Cut Down Your Sugar Intake

One of life’s ironies is that while half the world starves, the other half is overweight. This brings unwanted health problems like obesity and its associated diseases such as diabetes. You’ll also look and feel better if you trimmed off a few kilograms.

Many people go on some sort of diet to lose weight, but most of these diets are short-lived.
The way to successfully remain lean and healthy is to make sustainable long-term changes to your lifestyle.

One of the best things you can do for yourself is to cut down your sugar intake by adopting some or all of the following habits.

1. Drink when you’re hungry

Your body often mistakes thirst for hunger. Next time you feel hungry, drink a full glass of water and wait 10 minutes. Chances are you won’t feel as hungry because the thirst has been satisfied. If you are still hungry, go ahead and snack.

2. Avoid sodas and syrups

One of the main causes of obesity is drinking sodas and other sweetened drinks instead of water. Large amounts of sugar are needed to overcome the bitter taste of carbonated drinks. Drink plain water instead. By the way, coffee and tea do not count as water.

3. Have healthy snacks

Throw away the chips, chocolates, cakes, and biscuits and other highly processed and sweetened products that most people snack on. Reach for an apple, a plain bagel, or a handful of unprocessed nuts instead.

4. Reduce portions

Even if you continued to indulge your sweet tooth, just eating half portions would reduce your sugar intake by half. Order that cheesecake if you must, but share it with a friend of leave half of it on the plate. You could even share the main meal since most portions are more than what a grown adult needs.

5. Eat frequently

When you allow yourself to become too hungry, your brain gets signals that famine is near and sends out instructions to stock up on carbohydrates. That’s why you’re more likely to crave sugar-filled meals and eat too much when you finally get access to food. Eat before you’re hungry and this is less likely to happen.

6. Request dressing on the side

Ask for dressing to be served separately when ordering salad. You then have control about how much to use. Try dipping your fork into the dressing bowl before picking up the salad with it. A fork will pick up very little dressing yet provide enough taste to satisfy your palate. You can have a very enjoyable meal with much fewer calories.

7. Buy unsweetened alternatives

Many cereals, juices, yoghurts and other types of foods and beverages come with low sugar or no sugar alternatives these days. While the lack of taste may take getting used to at first, once you’re accustomed to the purer taste of the unsweetened versions you will feel quite sick when you taste artificially sweetened foods again.

8. Reject fat-free alternatives

Trying to cut down on high-fat food may have the unintended effect of increasing your sugar intake. This is because the easiest way to make up for the lack of taste in fat-free food is to add sugar instead.

9. Avoid processed food

While it is almost impossible to avoid processed food entirely, you can avoid it as much as possible. Learn to deep freeze fresh meat or shop more frequently, rather than buy food in cans or packets just because they keep longer and are more convenient.

10. Understand food labels

The problem with cutting down sugar is that often we don’t even see how much sugar there is in a given food item. Check the food labels to see just how much sugar has been added. Any ingredient that ends in ‘-ose’ is most likely a type of sugar. Compare the amount of sugar (usually measured in grams) in a few different brands of the food item you want, and select the one with the lowest amount of sugar.

You can probably think of other ways to cut down your sugar intake. I’d love to know of other simple and practical ideas so leave a comment if you have any suggestions!