Fitness Gear: The Alternative: Sugar & Your Weight Loss- Fitness Training For Life

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Tuesday, April 8, 2008

The Alternative: Sugar & Your Weight Loss

This begs the question: why do we need to take all this fake sugar anyway, especially if it's a risk? The answer is because we like sugar. We like it a lot. We now, as a society, get more nutrients from sugar than anything else. In fact, sugary soda is the single largest source of calories we consume, accounting for around 13 percent of calories consumed worldwide. And excessive sugar in your diet, as you've probably heard, can cause a lot of problems (refer to "Sugar vs. Fat: Which Is Worse?" in Related Articles below).

There's no doubt that sugar, especially a lot of sugar, is something we should avoid if staying healthy is our goal. But at least we understand sugar. We know how it works and, whether we want to or not, we can easily understand how to make it a healthy, or at least an acceptable, part of our diets. The same can't be said for any artificial sweetener on the market. All we know is that they lack calories, and now we're not even sure if that will keep us from getting fat.

So since sugar, in moderation, is fine and artificial sweeteners are, at best, an unknown, rational thought should lead us to choose real sugar when we crave something sweet. Our big problem is that too often we've been conditioned to want things to be too sweet. So here are five ways to limit your sugar consumption because, if you can minimize your sweet tooth, you'll have no reason to gamble with artificial sweeteners at all.

Portion control. Not unlike Rome in its final throes, we have become a society that craves excess. A sign in a Denny's window states, "Remember, an apple a day." It offers a perfect metaphor of our obesity epidemic: an apple surrounded by about 2,000 calories of sugar and fat. Our society has gone crazy for "bigger is better." After dinner, your body is not hungry. You don't need 2,000 extra calories. You don't need 200. If you savor a square of chocolate or a tablespoon of Ben & Jerry's slowly, it will curb your cravings without a noticeable effect on your diet.

Don't snack on artificial sweeteners. Gum is probably the worst snack because it creates a stimulus-response reaction that causes you to crave sweet stuff constantly. Sugary gum is bad for your teeth, but at least it runs out of flavor quickly. Artificially sweetened gum turns you into one of the rats in the above-mentioned experiment. When you feel as though you need something sweet, go ahead and have a little sugar. Then brush your teeth. You'll find this satiates your cravings without putting your body into a constant stimulus-response mode.

Add some fruit to your sugar. Fruit is sweet, healthy, and filling. The problem is that fiber can dull its sweetness enough to keep you from choosing it first. But you can dress up fruit with a very small amount of "real" dessert and make it pretty darn decadent, offering you a nutritious and filling dessert that you can still burn off.

Make sure you have some complex carbs in your diet. This may sound boring, but complex carbs, like whole grains, sweet potatoes, rice, and beans n' stuff, all slowly break down into blood sugar. If your blood sugar is steady, you won't crave sugar. You might still habitually crave it, but that's a lot easier to deal with than a sugar-crash craving, which usually leads to bingeing.

Try the protein powder trick. Most protein powders have a small amount of sugar and a touch of artificial sweetener, and are 90 percent protein. If you can find one you like you might be able to curb your cravings with a high-protein snack (try Whey Protein Powder packed with 18 grams of protein per serving). Chalene Johnson, the creator of Turbo Jam®, uses chocolate protein powder as a base for pudding, and Beachbody® Advice Staff Denis Faye sprinkles it on cereal. Get creative and you'll get the added benefit of ensuring you have enough protein in your diet to fully recover from your p90x workouts. And this, in turn, also helps reduce sugar cravings and helps with your weight loss plan.

by: UltimateFitnessGear