Sugar, You're Surrounded, Come Out With Your Hands Up!

SUGAR...sounds innocent enough, the instant something sweet touches your tongue, your taste buds direct-message your brain: deee-lish. Your noggin's reward system ignites, unleashing dopamine.  And dopamine makes you feel good, so geez,  lets have another candy bar because you know what, I deserve it and it’ll make me feel better.  Or maybe your nervous and that sugary snack will get your mind off your problems.  Sounds like a nice treat, a reward even, a way to show yourself or someone that hey, nice job, a pat on the back, well done sir!  And well, it can be, but not the way we are inundating ourselves and our children with it.  The typical American now swallows the equivalent of 22 sugar cubes (88 grams) every 24 hours!  That means the average woman eats 70 pounds—nearly half her weight—of straight sugar every year.  It’s not just a concern for men and women, it’s a major concern for our children and it’s causing an epidemic...an obesity epidemic.   

So, just why is sugar killing us?  Few of us are consuming sugar in recommended moderate amounts and most of us are eating tons of it. In fact, worldwide we are consuming about 500 extra calories a day from sugar. That’s just about what you would need to consume if you wanted to gain a pound a week! 

I recently watched the documentary “Fed Up” and wow, some of the stats they throw out just blew my mind:

·         In 1990, obese adults made up less than 15 percent of the population in most U.S. states. By 2010, 36 states had obesity rates of 25 percent or higher, and 12 of those had obesity rates of 30 percent or higher.

·         Roughly two out of three U.S. adults are overweight or obese (69 percent) and one out of three is obese (36 percent).

·         The prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents is on the rise, and youth are becoming overweight and obese at earlier ages. One out of six children and adolescents ages 2 to 19 are obese and one out of three are overweight or obese. Early obesity not only increases the likelihood of adult obesity, it also increases the risk of heart disease in adulthood, as well as the prevalence of weight-related risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar.

·         Cases of obesity and Type-II diabetes among children, for whom early-onset diabetes was virtually unknown just a few years ago. Is trending upward.  And if current rates continue, by 2050, one in three Americans will have diabetes.

·         This generation of children is the first generation of children to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

Now how could such a delicious food cause such unearthly problems?   Because we are eating WAY TOO MUCH OF IT.  And really it’s not completely our fault.  It is extremely difficult to limit sugar intake if you’re going to the grocery store to buy groceries.  Yeah, that’s not a typo.  It’s been researched by a UNC Nutrition professor, Barry Popkin, Ph.D., who has spanned the globe with his teachings that 80% of the 600,000 food products sold have added sugar.  Not naturally occurring sugar, but sugar which has been added as an inessential ingredient. 

In 2009 the American Heart Association lowered the sugar intake per daily allowance to 6 teaspoons (6 cubes of sugar/24 grams) a day for women and 9 teaspoons (9 cubes of sugar/36 grams) a day for men.  Now go ahead and look at that coke or Pepsi can sitting in the fridge.   Yeah, about 39 grams of sugar in that 12 oz can of chemicals.  There goes your daily allowance and some of tomorrows too. 

But, why is it worse FOR YOU than ANY OTHER ingredient in food?  OK, so a little technical talk here...for one, Sugar has NO essential nutrients in it.  That’s where the term ‘empty calories’ comes from.   There are no proteins, essential fats, vitamins or minerals in sugar.  Two, the human body is not made to consume excessive amounts of sugar.  It is actually a hepatotoxin and is metabolized directly into fat – factors that can cause a whole host of problems that can have far-reaching effects on your health as shown in the stats above. 

So, with 80% of the foods sold, how can we be expected to limit our sugar intake to what the American Heart Association suggests?  EAT CLEAN!  This is entirely my nutrition plan for BeachBody and what I teach all my challengers to have SUCCESS in their endeavor to lose weight.

If you have been following me and my BeachBody journey, you know that nutrition has always been a struggle for me and the real struggle with nutrition is SUGAR!!  It has been 4 1/2 weeks of following my clean eating program with minimal treats and I feel amazing.  The best part is that I can see my body reacting in a positive way to staying away from the added sugar and processed foods.

Interested in my next challenge group "Project Me" starting on Monday, June 13th?  Fill out the below application for more information about the challenge group!!

Fill out my online form.

The easy to use Wufoo form builder helps you make forms easy, fast, and fun.

My next blog will focus on lessons learned from “Fed Up”, where our food is sabotaging us and why everything TV ads, magazines and other media outlets are telling us how to lose weight is completely wrong.