Sugar is a health food, that is how is it publicized anyway. After all, it contains zero fat, provides instant energy, and makes almost any food taste better. The average American eats about 156 pounds of sugar a year – at least double what health experts recommend. Eating sugar is like flipping a switch that tells your body to store fat. And sugar is everywhere — not just in soda, candy, and desserts. It’s disguised in refined carbohydrates like bread, rice, and pasta, and even in beer and milk. If you think you don’t eat a lot of sugar, it’s time to take another look at labels on processed foods. You’ll probably be surprised. Many of you would be shocked to find out just how much sugar you regularly eat.

Sugar makes you fat. In fact, the less sugar you eat, the better. Here’s an example; during digestion, one slice of white bread is converted into the same amount of glucose as 4 tablespoons of sugar. The more sugar you down at any one time the longer you stay in fat-storage mode.

Is Fat Free Sugar Free?

Do you remember when “fat free” products first appeared on the supermarket shelves? They tasted bland and boring! To make these products more appealing, food manufacturers decided to add sugar. This made the products taste much better, so an unwary public that has tried to eat low fat “health food” has been tricked into eating high sugar “junk food”. Food manufacturers worked out years ago, that adding a little bit of sugar to their products made them far more desirable to consumers. Now almost every type of prepackaged or processed food you eat has some type of sugar added. Even if a food is labeled “no added sugar” you may be eating more sugar than you think.

Get Label-conscious

By law, a manufacturer has to list the ingredients on a product by weight. Whatever ingredient is listed first is the predominant ingredient in the product. Another way of tricking consumers into thinking that a product is low in sugar is to move the sugars down the ingredients list. This is done by splitting the sugars between a number of different types. Assume a product is 40% sugar. Rather than showing sugar as the first or second ingredient, the manufacturer may use 20% dextrose and 20% fructose, moving the “sugar” content further down the list! Keep an eye out for multiple entries from the list of sugars below.

Of course, you may not be ready to give up sandwiches, fried rice, and spaghetti. But use the following strategies to help you slow the rate at which sugar is absorbed into your bloodstream. The payoff: You’ll diminish the impact any food has on your glucose levels — and on your body’s ability to burn fat. Consider it nutritional damage control.

Douse your salad with vinaigrette
Order extra pickles on sandwiches and begin any high-carbohydrate meal with a side salad that’s mixed with a vinegar-based dressing, such as balsamic vinaigrette or Italian. By doing this, you can keep your blood glucose levels up to 23% lower than eating white bread alone.

Pop a fiber pill
Researchers in Taiwan found that taking 1.2g of glucomannan — a soluble fiber made from the Japanese konjac root — 30 minutes before eating white toast led to a 28 percent reduction in blood glucose 2 hours afterward, compared with having none of the fiber supplement.

Eat java-friendly foods
When it’s not paired with sugar, caffeine increases the rate at which your body burns fat. So drink the coffee but skip the doughnut, muffin, or bagel. Opt for breakfast foods like eggs and fruit instead.

Pump iron first thing in the morning
Both strength training and aerobic exercise drain your muscles’ fuel reserves — stored glucose known as glycogen. To ensure that you have plenty of energy for your next workout, your body immediately shuttles any available glucose to your muscles, where it’s packed away for future use — helping to reduce blood-glucose levels. So until glycogen levels are replenished, which can take several hours, high-sugar foods aren’t as detrimental.

Sugar by any other name…
If you see any of the following ingredients listed on a food label, it’s considered an added sugar, regardless of its form.
• Brown sugar
• Cane sugar
• Confectioner’s sugar
• Crystallized cane juice
• Dextrose
• Fructose
• Evaporated cane juice
• High-fructose corn syrup
• Honey
• Invert sugar
• Maltodextrin (or dextrin)
• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Raw sugar
• Sucrose (table sugar or white sugar)
• Turbinado sugar
• Corn syrup
• Fruit juice concentrate
• Galactose
• Sorbitol
• Lactose
• Polydextrose
• Xylitol
• Beet sugar

Visit the Online Weight Loss Tracker to start keeping track of how much sugar is in the foods you eat. It’s absolutely Free. You may register here.

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