Saying No To Sugar

If you’ve been trying to lose weight and live a healthier life, here is a pearl of wisdom for you” just say no to sugar”.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, sugar has found its way into almost everything we eat. It is hiding in healthy foods like organic granola, fruit filled yogurts, catsup, bread and salad dressings. It’s not only in the obvious foods as desserts, candies and sodas. It is disguising itself sometimes as high fructose corn syrup, cane syrup or other sweeteners. If that’s not bad enough, sugar helps stimulate dopamine in the brain which makes it very addicting so you want to eat more.

How can you empower yourself to resist sugar? Arm yourself with knowledge. Allow me to shed some light on important information you need to know about carbohydrates.

Basically, sugar is absorbed into your bloodstream and insulin converts it to some energy and a lot of body fat. Excess sugar intake also causes blood sugar spikes which makes you hungrier and craving more sugar. It’s a vicious cycle.

Historically, our bodies needed this excess body fat in times of famine. Unfortunately for most civilized countries, famines no longer exist. Therefore, what we do have this a lot of unhealthy people in all shapes and sizes or consuming too much sugar contributing to health problems like diabetes, heart disease, obesity related cancers and obesity itself.

I hope you will decide to become more informed about sugars and to reduce or eliminate sugars from your diet. Whatever you choose, it must be a conscious effort.

Tips for cutting added sugar:

• Obtain your carbohydrates from natural sources like non-starchy vegetables.
• Travel with an ice chest and fill it with things like cheese sticks, apples, Greek yogurt, lunch meats and vegetable slices.
• Treat fruits like dessert and eat in moderation.
• Keep food intake from boxes, cans and jars to a minimum. Always read labels for hidden sugars.
• Check out the YouTube video called “ sugar is killing us” it is animated but very enlightening, only three minutes long.

Keep healthy,
Dr. Padla