Tag Archives: Sugar

How Much Sugar Is Okay?

I’ve given up most sugar over the years. Not all, mind you, but most. I just don’t have a sweet tooth anymore. I get the occasional craving for a doughnut or dessert or a soft-serve ice cream cone, but not very often.

I saw that the American Heart Association recommends that women get no more than 24 grams of added sugar per day. That’s around 6 teaspoons. Note, it’s ‘added’ sugar … not the natural sugar you get when you eat an apple or carrot.

Unfortunately, the average American woman eats about 18 teaspoons per day. Three times more than the recommendation. (I don’t know about men. I suspect it’s just as bad.)

There are easy ways to cut your sugar consumption — mix flavored yogurt with plain; mix sugared cereal with unsugared; dilute juice with sparkling water; when cooking, replace some of the sugar with spices like vanilla, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.

It made me curious, though … how much sugar do I eat? It’s hidden everywhere … in spaghetti sauce, crackers, unsweetened cereal, yogurt. But I know that so I try to buy the low-or-non-sugar options. But still, I’ve never paid much attention.

Here’s what I found on a tour of my kitchen.

In the pantry —

oatmeal serving 1g

Grape Nuts serving 5g

Cheerios serving 1g

2T peanut butter 2g

1/2C Panko crumbs 2g

1T stir fry sauce 3g

2T enchilada sauce 2g

1T picante sauce 2g

1/2C no-sugar-added spaghetti sauce 6g

2T tomato paste 3g

1C vegetable broth 1g

1/2C baked beans 11g

2T wheat germ 1g

1/2C refried beans 1g

1/2C canned corn 7g

1/2C black beans 1g

8oz tomato juice 8g

In the refrigerator —

1/4C ricotta 3g

whole wheat pita 2g

6oz plain Greek yogurt 6g

5oz berry Greek yogurt 9g

2T Stubb’s BBQ sauce 4g

In the freezer —

1/2C fake crab 3g

soy burger 2g

9 frozen ravioli 1g

1C frozen cauliflower 2g

2/3C frozen green beans 2g

But I was happy to see there was no added sugar in my beloved sesame Ezekiel bread, unsweetened almond milk, black bean chips, Wasa crackers, and Nut Thins.

It’s astounding how fast it can add up. The sauces, especially. I don’t know about you, but I use waaaay more stir fry sauce, enchilada, and BBQ sauce than the labels say is one serving!

My challenge to you is to go tour your kitchen. How much hidden sugar do you find in the products you eat regularly? Then take a couple of days and jot down how much sugar you eat. Is there a way you could eat less sugar? Are there better products you could buy? Different ways of preparing your food? Let me know … I’m curious as to your results.

Do you read labels? What’s the most important thing to you on a food label?

10 Ways To Lose 10 Pounds

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1. Get rid of sugar. Yes, you see the granulated and the brown there in your pantry, but now take a look at the labels on your spaghetti sauce, cereal, and frozen foods. Anything ending in “ose” is probably sugar. There are lots of other words that mean ‘sugar’ — syrup, sweetener, dehydrated cane juice, fruit juice concentrate, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), maltodextrin, saccharose, sucrose, xylose, plus all the ones you already know. Scary, huh? Regardless of what it’s called, your body knows it’s sugar.

2. Along those same lines, get rid of all packaged foods. No boxes, cans, bags, or cartons allowed. Nothing with a shelf life longer than the weather forecast.

3. And while you’re at it, get rid of floury foods like breads. Not forever, because we need whole grains, but as a kickstart. White flour foods tend to be sugary as well – think donuts, pastries, bagels. Then when it’s time to add them back in, stick to whole grain breads. “Whole grain” should be the first ingredient. If it’s not, keep looking.

4. Eat half of your normal portion. You’ll probably be happy with less food than you think you need. Plus, you have lunch already made for tomorrow AND you’re saving money!

5. Speaking of saving money, quit buying meat. You don’t have to become a vegetarian (even though they typically have lower body weights than their omnivore pals. Just sayin.). But it would benefit your body and your wallet to drop most of the meat from your diet. If you love a good steak, use the money you save to buy better quality grass-fed beef, or to visit a fantastic restaurant and have someone make one for you.

