The average American consumes an average of 22 ADDED teaspoons of sugar per day , at 15 calories per teaspoon that is 320 calories every day that you didn't NEED to have. According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, aside from adding extra fat making calories to our diet processed sugar may also be toxic, but why is sugar toxic and why is it just so hard to leave the sugar alone ?
Nutritional Biologist K. Stanhope says
" What happens is the liver gets overloaded with fructose and converts come of it into fat, which gets into the bloodstream to create "small dense LDL," the kind of LDL that forms plaque in arteries. The irony here is that for precisely that reason - avoiding heart disease - a government commission in the 1970s mandated that we lower our fat consumption. "When you take the fat out of food, it tastes like cardboard," says Dr. Lustig. "And the food industry knew that, so they replaced it with sugar...and guess what? Heart disease, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and death are skyrocketing,"
Think it's easy to quit sugar ? Think again . Sugar addiction is real and shares characteristics with nicotine and heroin addiction, which would explain why cutting sugar out of the diet is so difficult for so many people.
"Researchers at the National Institute for Physiological Sciences in Japan were curious how the brain and body might adapt to the expectation of eating something sweet (1). They found that when mice expect a sweet treat, their brains release a chemical called orexin. Orexin triggers the body's muscles to take up whatever sugar is circulating in the bloodstream. In this way, the body is preparing for an expected increase in blood sugar levels. This is a great adaptation if you eat the food, helping to keep blood sugar levels steady.
But what if you decide you want to resist the temptation of the sweets? Then the drop of blood sugar comes with two very unwanted side effects: cravings to eat, and decreased energy to resist. The result? It's much harder to say no, and you may even need to eat to feel normal."
But what if you decide you want to resist the temptation of the sweets? Then the drop of blood sugar comes with two very unwanted side effects: cravings to eat, and decreased energy to resist. The result? It's much harder to say no, and you may even need to eat to feel normal."
So what is the solution ? Like the person who is looking to quit smoking sometimes you have to go cold turkey and help your body by
1. giving it the nutrition it needs in a form that it can easily utilize
2. losing fat and stored sugar toxins and environmental toxins and obeseogens that contribute to excess weight
3. education on sugar alternatives and lifestyle changes to support a healthier lifestyle.
You can find out more about sugar, sugar addiction and how toxic sugar is and the diseases attributed to sugar on CBS tonight in Dr. Sanjay Gupta's report o