CHANGE #25
Drop or Reduce Added Sugar
SIMPLY PUT… Women should limit themselves to no more than six teaspoons (that’s about 24 grams, or 100 calories worth) of added sugar a day. And men, your limit is nine teaspoons (or about 36 grams—150 calories worth) daily.
Three weeks. That’s it.
Three weeks is about how long it takes to get rid of a craving. If you can commit to three weeks, you can drop your craving for sugar. If you drop your craving for sugar, you can drop a dress size or two. If you can drop a dress size or two, you can drop by your ex’s house to subtly show off the new you. If you can drop by your ex’s house… Just do me a favor and drop added sugar.
Three weeks doesn’t seem like a long time, does it? As with kicking any craving, starting is the hardest part, followed by sticking with it and then not cheating. And while I’ll admit that reducing added sugar is difficult, it’s also doable and could very well prove to be the most important and impactful of all the Changes you make.
Why is sugar so hard to break up with? Well, for one thing, candy tastes good. (Thank you, Captain Obvious!) So does chocolate. And don’t forget cake, cookies, pie, pastries, frosting, batter off the beaters, whipped cream straight from the can, mini and mighty white chocolate morsels, gummies, anything that starts with ice and ends with cream or flan. But I don’t have to tell you that all those delicacies come at a high price.
Forget about sugar leaving you overweight and toothless! Eating too much of it also makes you more susceptible to a slew of chronic illnesses ranging from diabetes to heart disease. So trimming back on the stuff is something you should have seen coming to some degree—but there’s only one problem.
It’s impossible to cut sugar out of your diet completely, since it’s found in pretty much everything you eat, whether naturally or added in as flavor. That’s why I’m asking you instead to reduce your intake.
Naturally occurring sugars—the type you find in dairy products, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains—are fine. Do some fruits and veggies have a greater impact on your blood-sugar levels than others? Yes, but the vitamins, minerals, and fiber that come with them far outweigh the amount of sugar in them. Besides, you would have to eat an obscene amount of food to have dangerous levels of sugar from any of the above. Nobody ever got a sugar high from eating too many apples.
Added sugar on the other hand—the kind they put into foods—is another story. You don’t need it, it’s addictive, and it’s one of the worst things you can put into your body. It gives you worthless empty calories that contain few to no nutrients.
To make matters worse, since most high-sugar foods also have little to no nutritional value (think about it—do you ever remember anyone talking about how rich in fiber tiramisu is?), you’re probably missing out on eating more nutrient-rich foods.
The more sugar you eat, the more addictive it becomes and the harder it is to silence your sweet tooth. But if you eat less, the opposite happens. You’ll discover that you become more accustomed to eating less—and find that smaller amount to be just as satisfying. Try it. The less sugar you use, the less you’ll want to use.
Your Plan
Because of the twenty-four Changes put in place up until this point, you’ve already made some lifestyle modifications that should be curbing your cravings for sugar. Eating lean protein in the morning, never skipping a meal, getting enough rest, and even exercise, all help minimize your desire for the sweet stuff.
But now that you’re ready to reduce your sugar intake for good, there are a few things you need to consider:
Know it by its many tricky titles. Just a few common names for added sugar to watch for (and believe me, you’ll be grateful for this list down the road):
• Barley malt
• Beet sugar
• Blackstrap molasses (great name for a band!)
• Brown sugar
• Cane juice (or sugar or crystals)
• Caramel
• Carob syrup
• Coconut sugar
• Corn sweetener
• Corn syrup
• Dextran
• Fruit juice concentrate
• High-fructose corn syrup
• Honey
• Invert sugar
• Malt sugar
• Maltodextrin
• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Raw sugar
• Rice syrup (or brown rice syrup)
• Sorghum
• Sugar molecules ending in -ose (dextrose, fructose, galactose, glucose, lactose, maltose, and sucrose)
• Syrup
• Turbinado
And that’s not even all of them! Why so many names? Because by going by more than fifty different names, sugar can hide itself wherever it wants. Annoying, right? All those names make it easier for food companies to prevent the word sugar from ever popping up at the top of the ingredient list.
Here’s how they fool you: Some foods will use smaller amounts of different types of sugar to add sweetness. Each may seem insignificant because they’re all placed low on a food label’s list of ingredients due to their individual size. But when combined, their total volume can end up making sugar the main ingredient of whatever food or beverage you’re having.
Stop drinking your sweets—and you could cut your sugars in half. According to a recent report by the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, sweetened beverages are behind 47 percent of the US population’s added sugars intake. In fact, sip down one twelve-ounce soft drink and you’ll have thrown back an average of ten teaspoons of sugar, which exceeds the daily limit of added sugar for both men and women. So stay away from sugary drinks of all kinds.