6. Walk 5 minutes out of every 30. Set your timer. If you can’t get regular workouts in, this is a terrific way to get moving every day. Studies have shown that several short sessions of movement are just as beneficial as one long one. Plus, it’s healthy to have mental breaks throughout the day too.

7. And if you can find a pal to exercise with, you’re more likely to walk or get to the gym.

8. If you’re not ready to cut calories seven days per week, try cutting calories just two days a week and eating normally the rest. Every little bit will help, and I bet you’ll find it’s not so hard to add in a third day, then a fourth. You’ll at least become more conscious of what you’re eating. And that’s half the battle.

9. Brown bag it. If you eat lunch out on a regular basis, bring healthy, fresh food from home every day. Plan it and/or get it ready the night before. To kickstart your weight loss, go one month without eating out at all. Restaurant meals have more calories, and they’re full of fat, sugar and salt.(Which is why they’re so delish!) Take a month away from all that, and you’ll see you don’t want it as much. And again, you’ll save a ton of money!

10. Swear off alcohol. At least until you’ve reached your weight loss goals. Alcohol is strictly empty calories. Replace booze with water, and that weight comes off much faster.

And a bonus … I heard today we should quit calling it ‘exercise’ or ‘working out’ and instead refer to it as ‘movement.’ It’s a psychological shift, thinking of it as a lifestyle change rather than a temporary fix.

(Here are ten more!)

Which is your favorite? Are any of these impossible for you?

Six Painless Ways To Coexist With Halloween Candy

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I was never a big fan of Halloween as a kid. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the candy part. But creating a costume? And trudging around a frigid Colorado night? So. Much. Work! And I’m so very lazy.

I come from a big family so I always had a box of costume bits to use. Mom never bought costumes for us, but over the years we accumulated a box of stuff like a witches hat, or bunny ears, or a funny tie, or a scary mask. But my favorite costume was the ‘hobo.’ It consisted of my dad’s stinky fishing jacket with the gazillion pockets, his misshapen felt fishing hat, and, if I was really lucky, a bubble gum cigar.

This costume was perfection for it’s ease of use. All I had to do was be the first to dibs it, pull it off the hanger two minutes before trick-or-treating, swipe at my face with a bit of charcoal from the barbeque and I was good to go. Plus it was toasty warm. And if I got some spectacular confection like a full-size candy bar, I could hide it in one of the many pockets so my, ahem, mother (yes, I knew it was you!) wouldn’t steal it.

We didn’t have many rules about Halloween candy. In fact, I can only remember one: ‘don’t eat anything until you get home.’ I’m fairly certain that was because my, ahem, mother wanted to scope everything out. We’d dump it all in well-defined piles on the living room floor and then the negotiating began. Picture the floor of the NY Stock Exchange on Black Tuesday, with all the traders eight years old, crazed by their stockpile of forbidden delights.

I read about a mom who has this rule about holiday candy — “Your Halloween candy must last until Easter and your Easter candy must last until Halloween.” Blech. I’m sure the idea is that the kids don’t gorge themselves on candy, but I think what it would really do is just create the every day sugar habit for them. After a couple of months of eating a piece of candy every day — even the crappy ones like candy corn — I bet it becomes strictly mindless. Besides, gorging on candy is kind of a rite of passage, isn’t it? It’s certainly a life lesson parents don’t get to teach very often. If kids don’t learn it at Halloween, maybe they won’t learn it until the cops bring them home from their binge drinking escapade. Just sayin.

Binge drinking aside, there are some painless things you and your kids can do to stay healthy and happy when October 31st rolls around every year.

1. Feed them a real dinner before trick-or-treating so they’re not tempted to snack from their loot.

2. While you’re sorting through their haul, taking out anything that’s unwrapped or that they’re allergic to, take out the stuff that’s bad for their teeth, like sticky caramels or suckers that soak their teeth in a long, sugary bath. (I’d never wish food allergies on anyone, but I did appreciate my son’s peanut allergy around Halloween. Without even asking I’d get all the Snickers and Reeces, plus whatever else I could convince him had nuts. It was a sad day when he learned Skittles didn’t have peanuts.)

