Sweet enough! Managing the sugars in your diet
You have a 'sweet tooth' and crave sugary things. OK, it's not a weakness, it's genetic ie you can blame it on your parents*. However, sadly the consequences of this are entirely your responsibility. If you are struggling with your weight, then you need a sugar [reduction] strategy, and that is also critically important for a good HealthSpan and Alzheimer's avoidance. A high sugar diet means blood sugar spikes after eating which leads to insulin resistance [lots of metabolic issues] and fat storage. You choose.
All about sugar
It's not just how much sugar you have in your diet that matters, which sugar is critical, too. Not all sugars are equal in the impact they have on your waistline and your metabolism.
What we know as 'sugar' in drinks and snacks may be sucrose, glucose, fructose or in many processed products, High Fructose Corn Syrup [HCFS] . Sweets and desserts are the foods that you think have sugars in them but ultraprocessed foods [UPF's] commonly have hidden sugar content, even peanut butter unless you check if it is sugar free. [see here https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/20-foods-with-high-fructose-corn-syrup for more about HFCS].
Fructose is a particular problem because it is a high-octane sugar, highly potent and metabolised differently from the other sugars we are exposed to.
Sucrose is the sugar you buy in a bag [chemically it's one molecule of glucose bound to one molecule of fructose]. We can burn up glucose, readily, but fructose is metabolised by a different route.
This different pathway means it passes from the gut directly into the liver where it is turned into fat stores [think your muffin or beer belly].
Fructose is super powerful: one molecule of fructose is 40 times more potent than one molecule of glucose, so this is another reason to avoid it - well unless you are a Sumo wrestler or want to look like one! Cutting out fizzy drinks, fruit juices and high sugar cakes and desserts can make big contribution to fat loss.
When you take sugar onboard its better if it is wrapped up in some proper food that uses up energy when being digested; Ideally a 'complex carbohydrate' like a whole grain or a piece of fruit or a root vegetable like a carrot or beetroot. Its not cool at all if it's neat sugar out of a bowl or fruit juice [neat sugar in a coloured drink].
Artificial sweeteners
Don't use any of these. They destroy the good bacteria in your gut [your microbiome]. If you can't get enough sweetness in your diet by eating some root vegetables and some whole fruit then go for tiny amounts of brown rice syrup which is glucose and glucose related molecules.
The key messages are:
- Earn your carbs - we ONLY need to raise our blood sugar when we have just done significant exercise; rarely at any other time.
- For preference when you eat carbs, use slow release carbs, eg whole-wheat grains, root vegetables or modest portions of whole fruit. Or better still, just more greens, protein and fat. Fat in particular is a great source of energy and interestingly, fat that is eaten can be kept available for energy easily and rarely gets stored as body fat.
- Avoid fructose or HFCS.
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