Cut sugar, eat more fat and lose weight and be healthier.
Eating a ‘low carb and healthy fat’ diet helps you lose weight and improve overall health. Eliminate sugar addiction, dramatically reduce blood sugar levels and high blood pressure. It minimizes the risk of insulin resistance and greatly reduces the chances of developing type 2 diabetes and obesity.
More and more health experts, doctors and academics are ditching sugar and reducing carbohydrate intake as studies highlight the negative health impact of elevated blood sugar levels.
Not having sugar is now part of a ‘clean diet’. Unfortunately, without continued motivation and daily exposure to unhealthy sugar-containing products at virtually all food outlets, it’s hard to think about living sugar-free and seriously reducing the amount of carbohydrates eaten.
With all the junk food and addictive sweets on display when you’re shopping, it’s all too easy to succumb to temptation. In fact, once you start a diet low in carbohydrates and healthy fats and feel its benefits, it will be too soon to let your guard down.
Relaxing control too soon can allow sugar and refined carbohydrates to return to your diet before your metabolism has stabilized. Then you risk undoing all the good work you’ve already done.
But at least now you know that this diet is a sensible starting point. When your weight or cravings have stabilized, you can think about developing this long-term diet plan.
After a few weeks without addictive sugar, your body should start telling you what it needs to stay healthy. These will be signs that will no longer be masked by sugar cravings and inexplicable hunger.
When you get these signals, you can increase your carbohydrate intake with slightly more starchy vegetables until you find the cut-off point that works best for you. You can also indulge yourself with a chocolate that contains a minimum of 70 percent cocoa.
You can also enjoy a glass of red wine every day due to the compound called resveratrol that it contains. Resveratrol is believed to have antioxidant properties that protect the body against cancer and heart disease.
Be very careful not to succumb to sugar temptations later on, especially if you had a high sugar addiction in the past. Former sugar addicts only need a brief taste of something sweet to start overeating again. But if that happens, fortunately there is a way out.
Just cut all sugars out of your diet for the next two days and avoid dense veggies to bring your blood sugar levels back down. Drink lots of water and herbal teas.
One puzzling thing about fruits and vegetables that many dieters find difficult to understand is the amount of natural sugar they contain. Health experts recommend five, six, seven or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day. But which ones contain more sugars?
All fruits and vegetables contain sugar in varying amounts. There are low and high carbohydrates. The trick is to tell them apart.
They all have a lot of nutrients and dietary fiber. They are all good for you and are much, much healthier than any processed food. When choosing between an apple, celery, a bowl of spinach, or a handful of berries, the key factor is the availability of sugars.
Green leafy vegetables and salads are on the lower end of the low-sugar scale. They have a great nutritional impact, they have a lot of fiber, but very little sugar. So these are the veggies to aspire to.
Starchy vegetables like peas and carrots have a greater impact on the body’s blood sugar level and insulin response. They are still healthy foods, but when you stop consuming sugar you must be careful with them.
However, the impact of sugar even from pumpkin or sweet potatoes is negligible compared to white potatoes, which the body metabolizes very quickly.
The same goes for fruit. Berries are full of minerals and vitamins, but they are low in sugar and tend to be fibrous. Because it takes time for the body to break down fiber, sugar is slowly released. Now you know why fruit juices cause high blood sugar levels and consequently spikes in insulin.
Arguably the healthiest fruit is probably the humble tomato due to the massive amount of lycopene carotenoid it contains. This compound is beneficially linked to the treatment of many diseases.
Grapes are packed with sugar and therefore should be avoided, even though red grapes contain resveratrol.