put a number of grams on here that I think everyone should follow.  However, I do think that carbs should makeup about 20-30% of the average person’s diet, with the rest coming from fat and protein.  I honestly don’t know how many grams I’m eating at this point.  I do know it’s still more than it should be, but far, far less than before.  That’s the important part.
2. Get rid of sugar in places where it just doesn’t belong in the first place.  I’m talking about pizza and pasta sauces, salad dressings, ketchup, barbecue sauce, bread (the extra sugar added to the plain ol’ carbohydrate sugars), etc.  Start reading food labels, and you’ll be shocked where sugar is creeping in, particularly in foods that are supposed to be savory and not sweet!  Once you find a product that doesn’t contain sugar, I bet you’ll find you don’t even miss it.  On the very rare occasion that I eat take-out pizza (and pay dearly for it!), I often cannot get over how sweet it tastes, and how much I don’t like it anymore.
3. Decide which sugar means something to you and which just doesn’t.  I love my pizza nights with the Hubs.  It happens every Friday night, religiously.  Granted, I make it all from scratch (okay, not the sauce, which is sans-sugar, but everything else).  It’s not too uncommon for us to follow that up with some premium ice cream.  Think “Talenti” or “Haagen-daas.”  So, I plan a solid sugar splurge.  I feel zero guilt about it.  I enjoy every single last bite, and then I don’t mind subbing out a tortilla for a bed of spinach or a handful of almonds instead of my former obsessions–pretzels and animal crackers.  During the week, I still like to have some chocolate most days, but some good, dark chocolate (at least 70% cacao) is far more satisfying to me than a candy bar any day of the week.  I’m still getting a treat, but it packs less of a sugar punch than before, and I don’t miss it one bit!
4. Be mindful of your total carb intake, and then pick and choose the ones that you like the most.  Having mexican?  Like the chips more than the tortilla?  Just have the chips and guac and eat that burrito “naked.”  Enjoying some Italian and gotta have some pasta?  Consider skipping the table bread.  Eating out at a restaurant with amazing dessert?  Get that dang dessert, but enjoy a low-carb meal like meat with veggies or an entree salad.

How ’bout you?  Where have you successfully quit sugar, and what helped you get past the cravings?

(Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor.  I’m also not a scientist or a licensed nutritionist.  This is not medical advice and is not intended to replace the advice of your doctor or nutritionist.)

 

Sources:

Nutritional Breakdown for Cooked, Long-Grain Brown Rice: https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/6506?fgcd=&manu=&lfacet=&format=&count=&max=35&offset=&sort=&qlookup=brown+rice

Glycemic Index Numbers for Common Foods: http://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glycemic_index_and_glycemic_load_for_100_foods

Greenfield, Ben (2015). The Low-Carb Athlete: The Official Low-Carbohydrate Nutrition Guid for Endurance and Performance. Archangel Ink.  (You can get this really great book here.)