Trying to Cut Sugar Out Of Your Diet?
By Randi Morse
Sugar is hidden in almost everything, so much so that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that most adults in the United States get about 15 percent of the calories in their diet from sugar. The scary thing is that the NIH didn't account for the natural sugars adults eat, such as the sugars you'll get from eating fruit or drinking milk.
Harmful Sugar
A little bit of sugar in your diet, especially if it's natural sugar, isn't a bad thing. Excessive sugar consumption, however, can be very bad for your health. Excessive sugar in a diet has been connected to a number of significantly serious health conditions, including:
- Type 2 diabetes
- High cholesterol
- Heart disease
- Metabolic syndrome
- Obesity
- High blood pressure
Reducing the amount of sugar in your diet can be difficult, especially if you've had the same diet for a long time. There are a few things that you can do to make the transition of eating less sugar a little easier.
Slow Changes
The biggest mistake people tend to make when they're trying to eliminate sugar from their diet is to stop eating sugar all at once. This is a shock to your body and makes it almost certain that you're going to relapse and start eating a lot of sugar again. Instead, try to make little changes. Reduce the amount of cream and sugar in your coffee, remove any obvious sugar sources in your home, like cookies and brownies, and replace them with sugarless snacking options that you enjoy.
Product Labels
It's important to learn how to read product labels. Product labels can definitely be tricky to read, especially if you've never paid close attention to them before, but reading product labels can help you learn what products have a high amount of sugar in them and which ones don't. Any ingredient that ends in "-ose," like sucrose, glucose, dextrose, fructose, or lactose, all contain sugar.
Watch the Beverages
Unless you're drinking straight water, it's likely that you're getting some of your sugar intake from your beverages. It's fairly obvious that soda contains sugar, but other drinks contain hidden sugar, like iced tea and energy drinks. By slowly replacing your drinks with water you'll be cutting out a huge percentage of sugar from your daily diet.
To learn more about your health, wellness and fitness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic in Dacula, Ga.