Cutting out sugar to lose weight is quite popular right now. And people are seeing good results! Losing fat quickly, feeling healthier. So, are people losing weight because of the sugar?
Well, no. Not at all really.
You see, when we eat sugar, regardless of whether it’s a potato, vegetable, chocolate bar or a sugar cube, your blood sugar levels will increase. Now, if you have too much sugar, the pancreas will release insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels and brings them back down to what they should be. Another role of Insulin is fat storage, so you can see where the connection has been made: Eat sugar -> Pancreas releases Insulin -> Insulin stores sugar as fat. The simple solution, therefore, is to cut out sugar… And people are losing weight! Funny that, when someone cuts out coke, chocolate, sweets and sugar from their 10 cups of tea a day… *cough*calories*cough*.
The truth is, you cannot gain fat without being in a calorie surplus i.e. eating too much food. It doesn’t matter if you’re eating ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’ or nothing but chocolate. The problem is; you’re eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, which equates to around 2,000 calories. You’re then having 3 teas with 2 sugars apiece, break time snack, home time packet of crisps, the dinner making snack and the chocolate bar during your favourite show. All these added snacks will add anywhere between 700 and 1,000 calories. The same goes for losing weight; you can still have your favourite chocolate bar when you’re on a ‘diet’, as long as you’re in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight.
The problem is that sugar has been demonised over the rise of Type 2 Diabetes, especially in children. You have celebrities like Jamie Oliver wanting to tax sugary drinks, and Davina Mccall recently posted an info graph about sugar, likening it to heroine *rolls eyes* (she seemed to have deleted it). Here you have two high profile celebrities, both demonising sugar, claiming it’s bad for our health and makes us have diabetes and fat and we all become like heroine addicts. Eating sugar doesn’t cause obesity, over-eating ANY food causes that. And obesity increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. Heart disease. Stroke. High blood pressure. Or anything else you can think of. Not just sugar.
Unfortunately though, people are going to believe the celebs and do as they say. Funny thing is, Davina doesn’t hold a fitness or nutrition qualification (she sells both fitness DVDs and recipe books) and Jamie has only recently completed his nutritionist qualification (the same one as me, he should know better that it’s having too many calories that makes us fat). Ironically though, if you order “The Jamie’s Italian Burger” from one of his restaurants, it has a whopping 82g of fat in that meal. And before you think I’m being petty, when you break the nutrients down, it’s 9 calories per gram of fat, and only 4 calories per gram of carbohydrates (sugar). 82 x 9 calories = 738 calories of pure fat. That is a bit more than my DAILY allowance of fat in one burger.
The harsh reality is that the reason we, as a nation are getting fatter because we eat far too much. We have stressful lives so we indulge on meals out, the extra biscuit we don’t need, the takeaway on a Tuesday because you’ve had a busy day and are too stressed to cook. It’s easy to blame one thing but unfortunately, we only have ourselves to blame…
If you feel you need a bit of help. Click the link below and I will get in touch!
Much Love, JF
January 22nd, 2018 by Jack Foster
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