How much is TOO much?

So many of us have a sweet tooth!

Having a sweet tooth is probably one of the biggest reasons why people have a weight problem

So why is it such a problem? Because we eat too much of it has to be the honest answer.

In the UK we eat too many “Free sugars” these are sugars that are added to foods and even some naturally produced sugars such as honey, syrups and juices.

“Free sugars” are basically empty calories as apart from the energy they have very little nutritional value.

30g of free sugars, which equates to about 7 cubes of sugar, is the recommended daily intake and 1 can of coke contains 35g of “Free sugars”, but most adults are consuming on average nearly 50g and teenagers are having even more.

We don’t need to cut all of the sugar from our diet but nearly every one of us would benefit from cutting down on the amount of “Free sugars” we eat.

But it’s not all bad news the sugars that are found naturally in your fruit and vegetables and even your milk do NOT count as “Free sugars” and we do not need to cut down on these.

Back in the days when we bought fresh produce and made our own meals we didn’t consume the quantities of sugar as we do now

Food manufacturers know that using sugar can help prolong the shelf life of foods, so they have been adding it to our convenience foods for years and we have become accustomed to the taste.

Food labelling can be so misleading, we expect labels which say Sugar Free or even No added Sugar to be a healthier version, but it may not always be the case.

• Sugar free – the product might not contain actual sugar but there are other forms of sugars – basically you need to check the ingredients on the nutritional label look out for anything ending in “ose” as this is just another form of sugar
• No added sugar – ok it might not have any added sugar, but did it contain it naturally?

When reading your food labels just remember for a 100g serving more than 22.5g of total sugars is considered high, so is it time to look for a healthier alternative, and 5g of total sugars per 100g is considered low, and as long as you don’t consume extra, extra-large portions of it then it’s a good choice.

Sugar is also known as the go to food when we are feeling low, and when we eat sugar, the brain produces huge surges of dopamine. This is similar to the way the brain reacts to the ingestion of substances like heroin and cocaine. 

Basically, sugar is addictive, and we need to reduce our reliance on it.

So, what would be the benefits to reducing our overall sugar intake?

• weight loss
• better oral health
• less chance of becoming diabetic
• lessen the risk if high blood pressure and of some cancers
• reduced risk of cardiovascular and circulatory diseases

Even knowing all this it’s still hard to focus on reducing the amount of sugar we ingest; my advice would be to make small changes to start with and build those better healthier less sugar habits over time.

You could try some or even all of the following

• If you add sugar to your hot drinks either gradually reduce it until you can comfortably cut it out, or swap to a sweetener
• Instead of sprinkling sugar over your cereals try adding chopped fruit instead which will give added sweetness and will count towards your 5 A Day
• Choose unsweetened breakfast cereals
• Choose tinned fruit in juice instead of syrup
• If you like fizzy drinks add some no-added sugar squash to sparkling water
• Read your nutritional labels to help you pick food with less sugar
• Cook it yourself
• Try reducing the sugar in your recipes you’ll find it works for most things

For those of you who do decide to go cold turkey and cut out sugar from your diet be aware you might suffer with some unpleasant withdrawal symptoms, which may last for a few days or even as much as several weeks.

Withdrawal symptoms you might experience

• Anxiety
• Irritability
• Tiredness
• Disrupted sleep patterns
• Feeling depressed
• Not being able to concentrate
• Feeling nauseas, dizzy or lightheaded
• Intense craving for something sweet or for other carbohydrates like chips or pasta

Could the answer be to use sweeteners as an alternative?

There are different types of sweeteners available – tablets, powdered and even granulated and they can be saccharine, aspartame, sorbitol, sucralose and stevia.

The trick is to find one you prefer the taste of as not all will suit, my preferred sweetener is stevia.

Just a thought, if we keep replacing the “Free sugars” with sweeteners then we are not solving the problem of having a sweet tooth we are just masking the problem so our tastes remain the same as they’ve always been, which can leave the door open to relapses.

Surely the better answer is to slowly but surely reduce the amount of free sugar we regularly consume and allow our taste buds to acclimatise themselves, thereby reducing the likelihood of relapses.

Your life does not get better by chance,
it gets better by change.

jim rohn