What to eat when sugar isn’t an option…
After my recent posts on how sugar is making you fat and sick, I had a lot of people asking me what they should eat, if they are trying to eliminate sugar from their diet. It sounded like some people may be taking it to the extremes, so I am going to give you some sensible advice about how to minimise the affects of insulin on your body. These points below are easy to follow ways to help reduce the sugar in your diet.
1) Eliminate as much refined sugar form your diet as possible.
What does that mean? Don’t eat any cakes, lollies, jellies, ice-cream, chocolate, etc, etc, etc. If you simply must eat this garbage then limit it to once per week. That is somewhat acceptable.
2) When eating carbohydrates, choose low glycemic carbohydrates.
What does that mean? Low glycemic carbohydrates will not cause the sudden rise in blood sugar levels thus triggering the release of insulin. To find out whether a food is low or high glycemic, try this link, they have a fairly substantial database of foods,www.glycemicindex.com
3) Limit fruit to 2 pieces per day and when you eat a piece of fruit, eat some nuts with it.
The fat and protein in the nuts will help to mellow out the affects of the sugar.
4) Try to base your lunch and dinner around salad and/or veggies with protein.
Most people base their lunch and dinner around starch such as pasta, rince, potato etc. It doesn’t take long to change your habits to eat more veggies and salad. Not only is this beneficial in reducing the amount of starch you are eating, but it drmatically increases your vitamin and mineral intake form the veggies and we all know how beneficial it is to be getting all those natural vitamins and minerals!
5) Don’t think of sweetened yogurt as a health food.
Sweetened yogurt contains on average 15g sugar per 100g, some more, some slightly less. Not much different from ice cream! Natural yogurt is a different story, with around 5 or 6 grams of sugar per 100g.
6) If you are really craving a dessert and you must have it, choose ice cream.
As mentioned above, it can have anywhere from 15 to 30g sugar per 100g. A typical block of chocolate will have 60g sugar per 100g.
7) If you are having dairy, choose full fat.
Why? 2 reasons;
a) Most low fat products have has more sugar added to make up for the lack of flavour when fat is removed.
b) When you don’t have any fat present, the affects of the sugar on you rblood sugar is more dramatic. Fat will help to mellow out the spike in the blood sugar.
8 ) Don’t have sugar in your coffee or tea.
Add up how much sugar you put in your caffeine and you’ll be surprised.
9) Never ever drink soft drinks.
They are just empty sugar calories.
It really doesn’t take that long to change your tastebuds and reduce the amount of sugar in your diet. Try it for 30 days and see how you feel. Other than being thinner and healthier, I bet you won’t crave it as much either!
Tags: health, sugar, Weight loss
July 20th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Thanks for the info Troy.
I hardly ever drink fruit juice (not fruit drink), but I would assume it contains a lot more sugar. Am I right in guessing that you would be better off eating the fruit to get the fibre too?
cheers
Darrin
July 20th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Definitely, out with the juice, in with the whole fruit. As you said, you get the benefit of the fibre which will also help to slow the absorption of the sugar into the blood stream.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:14 am
What about dried fruit? Are the sugars more concentrated in a peice of dried fruit?
If so what should I eat and how much is reasonable?
July 21st, 2009 at 1:35 pm
My advice is always to opt for fresh fruit. Dried fruit is higher in sugar when you compare the amounts you would eat. 1 dried apricot and 1 fresh apricot are similar in their sugar content, but the difference is that you would normally eat much more dried fruit than what you would fresh fruit.
The majority of dried fruit has preservatives in it. Fresh doesn’t. If you are worried about chemicals on the skin, you can either buy organic or soak the fruit in a bowl of fresh water with a little white vinegar in it.
There is a difference of opinion out there as to the nutrient content, some say the nutrients are concentrated in dried fruit, others say the nutrients are destroyed in the drying process.
Not being a scientist or having any way to test the food’s nutrient values, I would just go with my heart and say fresh food is always best.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:58 pm
so i guess most “low carb” protein bars are a good snack
on average they are 15-20g protein 4-9g fat and 4-7g carbs
obviously fresh veg better, but as a snack at work, these are pretty good
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:45 am
Yes, based on the figures, I would say you are right. My only concern is what is actually contained in the bar, as in chemicals etc
July 31st, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Hey Shipsey!
what are your thoughts on artificially sweetened foods & drinks as a replacement for sugar?
we’re missing you from over here in Paris – I think you’ll be quite excited when we’re back though because we’ve eaten and drinken waaaaaaaaaaaay too much; and aside from a truck-load of walking we’ve done next to no excercise …. so the potential for drastic improvement is huuuge!
see you again soon!
Kirsty
August 3rd, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Hey Kirsty,
Glad you guys are enjoying the holiday, I am looking forward to whipping you back into shape!!!!
As for artificial sweeteners, I am not a fan. I would rather put natural sugar into my body over a chemical which may or may not be a factor in causing cancer. I try to avoid chemiclas at all cost, this includes eating them, putting them on my body or cleaning with them.
Just go for sugar, but cut down on it where possible.
Natural is always best:)
Enjoy the holiday!!!
October 1st, 2009 at 9:01 am
Hi Troy,
just curious about your thoughts on Powerade post exercise?
Cheers
Talia
October 1st, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Hi Talia,
Firstly you need to know what powerades do. They provide electrolytes and sugar.
The sugar is to help refeul the glycogen stores in your muscles. So on that side, it is not necessary because I know you are going to have a nutritious meal post workout to refuel with real food.
Their other use is the replacement of electrolytes. When you sweat a lot, you lose electrolytes. This can be further exacerbated by drinking lots of water to rehydrate which will dilute the lessened amount of electrolytes you have left in your body. So on this hand, these drinks are good to refuel. ONLY IF you sweat excessively during your workout.
But, I can honestly say, that as hard as I work you in the morning, it does not make you sweat enough to require a powerade post workout. The same workout in the middle of a hot sunny day might, but not at 6am.
So, in the right circumstance, an energy drink is a good option, I always use them when I do 3 – 6 hour adventure races, but I have never used one for a day to day workout.