3. Make them share with the non-trick-or-treaters in the house. Then throw that away.

4. Let them choose 10 of their very favorite candies. They can choose to eat them all at once, or a piece every day, or however they want.

5. Have a ‘buy-back program.’ Give them a small piece of healthy dark chocolate for every piece of sugar-and-chemical bombs they throw away.

6. Only buy individually wrapped dark chocolate to give away. Keep it in the freezer until Halloween and if there are any leftovers, you can have them!

Halloween only comes once a year, but it does mark the beginning of the dreaded Eating Season. Start out right and teach your kids to coexist with candy and with Halloween.

Boo.

Do you (or did you) have rules about Halloween candy? What was your favorite candy as a kid? What is your favorite now?

Canned Corn Cunundrum

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So here’s yet another interesting thing I don’t understand about food ….

Regular canned corn has 340 mg of sodium and 6g of sugar.

No-salt-added canned corn (from the same company) has 15 mg of sodium (yay) but only 4g of sugar.

Why would lowering the salt also lower the sugar?

I’m flummoxed.

Any answers, peeps?

THE END OF OVEREATING

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Book Review

Title: THE END OF OVEREATING — TAKING CONTROL OF THE INSATIABLE AMERICAN APPETITE

Author: David A. Kessler, MD

Devour it

→ Nibble till it’s gone

Spit it out

It seems strange, but according to Dr. Kessler, it took researchers a very long time to conclude that people were getting fatter over the years because they were eating too much. Our bodies used to be very good at regulating food intake to energy expenditure, but not so much anymore. Why?

This book has a little bit of science, some anecdotes, and lots of info presented in easy-to-digest (no pun intended) style. I found it fascinating, even though I’m not a fan of science-y stuff. I’ve always been too curious for my own good, though. I love seeing the whys and the wherefores in the world. As long as it doesn’t require my brain to work too hard.

I loved learning exactly what happens when we eat Doritos (or whatever our kryptonite is) and why it’s irresistible to us.

I also learned a new word that merits pondering — “eatertainment.”

There are treatment theories and tips to alter behavior. Kessler advocates contradictory advice from the mainstream. Mostly you hear diet gurus say something like, “No food is off limits” or “There are no ‘good’ foods or ‘bad’ foods.” But Kessler says that to change our eating behavior — our conditioned responses to certain foods we crave — we need to “view the pursuit of sugar, fat and salt in a negative light.” He believes it’s no different from a smoker or alcoholic creating negative associations with ciggies or booze.

Definitely read this book if you feel out of control with your eating. You’ll begin to understand the science behind your difficulty in resisting certain foods and how to start gaining control over your cravings.

But if you read nothing else, read the chapters about The Food Industry with visits to Chili’s and Cinnabon. Oy vey.

As I read, I was proud that many ideas and techniques in the “Food Rehab” chapters were already in place in my Lazy Low Cal Lifestyle before I even read the book. Makes me feel smart.

Are you overwhelmed by your cravings? What are some strategies you use to resist cravings? What’s your food kryptonite?

Low Cal, High Protein, Low Carb, High Fiber, Low Sugar Breakfasts

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Everyone seems to have their own idea of what constitutes “low” and “high” values within their diet. All the dietary guidelines vary based on a person’s weight, gender, health, and activity level. I’m about 140 pounds, in excellent health and I exercise at least thirty minutes almost every day.

I eat about 1800 calories per day divided between six small meals so I eat about 300 calories per meal. I’ve been told to shoot for about 90 grams of protein per day. Here’s a calculator you can play with to figure out your protein needs, if you want to do some math.

The U.S. Institute of Medicine recommends a minimum intake of 130 grams of carbohydrate per day, so if you divide that by my six meals, you get an average of 21 grams of carb per meal.

