Sugar and Weight Loss
There are plenty of things that may impede your weight loss, and sugar is one of the biggies. It's not that you've got to eliminate sugar completely from your diet to lose weight, but the truth is that many folks are consuming such large quantities of sugar that losing pounds becomes nearly impossible.
There are a few reasons why sugar and weightloss don't work:
- Sugar has plenty of calories.
If you look up how many calories are in a teaspoon of sugar, you are fascinated to note that it's only 15 calories. It sounds so low, right? Keep in mind that that is a LEVEL teaspoon. A heaping teaspoon (which is what almost everybody would use) contains 25 calories. Still not bad, right? But what if you use 3 heaping teaspoons in a mug of coffee? That's 75 calories. And what if you do that multiple times per day? That is lots of additional calories. If you drink lots of soda, you should know that one 12-oz. can of soda can contain more than 15 teaspoons of sugar!
- Sugar makes you want more sugar.
It isn't bad enough that sugar and weight loss have a uneasy relationship, but eating even a bit of a sweet product can right away make you desire more and more sugar. So you start with the best goal to have only 1 small cookie, and before you know it you can't stop thinking about eating more cookies. If you don't have strong willpower, you can do a large amount of damage to your diet that way.
- Sugar is nutritionally useless.
If you're using up a big number of your daily calorie allotment on sugary foods and beverages, you probably aren't getting the nutrition you require from other foods. Remember that you need fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals that cannot be found in sweet products. You need to eat a well-balanced diet that might or might not include one or two servings of sugar - but you can't make sugar the entire basis of your diet and remain healthy (or slim).
Hence if you've been eating too much sugar, it's time to make some changes. Begin by eliminating at least half the sugar you consume every day. Replace soda with water; start using a natural sweetener in coffee and tea, like stevia. Avoid eating a lot of sugary foods for meals - for instance, rather than a muffin for breakfast, have some oatmeal or half a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese. Small changes like these can go a long way in breaking the sugar habit. And the speedier you break the sugar habit, the quicker you'll start to see the weight coming off.
There are a few reasons why sugar and weightloss don't work:
- Sugar has plenty of calories.
If you look up how many calories are in a teaspoon of sugar, you are fascinated to note that it's only 15 calories. It sounds so low, right? Keep in mind that that is a LEVEL teaspoon. A heaping teaspoon (which is what almost everybody would use) contains 25 calories. Still not bad, right? But what if you use 3 heaping teaspoons in a mug of coffee? That's 75 calories. And what if you do that multiple times per day? That is lots of additional calories. If you drink lots of soda, you should know that one 12-oz. can of soda can contain more than 15 teaspoons of sugar!
- Sugar makes you want more sugar.
It isn't bad enough that sugar and weight loss have a uneasy relationship, but eating even a bit of a sweet product can right away make you desire more and more sugar. So you start with the best goal to have only 1 small cookie, and before you know it you can't stop thinking about eating more cookies. If you don't have strong willpower, you can do a large amount of damage to your diet that way.
- Sugar is nutritionally useless.
If you're using up a big number of your daily calorie allotment on sugary foods and beverages, you probably aren't getting the nutrition you require from other foods. Remember that you need fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals that cannot be found in sweet products. You need to eat a well-balanced diet that might or might not include one or two servings of sugar - but you can't make sugar the entire basis of your diet and remain healthy (or slim).
Hence if you've been eating too much sugar, it's time to make some changes. Begin by eliminating at least half the sugar you consume every day. Replace soda with water; start using a natural sweetener in coffee and tea, like stevia. Avoid eating a lot of sugary foods for meals - for instance, rather than a muffin for breakfast, have some oatmeal or half a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese. Small changes like these can go a long way in breaking the sugar habit. And the speedier you break the sugar habit, the quicker you'll start to see the weight coming off.
HealthStatus.com has more than 30 free tools you can use to appraise your health including a body fat percentage calculator and a blood alcohol calculator. Sugar and Weight Loss
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