Introduction

DROP 7 SUGARS, LOSE 10 POUNDS, JUST 2 WEEKS

Think about sugar’s place in all our happy memories, from birthday cakes to Halloween candy to after-school treats. Maybe there were sundaes with your grandparents or big boxes of candy at the movies with your friends. Boy, have times changed! It’s hard to feel the same way about sugar now, but its hold over us is just as strong as it ever was.

Sugar is everywhere! It’s nearly impossible to avoid, even though we know it’s bad for us. But what if I told you I could give you a simple way to change the way you look at sugar and an easy plan to reduce it in your diet without feeling like you’re being deprived? You’d jump at the chance, right? Cutting back on sugar is the secret to fast fat loss, breaking weight loss plateaus, reducing inflammation, balancing hormones, and improving mood and sleep more than any other change to diet or lifestyle. And it’s not as hard as you think!

NOT ALL SUGARS ARE CREATED EQUAL

The key is understanding this one thing: not all sugar is created equal! It’s the impact of sugar that matters. Sugar Impact (SI) is the very reason I’ve declared sugar—especially hidden sugars, which I’ll describe in this book—Public Enemy #1. The high Sugar Impact of the 7 foods I’m going to share with you is the single biggest culprit when it comes to hijacking your weight and health.

High-impact sugars create dramatic spikes in your blood sugar and insulin response, and take aim at your weight, your skin, and your insides. Low-impact sugars are the key to a nice, steady stream of energy that fuels your body and eliminates the daily siege of sugar spikes and crashes.

I’ve helped hundreds of thousands of people overcome the vise grip of sugar, and I can help you, too. I can promise you amazing results if you follow the recipes and meal plans in this book. The revolutionary program I’ve created is a game changer. It’s an easy to follow, step-by-step process that weans you off the foods with the highest and most damaging sugars—those with the highest Sugar Impact—so that you can lose weight, drop fat, and improve your health fast, all while satisfying your sweet tooth, and without the trauma of withdrawal or deprivation. By making simple sugar swaps for just 2 weeks, you’ll heal your body and transform your life forever.

FROM YOUR GENES TO YOUR JEANS

Our love affair with sugar begins in the womb. We’re genetically hardwired to want food that’s sweet; every cell in our body needs the sugar glucose to function. So we can’t—and shouldn’t—cut it out entirely. But the line between what we want and what we need has become so blurred that our sugar consumption has gotten out of control. The average American eats more than 22 teaspoons a day. A day!

That’s a far cry from how our ancestors ate. They gorged on fruit when it was ripe, and honey if they were lucky, to store energy. It wasn’t often, and that was as sweet as it got. But when high-fructose corn syrup was introduced in the 1970s, our food got sweeter, which only increased our desire for sugar. It also happened to be the beginning of the war on fat, and when fat came out of food, so did the taste. Sugar was poured back in to compensate, and because high-fructose corn syrup was cheap, it was used in just about everything. Suddenly, eating low fat meant eating high sugar—and we were all being dosed with it.

By 2000, the average American was consuming a jaw-dropping 150 pounds of sugar a year (up from 5 pounds in 1900), with about 61 of those pounds coming from high-fructose corn syrup.

Even though we don’t eat as much straight table sugar as we used to, we still don’t always know how much sugar we’re consuming. We’re increasing the amount we eat by about 1% every year, which is faster than the world’s population is growing. Many people come to me when they’re at their wits’ end—they’ve already cut out sweets, they use “healthy” substitutes like honey or maple syrup as sweeteners, they add fruit to their whole-grain cereal. They power through the day with low-calorie snack bars and live on salads and diet sodas. Of course, no one can live like that for long, and when they veer off course they beat themselves up for their lack of willpower. And after all that, they’re still fighting weight gain, fatigue, cravings, mood swings, health issues like joint pain and insulin resistance, and maybe even diabetes. No wonder they’re frustrated!

RESET YOUR SWEET TOOTH—IN JUST 2 WEEKS!

If you’re eating healthy but you just can’t drop that stubborn weight (maybe you’re even gaining weight), here’s your answer. The problem is that many diets people think of as healthy are loaded with hidden sugars. Sneaky sugars hide in surprising places—including foods you think are safe: whole foods, diet foods, fruit, enhanced waters, dressings… even sugar substitutes. Even when you’re hypervigilant, it’s hard to know all the places they take cover or how to avoid them. All told, there are more than 50 names for sugar!

But whether you’re on the Sugar Impact Diet or you’re just getting started, this cookbook is your low–Sugar Impact road map for easy, fun, delicious recipes that deliver benefits to your weight and health faster than you thought possible.

The recipes in this book make going low Sugar Impact so simple! They eliminate high–Sugar Impact foods for you and still serve up delicious, straightforward meals that are fun to make and eliminate your cravings.

