If you haven’t heard someone go on a rant about sugar yet – buckle up. It’s time we flipped our diet ideas upside down because the only thing low-fat is good for is low-mood.
Here’s what you need to know about sugar:
- Ever since the low-fat guidelines were introduced, people have become FATTER. Why? Because we replaced fat with sugar.
- The human body is designed to have a steady blood sugar level. When you eat sugar your body has a hormonal response to clear the excess sugar from the blood stream. When your body gets tired of hearing this same message it stops responding – this is called insulin resistance (and eventually type 2 diabetes).
- The sugar we eat goes toward immediate energy, energy storage in the liver or energy storage as FAT. Unfortunately we like to sit down a lot so guess where most of that sugar is going…
- We are only meant to eat about 6 teaspoons of sugar per day. So if you are following your ‘healthy low-fat’ diet and choose the Lean Cuisine Roast Turkey for an easy dinner, bad luck, because you have just eaten more sugar in one meal than you should have eaten all day! Don’t even think about having a healthy juice or iced tea, a glass can contain over 7 teaspoons of sugar!
But some sugars are natural right?
- Yes nature provides us sugars via grains, starchy vegetables and fruits, but these are seasonal and come with their own fibrous packaging to help slow digestion of the sugars.
- When we process and extract sugar from its original sources and add it to food products, we end up unknowingly eating sugar all day, minus the fibre that helps us digest it.
- Blood sugars going up and down means our energy is going up and down, and that means we feel hungry, tired, irritable and naturally feel the need to pep ourselves back up again. With more sugar.
But fat makes us fat?
- Any food can make you fat if you eat too much of it. The beauty of fat is that the body has a strong hormonal response when you start to digest it triggering you to feel satisfied. Think about a big roast dinner. It’s a good kind of full and you don’t need to eat for a few hours afterward. Compare that to eating too many sweets, feeling sick and then getting hungry again an hour later.
- Sugars in processed foods have limited ability to trigger our “full” hormone meaning we never stay satisfied for long – and subsequently eat more calories throughout the day.
- It’s also good to remember that we’ve been eating “bad” fats (saturated fats) for millions of years as most saturated fats come from animal products. “Good” fats were essentially manufactured in the last century to create a cheaper version of butter and lard, then labelled “vegetable” oils – even though they come from processed seeds and not vegetables at all…
Right so what do I eat?!
- Try to eat as close to nature as possible. Meat, fish and seafood, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some grains and dairy if you tolerate them and as organic, free-range, local, seasonal and fresh as possible.
- Limit processed foods, takeaways and fast foods, food-like products, pre-packaged food and condiments, sweets and sugary drinks including juices.
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Kelly Moriarty is an online health & nutrition coach and founder of The Green Body Plan.
After 5 years as a veterinarian Kelly was unhealthy, stressed out and generally dissatisfied.
She now helps professional women make the same changes she did to beat burn out, lose weight, recover their energy and take back control of their health naturally.
kellyannmoriarty.com 