Top tips to reduce your sugar intake:
- Choose natural sugar found in fruit when you need a boost.
- Avoid processed juices which can contain as much sugar as a can of coke (16 teaspoons in a 600ml bottle!).
- When you are craving sugar look at what triggered it - often it can be because you want to escape an uncomfortable emotion. Try and sit with it and the emotion and the intensity will peak in a few minutes and will declint.
- Distracting yourself can be an excellent way to stop yourself reaching for the lolly bag. Take a walk, call a friend or read.
- Look out for hidden sugars found in bread, low fat yoghurts and even savoury muffins.
Sugar is a poison and its sale should be as tightly regulated as cigarettes and alcohol, scientists say. They warn that sugary foods and drinks are responsible for illnesses including obesity, heart disease, cancer and liver problems. And they claim it contributes to 35million deaths a year. In an article entitled The Toxic Truth About Sugar, published in the journal Nature, the scientists add: ‘A little is not a problem but a lot kills – slowly.’ The U.S. authors warn obesity is now a bigger problem than malnourishment across the world, and that sugar not only makes people fat but also changes the body’s metabolism, raises blood pressure, throws hormones off balance and harms the liver. The damage done mirrors the effects of drinking too much alcohol – which the scientists point out is made from distilling sugar.
Read the full article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2094812/Sugar-controlled-like-tobacco-alcohol.html