You may have trouble picking your favorite out of the 150 scrumptious recipes, but rest assured, you’ll never feel that you’re missing anything or being deprived. These recipes help you enjoy taking control of your Sugar Impact, and just to be sure, they leave plenty of room for you to swap foods to your heart’s content.

Plus, if you’ve ever been on a diet and felt paralyzed wondering whether you can do the program if you have diabetes or insulin resistance, or as a vegetarian or paleo dieter, the answer is—yes! I’ve created meal plans for all those scenarios and more and included them in this cookbook. In addition to the meal plan for the basic Sugar Impact Diet, I’ve given you 3-week meal plans for managing your blood sugar, gastrointestinal healing, and for vegetarians and vegans, as well as Paleo followers.

You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to keep the weight off no matter where you are or what your eating style is.

People who’ve followed the Sugar Impact Diet had amazing results—most lost 10 pounds in just 2 weeks! And they feel better than they have in years—symptoms we’re all told to believe are the normal signs of aging, like bloating, exhaustion, and joint pain, simply disappeared.

You can see results like this, too! You’ll be surprised at how easy it is. I’ll show you how to eliminate the hidden sugars holding your health and your waistline hostage from these 7 food groups:

Grains

Roots

Packaged Fruit

Low- and No-Fat Dairy and Diet Foods

Sugary Drinks

Sauces, Dressings, and Condiments

Sweeteners and Added Sugar

Dropping your Sugar Impact in these 7 categories resets and retrains your taste buds. You’ll key back into the subtle sweetness of nature’s treats and set yourself up to join my clients in losing up to 10 pounds in just 2 weeks—which is great news, since studies show that when you lose weight fast, you keep it off.

THE SUGAR IMPACT DIET BLUEPRINT

The strategic, step-by-step approach of the Sugar Impact Diet ensures your success by moving you through the program at your own speed, in tune with how your body responds to the changes in your diet. You have to know where you are when you start. Then you’ll gently remove high-impact sugars, shift from being a sugar burner to a fat burner, and emerge on the other side, ready to chart your maintenance path forward.

Simply put, the journey to low–Sugar Impact freedom is guided by the 4Ts—Test, Taper, Transition, Transformed! In just 2 weeks, you’ll drop up to 10 pounds and no longer wonder what it feels like to be bursting with energy and feeling better than ever.

Cycle 1: TAPER

Take the Sneaky Sugar Inventory to identify how much sugar you are actually eating.

Take the Sugar Impact Quiz to identify the impact sugar is having on you.

Trade your high-SI foods for medium-SI foods.

Take your starting weight and measurements.

Start the day with a Sugar Impact Shake.

Focus on following the portions of the Sugar Impact Plate and eating by the Sugar Impact Clock.

Cycle 2: TRANSITION

Trade your medium-SI foods for low-SI foods and avoid any low-SI foods that are asterisked (i.e., most fruit).

Hide or toss the medium- and high-SI foods.

Start the day with a Sugar Impact Shake.

Take the Sugar Impact Quiz weekly.

Take your weight and measurements weekly.

Check in with the Sugar Impact Quiz at the 2-week mark to determine if you should stay in Cycle 2 or shift into Cycle 3.

Cycle 3: TRANSFORMED!

Swap 3 or 4 low-SI servings for medium-SI servings; 1 or 2 of these servings should be from fruit.

Have one high-SI serving at the end of the week.

Weigh, measure, and retest at the end of the week. Decide if you can stay in Cycle 3 or need to return to Cycle 2.

Once a year, repeat Cycles 1 and 2 to ensure you’re retaining your sugar sensitivity and to bust any plateaus. You should also do Cycles 1 and 2 again if you “fall off the wagon.”

At first, your success on the Sugar Impact Diet will be about how much weight you lose, but that’s just the beginning. In time you’ll see the gift it delivers in helping you stay at your goal weight forever. Most programs yank the sugar and then leave you without a path forward—and you usually end up right back where you started.

When you complete this program, Cycle 3 will be your guide to staying sugar sensitive for life. I still encourage you to redo Cycles 1 and 2 once a year, especially if you want to push yourself toward a new goal, but whether or not you do, you’ll have 150 simple, delicious recipes to help you chart your course. They put you in complete control of your weight, energy, and health—whether you’re eating at home or out, you’re paleo or vegetarian, you’re feeding a family on a budget or dealing with personal conditions like leaky gut or insulin resistance.

This book is organized to make the best use of your precious time—and to help you easily customize the Sugar Impact Diet for your lifestyle.

Part I is an explanation of Sugar Impact and what lowering it will mean to your weight, your health, and your life. Part II gets right to the good stuff with all the tasty recipes, and the meal plans in Part III make living your low–Sugar Impact life a no-brainer—just follow them as they’re laid out and watch all the benefits of lower Sugar Impact come your way.

You’re about to enter completely new weight loss territory. Be prepared for how quickly the changes come—and how empowering it will be to break free from the stranglehold of sugar in just 2 weeks!