Instead of substituting—scale back. Sugar substitutes (a.k.a. artificial sweeteners) can be tempting as a great replacement for table sugar, since they don’t raise your blood sugar or trigger the release of insulin. But even though some are made from natural sources (such as stevia leaf extract) instead of synthetically (such as aspartame and saccharin), they may still cause adverse side effects.
Depending on which sweetener you reach for, it may have been shown to make medications less effective, decrease healthy gut bacteria, or slow down your metabolic rate. Moreover, it could contribute to insulin resistance, a risk factor for diabetes. The concentrated sweetness can also make you less interested in naturally sweet healthy foods and cause you to gain weight by intensifying your cravings for sugar and/or making you feel as if you can eat more and not gain weight because you’re eating something with low to no sugar content.
Tips and Tricks
Whether you’re looking for smarter ways to feed your sweet needs or wish you had more advice on how to keep sugar at bay, these tips can make lowering your sugar fix a much smoother process.
Know where secretive sugar likes to hide. You already know the obvious places, but don’t ignore the not-so-obvious places. Just a few sneaky spots you will find a lot more sugar than you might expect include:
• Baked beans
• Barbecue sauce
• Coleslaw
• Dried fruit
• Flavored yogurt
• Granola
• Instant oatmeal
• Jellies and jams
• Ketchup
• Protein bars
• Salad dressing
• Spaghetti sauce
• Sweet pickle relish
• Tomato soup
Mix something sweet with something unsweetened. The same trick I suggested a few chapters back, of mixing fruit juice with water, also works with sugary foods. If you have to indulge, get creative blending things together, like making a half-and-half mix of no-sugar BBQ sauce and regular sauce, plain yogurt with sweetened yogurt, or chopped tomatoes and plain tomatoes with bottled pasta sauce. As you get used to the taste, start changing the ratio by adding less of the sugary stuff.
Find what’s behind your craving. For many, reaching for sugary things is less about taste and more about seeking comfort or a reward. Before you nibble on sweets, ask yourself why you’re doing it. If you’re feeling sad, anxious, or proud, you could be feeding that emotion instead of eating for taste.
Pick your meat wisely. Even though beef, eggs, fish, and pork are naturally sugar free, anything that’s marinated, cured, flavored, or processed (lunch meats, for example) may contain surprising amounts of sugar.
Don’t always believe the package. Seeing “Without Added Sugars” or “No Added Sugar” on a food’s package only means no sugar was added during processing. It still may contain significant amounts of sugar or be sweetened with fruit juice concentrate (which contains natural sugar).
If you can’t go cold turkey—then dial back to start. Again, sugar is an addiction. But if cutting all the way back to twenty-four or thirty-six grams is a major struggle, I’ll let you slide and start with forty-eight grams (whether you’re male or female). Since the average American consumes about twenty teaspoons (or eighty grams) of sugar daily, you’ll still be starting at just over half that amount. Eat one teaspoon (four grams) less each week after that until you reach twenty-four or thirty-six grams.
Spend your daily sugar on something healthy. Don’t just blow your daily allowance of sugar on a soda, or waste it on the hidden sugars in dressings, sauces, or something you wouldn’t find on any dessert list. Saving that allowance for a small special treat may make avoiding sugar all day long less painful.
Cut back on sugar when cooking. If a recipe calls for sugar, cut it back by one-third to a half. (You probably won’t even notice the difference, but just in case, you could try cutting less to start.) Or, when possible, substitute something else for the sugar, such as an equal amount of unsweetened applesauce or pureed fruits such as figs, dates, apricots, or extra-ripe bananas. ( Just be sure to add a little water to any puree before you add it to your recipe.)
Be experimental with a few extracts. It doesn’t matter what flavor you prefer—almond, lemon, maple, mint, orange, or vanilla—using an extract rather than sugar (whether in a recipe or just to flavor up something when what you really need is a little sweetness) can do the trick, minus the excess sugar—or calories!
The “So You Know” Science
I’m not the only one who’s sugar strict. The World Health Organization lowered their sugar-intake recommendations from 10 percent of your daily calorie intake to 5 percent (roughly six teaspoons a day).1 The American Heart Association doesn’t ask you to do the math, but suggests the same amounts that I’m asking you to limit it to: six teaspoons for women and nine teaspoons for men.2
Eat more than your fair share—and the average American consumes more than two to three times that amount—and you’re exposing your body to a lot more than obesity. You get the lion’s share of all the health risks that come with carrying too many pounds, including high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, and osteoarthritis. According to research, ingesting too much sugar also increases your risk for kidney stones, promotes inflammation, lowers your good cholesterol (HDL), and raises your bad (LDL) cholesterol levels, increasing your risk of heart disease.