Fiber is a specific type of carbohydrate that comes only from fruits, vegetables and grains. Soluble fiber controls blood sugar and may also lower cholesterol. Non-soluble fiber doesn’t appear to lower blood sugar or cholesterol but helps your bowels function, ahem, smoothly. According to the American Dietetic Association, adults need between 20 and 35 grams of fiber every day. Again, dividing by my six small meals, I should average about 6 grams/meal.

There is no daily requirement for sugar, but I read one of Jorge Cruse’s books where he says to try to stick to less than 15 grams of sugar per day. I don’t eat any refined sugar and most of my sugar comes from fruits and veggies, but I am consistently well over 15 grams every day. I don’t worry too much about it since it occurs naturally in my healthy food, but it is interesting to see which vegetables have sugar (onions and bell peppers, for instance). If you are concerned about sugar, watch out for yogurt. It has a ton. I’ve switched to Greek yogurt which has much less sugar.

Based on the above guidelines, the following breakfasts all fall into the low cal, high protein, low carb, high fiber, and low sugar parameters. Plus, they’re quick and easy. Enjoy!

• Spinach and Veggie Omelette

Sauté fresh spinach, onions, bell peppers, and/or celery in a teaspoon of olive oil. After the spinach is wilted, pour 1 whole egg + 2 egg whites, beaten, over it. Cover until it’s set then turn it when it’s cooked to your liking. Spread with 1T Wholly Guacamole and/or salsa. Also have 4-oz V8 juice

• BLT Wrap

Wash 2 or 3 large Romaine lettuce leaves. Spread with 1 wedge Laughing Cow cheese and 2T Wholly Guacamole. Roll up with 2 slices crispy microwave bacon and sliced tomato. You can also add sliced olives, onions, and/or bell peppers. Have 4-oz V8 juice, too.

• Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie

In blender, combine 8 oz unsweetened chocolate almond milk, 1T cocoa powder, 1t vanilla, and 2T natural peanut butter (the kind with only peanuts and salt as ingredients). Also have 1 whole grain Wasa cracker spread with 1T peanut butter.

• Greek Yogurt Parfait

Top 4oz non-fat plain Greek yogurt with 1C sliced strawberries. (You can mix in 1 packet of stevia to the yogurt, if you like it a bit sweeter.) Sprinkle with 2T sunflower seeds, and 2T dark chocolate chips (at least 60% cacao), too.

• Ham and Egg Scramble

Chop 4 thin slices of deli ham and add it to 1 whole egg + 2 egg whites. Add some chopped onions and bell peppers and season as you like. Scramble it all together and cook until done in nonstick skillet sprayed with 0-calorie nonstick spray. Also have 4-oz V8 juice.

Click for more low calorie menus and be sure to check out the Lazy Low Cal Lifestyle Cookbook for more recipes!

Free Yourself From Sugar Slavery

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If you don’t already, be sure to read the Vitamin Cottage newspaper or visit their stores or check their extensive website NaturalGrocers.com. They are a fabulous resource in your quest for better health.

At my local Vitamin Cottage, I attended the “Freeing Yourself From Sugar Slavery” seminar presented by the delightful Stephanie Small of Three Sisters Nutrition. She’s a psychotherapist and holistic nutritionist with a LOT to say about sugar, sugar substitutes, and sugar addiction. And she comes by it honestly … she is a recovered sugar addict. (I say ‘recovered’ rather than ‘recovering’ because it’s been my experience that once you quit eating sugar, you don’t want it anymore. Any thoughts?)

I took a lot of notes. Here are some highlights:

• The average American consumes 152 pounds of sugar every year … that’s an entire person! And since I hardly eat any, someone else is eating my share too! Yikes. I hope it’s not you.

• Stevia won’t spike your blood sugar; in fact, it actually stabilizes it. (I buy Truvia brand which she gave the thumbs up to. To which she gave the thumbs up. Whatev, grammar police.)

