The Sugar Smart Diet: Stop Cravings and Lose Weight While Still Enjoying the Sweets You Love (13 page)
Authors: Anne Alexander,Julia VanTine
Your intake of Straight-Up Sugars
Grab your food log. Today you’re going to look for foods that contain Straight-Up Sugar—SUS for short. Write SUS next to each item that you know contains sugar. These foods include:
- Any food or beverage you added sugar to—for instance, a few teaspoons in your coffee or tea or on your morning cereal
- Agave syrup, honey, maple syrup
- Sugar-sweetened beverages—soda, juice, lemonade, iced tea, fruit-flavored drinks, chocolate or strawberry milks, sports drinks
- Jams and jellies
- Chocolate and pancake syrups
- Chocolate in its many forms—puddings, snack cakes, candy, cocoa
- Candy—jelly beans, gummy candy, licorice sticks, mints, hard candies
- Sweetened cereals
- Granola or energy bars
- Cookies, doughnuts, packaged snack cakes, frosted toaster pastries, muffins, pies, and other bakery items
- Cake, muffin, or sweet bread mixes
- Ice cream or frozen yogurt
- Fruit or flavored yogurt
Count the number of items and note that in your log. If you chose to write down your serving sizes, you can estimate the grams of sugar you are getting
from these foods. For assistance, look at the item’s Nutrition Facts label. Total your grams and divide by 4 to get the number of teaspoons of Straight-Up Sugars you typically eat—there are 4 grams of sugar in 1 teaspoon. Recall that the Sugar Smart Diet is designed to get you to 6 to 9 teaspoons of added sugar per day. Are you close? Congratulations! If not, don’t worry. Use that number as motivation as you go through the plan.
What would you rather eat when you feel exhausted, stressed, or blue: a classic comfort food like ice cream or mac and cheese, or a cup of fresh blueberries or baby carrots? If you’re like most people, sugar and starch win hands down. However, in a study published in the
British Journal of Health Psychology
, it was actually fruits and vegetables that promoted feelings of well-being, rather than sugary, fatty junk.
In a 21-day study, 281 students completed an online daily food diary, logging in each night to describe their feelings from a long list of positive and negative words. The negative words the students could choose included
angry, anxious, short-tempered,
and
sad
; the positive words included
relaxed, happy, content,
and
calm
. The students were also asked to describe their menu each day, including the number of servings of five specific foods—fruits, veggies, cookies, chips, and cake.
When the researchers analyzed both the students’ food choices and their feeling words, they found a strong relationship between positive moods and higher intake of fruits and vegetables, but not the sweets and starches. That means on days when the students ate more produce, they reported feeling happier, calmer, and more energetic. The therapeutic “dose” of fruits and veggies that resulted in positive moods—7 to 8 servings a day—sounds like a lot, but you can get that amount in a cup of berries in the morning, a salad at lunch, a plate of crudités as a midafternoon snack, and a veggie at dinner.
Was it the positive moods that came first or the healthy amount of produce? When the researchers conducted additional analyses to find out, they discovered that eating fruits and vegetables on one day tended to improve mood the next.
The team wasn’t sure whether the students’ good moods were because of the high amount of nutrients in produce, or because people tend to feel good when they make healthy food choices. You’ll have a prime opportunity to find out—you’ll be eating lots of fresh produce on the Sugar Smart Diet. Might you experience a lift in energy and mood? If you’re anything like our test panelists, the answer is yes!
Your sugar preferences
Next, take a close look at all of the Straight-Up Sugars you eat. What time of day did you eat them? How were you feeling when you ate them? (This is where the mood and hunger information on your food log comes in handy.) Are there some you ate out of habit rather than pleasure?
Note any cravings that pop up at the same time each day. For example, let’s say you “need” ice cream after dinner. Why is that? After some thought, you may conclude that without that nightly indulgence, you feel deprived. Probe a bit deeper, and you may also realize that it doesn’t matter how much sugar you consume during the day, you still want that bowl of ice cream in front of the TV at night. Noticing—and honoring—such cravings can help you say no to sugary items during the day, for the most part. You realize that these foods don’t come close to satisfying like your nightly dish of ice cream does—at least for now. At the end of your 32 days on the Sugar Smart Diet, your preferences may change, or they may stay the same.
