Losing Weight without Sugar: What Does It Really Bring?
Whether chocolate, cake or chips – sweet temptations lurk everywhere. Losing weight without sugar is without question a challenge, but it’s worth it!
Losing weight without sugar: The background
Probably all of us have noticed that healthy food and sugar are not exactly synonymous. Doing without sugar therefore not only helps you with a diet, but also brings health benefits.
Pure sugar was hardly available to most people before the industrial revolution. With the beginning of the industrial production of sucrose (household sugar), consumption increased considerably and now causes many diseases and weight problems.
By the way: We consume an average of about 26 kilograms of sugar per year. That is over 70 grams of sugar per day! Sugar is anything but essential and does not fulfil any important functions for the body. In return, 1 gram of sugar has 4 calories (carbohydrate).
Possible damage caused by sugar consumption
- Dental caries formation
- Heart attacks
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Liver damage
- Poor skin appearance
Does sugar really make you fat?
The fact that the blood sugar level is regulated by insulin from the pancreas ensures that we can basically eat sugar without any problems. Especially since the liver converts sugar into fat.
But this fat does not disappear in a vacuum, but is stored by the cells. In addition, the insulin slows down the regular fat breakdown. In combination, these processes ensure that you build up fat cushions through high sugar consumption instead of losing them.
Completely do without sugar?
As we already know, we eat on average over 70 grams of sugar a day. First of all, you should check for yourself how much sugar you take in approximately. Look at all the foods you eat during the day.
Someone who eats 150 grams of sugar a day has different requirements than someone who stands at 50 grams. It is almost impossible to live completely sugar-free. In the long term, you can set yourself a maximum of 25 – 30 grams of sugar a day. So you still have the possibility to have a cup of cappuccino or a piece of chocolate for breakfast.
You may find it difficult to give up the sweet taste of Nutella or cake for the first few days, but your taste buds will change after a few weeks. You will often find that unrecognised vegetables such as broccoli or tomatoes taste much more intense and you will eat more consciously. Salad can also be delicious … 😉
4 important tips!
- Fresh food: There is hardly any unprocessed food left in the supermarket. Especially if you fall back on ready-made products, your sugar consumption rises very quickly to unexpected heights. Even supposedly healthy products like muesli bars or yoghurt are usually sweetened with sugar. Fresh fruit and vegetables are therefore right at the top of your agenda when you lose weight without sugar.
- Read the packages: Of course, you can’t tell immediately from the products whether they are teeming with sugar, so make it a habit to study the information on the packages carefully. The following words are now on your Black List: sucrose (beet sugar), maltose (malt sugar), dextrose (glucose), fructose (fruit sugar), lactose (milk sugar).
- Water instead of juices: Fruit juices are often the biggest enemy when losing weight. They contain a lot of sugar and calories. If you used to drink fruit juices regularly, just switching to water will help you lose a lot of weight. Now and then you can of course treat yourself to an apple spritzer with your diet.
- Smart shopping: Sweets are often packed quickly at the checkout or spontaneously due to a ravenous appetite attack. Especially with younger people, reaching for the candy shelf is almost obligatory when shopping. And who manages to divide their chocolate into small rations every day at home? That’s why you should avoid sweets while shopping, making it easier for you to avoid sugar at home. Don’t go hungry to the supermarket either!