• Stephanie talks about 5 reasons to avoid sugar —

sugar causes weight gain
sugar creates gallstones
sugar weakens your bones
sugar makes you depressed, and
sugar is a drug

• But instead of just telling us the problems, or trying to scare us into submission, she gives 5 ways to reduce sugar cravings —

eat protein
be sure you’re eating enough calories and getting enough nutrition
eat natural sweeteners
get enough sleep, and
figure out why you’re reaching for sugar when you’re sad, lonely, bored, angry or whatever

• She also said that agave was really high in fructose and it’s not very good for you. Bummer. I bought into the marketing hype and even added it to some of my menus. Not much, however, but still … I feel victimized by the Great Agave Nectar Marketing Machine.

The complete seminar Freeing Yourself From Sugar Slavery is online for your listening pleasure. Stephanie gave a ton of great, practical information, so pour a cup of coffee and treat yourself to some excellent education. Who knows … it may be the beginning of your recovery from sugar addiction!

Are you a sugar addict? What’s your favorite sweet treat? Are you a recovered/ing sugar addict? How do you feel now that you’ve broken the chains of sugar slavery?

Is Eating Fruit Bad Because It Has Sugar?

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We’re Off To See The Wizard

Dr. Oz, that is.

The adorable Dr. Oz has a column in my local newspaper that I enjoy. I trust him and he tells it like it is. He told someone the other day they should get smarter friends. Gotta love that! But I found this particular Q and A interesting because I hear the same thing all the time. (Not that I need smarter friends … aw, nevermind.)

Q: Recently, one of my co-workers said that eating too much fruit can make you gain weight because of its high sugar content. Is this true? — Anonymous

A: Not unless you eat two or three large watermelons or a peck of apples on top of a regular day’s worth of food. You’d have to stay pretty darn determined about fruit eating to do any real damage to your waistline.

Look at the math: To gain a pound of weight from food, you need to consume 3,500 calories more than what your body uses. To gain a pound from fruit alone, you’d have to eat about 54 apples, 875 strawberries or 18 cantaloupes. And while it’s true that 100 extra calories a day can leave you 10 pounds heavier at the end of a year, chances are that most people’s weight gain comes from piling on foods that aren’t fruit. (That afternoon Snickers habit you picked up? That’s about 280 calories per bar.) Fruit is full of water, fiber, polyphenols, vitamins and minerals, and it puts a lot of bulk in your belly for not a lot of calories. That makes it a diet buddy, not diet saboteur.

That makes perfect sense to me. But I wouldn’t mind eating 875 strawberries.

Do you read Dr Oz’s column? Do you think he’s adorable? What kind of relationship do you have with sugar? Are you a Fruit Fiend?

What’s It Called When You Have To Keep Learning Things Over And Over?

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I learned two things in the last couple of days. Scratch that. I RE-learned two things in the last couple of days.

1. When you don’t eat much sugar, you truly do lose your taste for it. This was evidenced by the fact I could only manage one bite of the cake my sister baked. Also evidenced, in retrospect, by my other sister proclaiming the chocolate oatmeal cookies I brought “needed more sugar.”

But she was wrong. They didn’t. She just needs less sugar. So there.

This has no bearing on my third sister’s ability to hypnotize me with her potato salad.

2. When you don’t lift weights for a week because you’re “too busy,” you lose massive amounts of strength and muscle tone.

I guess the question here is … “Why-oh-why must you keep learning this lesson, Becky??”

The answer? I dunno. It’s stupid. It takes me about 30 minutes to run through my strength training routine. I have 24 freakin’ hours in every single day. Ergo, I’m stupid for forgetting this over and over again. It never changes. It’s always true.

Bottom line … I’ll shun most sugar, but I’ll embrace my gym.

And just so the lesson sticks this time, I will continue to include generous amounts of Donna’s potato salad.

What lesson do you have to re-re-re-re-learn?

MY FOOTPRINT — CARRYING THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD

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Book Review

Title: MY FOOTPRINT — CARRYING THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD

Author: Jeff Garlin

→ Devour it

Nibble till it’s gone

Spit it out

You might know Jeff Garlin from his role on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Or as the voice of The Captain in Wall-e.

