Tips to Cut Sugar Out of Your Diet

The average American consumes about 34 teaspoons of sugar a day – more than three times the recommended daily amount! If you’d like to make a healthier lifestyle change, consider cutting down on your sugar intake.

Why We Eat Sugar

We may not be aware of it directly, but when we are tired or feeling sluggish, our body craves carbohydrates for energy. Sugar is – you guessed it – a carbohydrate.

Carbohydrates aren’t the enemy though. It’s the refined added sugars that can be dangerous. There is a long list of “added sugars” include high fructose corn syrup, white sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, raw sugar, malt syrup, maple syrup, fructose sweetener, liquid fructose, honey, molasses, anhydrous dextrose, crystal dextrose. .

Foods containing simple sugars may offer a quick burst of energy, but when the body metabolizes sugar quickly, blood sugar levels may dip suddenly, and cause the body to want(or crave) more carbohydrate to increase the blood sugar.

Sugar Hides Everywhere

It’s hard to believe, but sugar – and its aliases – hides in all food from bread and mustard to yogurt and juice. While it may be difficult to remove all sugar from your diet, it’s easier to focus on the sugars you can control, such as using less table sugar in coffee or tea, drinking fewer sodas, sports drinks, or sugar sweetened juice drinks, and consuming fewer or smaller portions of desserts, ice cream and candy. Also use the “Nutrition Facts” label on food to identify just how much sugar is in a serving of food or beverage. The ingredient list will tell you what type of sugar the product contains.

Cutting Out the Sweet

If you want to cut out the sugar in your diet, first start slowly. Lower the amount you add in your coffee, trade your soda for a glass of water, and switch to a lower-sugar cereal for breakfast. Try adding more protein to your diet to keep up energy levels, and if you must have something sweet, reach for a healthier snack like a banana or apple with peanut butter.

Cutting sugar out of your diet can be challenging because so many of us are used to adding sugar to our diet. But, once you break yourself of your sugar habit, you will probably find you have more energy, and may even see the numbers on your scale go down.

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