Or as Buttercup the Unicorn in Toy Story 3.

But I saw him on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

He was talking about the book he wrote about his food addiction. In a hilarious segment, Jon teased him about his ADD, marveling that he could concentrate long enough to write a book when his attention span was barely long enough to finish his donut.

But Garlin said he hadn’t had fast food or sugar in over a year, which I thought was quite an accomplishment. So I picked up his book.

I always find memoirs fascinating, especially when they illuminate lives that are so different from mine. Of course, he’s a famous actor and comedian living the high life in Los Angeles, so that’s not much different from my suburban Midwestern bloggy life. What’s really different is this idea of being addicted to food. No matter how much I read about it, it still baffles me.

I talk all the time about the two kinds of people in the world … famous actors and me. No, not really. Rather, those people who eat to live (me) and those people who live to eat (him).

Around the same time I finished reading this book, but before I’d written about it, I stumbled upon an article about a 42-year-old woman in New Jersey whose goal in life is to be the fattest woman ever. She weighs 450 pounds and wants to get up to 1,000 pounds. She has a normal weight husband and two kids, whose weights they don’t discuss.

I’m not going to link to the article because it’s disgusting and ugly and I don’t want to attract the bad karma that doing so will bring. The point, however, is they spend $750 per WEEK at the grocery store fueling her feeding frenzy.

In the same way I find extreme eating contests vile, I also find it reprehensible that in a world of starving people and food insecurity right here is the good ‘ol US of A, someone is eating more than their share. Waaaaay more than their share.

Now the reason this comes back to Jeff Garlin’s book is that in addition to wanting to lose weight and get healthier, he also wanted to reduce his environmental footprint. Exactly the opposite of what this freak show woman in NJ is doing.

I found the juxtaposition jarring and oddly timed.

Garlin’s book was an illuminating read (although I still don’t truly understand food addiction). Plus, it had another weird coincidence, which I loved. Garlin and his son run into Eddie Van Halen and his son, Wolfgang, whose mother is Valerie Bertinelli whose weight loss memoir I also read. It’s like we’re all one big formerly fat dysfunctional family now! Or something.

MY FOOTPRINT was a fun read. He’s a comedian, after all. He was talking about eating healthier. “Finally, on the third day, you feel so different. That’s actually an understatement. You feel great and have so much energy that it’s like there is a rocket up your ass. I know a rocket up your ass doesn’t sound so wonderful. But it’s a special ass rocket that’s comfortable and gives you lots of energy.”

Garlin goes to the Pritikin Center every year or so — truly, the ultimate fat camp — and he credits it with saving his life. When he first went in 2003, he weighed 320 pounds and his cholesterol was over 1,000, where they stop measuring it. (By comparison, over 200 is considered unhealthy.)

But he has some funny stories about being there, like the Tanning Family from Philadelphia. “Tanning isn’t their name, it’s what they do. It’s all they do. Every day, all day, they lie by the pool: the father, the mother, and their two grown sons. After a couple of days they look like they’re starring in a minstrel show.”

Garlin’s a good and humble guy. He appreciates all his success and doesn’t take it for granted. He shows his flaws, which isn’t always the case with celebrities. He’s also learned some things on his journey that we can all relate to.

“That’s when I realize … there is no ending to this story. There is no ‘I lost my seventy pounds and my house is completely green.’ It’s an ongoing process; there is no endgame. It’s like success; you think that at some point you make it and then it’s easy. Nope. The hard work never goes away. In some ways it’s harder. No coasting. I know when I lose weight and get fit it will be hard enough to maintain that, let alone improve. The same with being green. I assume the challenges will just keep on coming. But I hope I’ll be up to it.”

I suspect this new philosophy of his is what made him turn the corner this time and start seeing some success in his quest for better health.

I just hope he doesn’t have to meet the lady from New Jersey. Heck, I hope nobody has to meet her!

Any thoughts about food addiction? Any thoughts about reducing your environmental footprint? Any thoughts about Curb Your Enthusiasm or Wall*E or Toy Story 3?