Here’s the question I want you to think hardest about: Which of the Straight-Up Sugars you ate did you
really
enjoy? Or, to put it another way, if you could only have one sweet hit, which one would it be? Maybe a morning without a doughnut feels like a day without sunshine, or you’re wedded to your 8 p.m. ice-cream fix, or you must have cookies and tea at your desk midafternoon. Your favorite one or two treats are your key sugar sources. Have them, but otherwise don’t eat any other Straight-Up Sugars today.
Kitchen makeover, part 1
Today you’ll remove all of the Straight-Up Sugars that lurk within your refrigerator, freezer, and pantry—except for those one or two treats you truly love—to make room for the new, healthy foods you’ll soon enjoy.
Start with your refrigerator first, then move to your freezer and pantry. Most of the sources will be obvious to you, but refresh your memory if you need to with the list beginning on
this page
. Place all the Straight-Up Sugar sources on your kitchen island or countertops.
When you’re done, take one last look at these items—the granola bars that
pack 25 grams of sugar per serving, the pancake syrup that’s pure HFCS, the candy you retrieved from your secret stash so the kids wouldn’t find it. Sure they taste good, but these sugary seducers have had their shot—it’s time to move on. Dispose of them or box them up for friends or the food bank, except for the one or two sweet foods and beverages you love most. Those items are your key sugar sources, and you’re free to enjoy them for the rest of the Step-Down.
Pam Peeke, MD, MPH, FACP
RECOGNIZE THE SUGAR/BRAIN CONNECTION.
Refined or processed sugar is ubiquitous in our food. As a result, the brain’s reward center is constantly being ignited, stirring up an endless appetite for these empty calories. In vulnerable individuals, consuming refined and processed sugar to excess results in an addictive process. It’s impossible to eliminate sugar entirely as it is present in so many foods. But you can minimize it significantly. If someone has a high level of sugar addiction, the intake should be very minimal. The key is to know how much of which food will trigger a feeling of loss of control and overeating or a binge. For instance, a regular chocolate bar with a high level of refined sugar is too much for most people and may result in overeating. However, an organic bar, with at least 70 percent cacao may not, as it has so much less sugar. The source of sugar is important.
PICK THE BEST APPROACH FOR YOU.
There are a number of ways to cut back on sugar. You can wean yourself—for example, from six sugar sodas down, then on to diet sodas, then to seltzer water, and finally to plain water perhaps flavored with lemon or orange slices. But if you are addicted to the stuff, an immediate detox may be necessary for you to break free and stop caving to the craving. Whichever path you take, get going on a healthy lifestyle overhaul. Increasing physical activity is wonderful to help regulate appetite and hunger. So is getting 7 to 8 hours of high-quality sleep.
REACH FOR PROTEIN.
The only time I crave refined sugar is when I’m stressed out. When that toxic stress hits, there’s an instant urge to grab something sweet. It’s like a knee jerk reaction. At that very moment, I’ll grab something with protein and fiber that will kill the craving. Peanut or almond butter on a piece of fruit like apple slices or a banana works well, as does yogurt with walnuts and berries.
SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS.
As a preemptive strike against sugar cravings, I meditate twice a day for 20 minutes each time. Meditation increases your ability to draw upon your prefrontal cortex (the CEO of the brain) to stay vigilant and make the right decisions.
PAM PEEKE, MD, MPH, FACP
is an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of Maryland. An internationally renowned expert on nutrition, metabolism, stress, and fitness, she is the author of
Body for Life for Women, Fight Fat after Forty,
and
Fit to Live.
Her most recent book is
The Hunger Fix: The Three-Stage Detox and Recovery Plan for Overeating and Food.
This long good-bye to your sugary foods can make it a bit easier to let them go temporarily. Just as important, it introduces the idea of “spending” sugar on the foods where you notice and enjoy it most. Remember, the more sugar you eat, the more it takes to satisfy you and the less of a treat it is. Conversely, the less sugar you consume, the more special it becomes and the less you’ll “need” it.
Even though you can still have your key sugar sources today, you can choose to cut back on them so it won’t be as hard to give them up on day 6. For many people, key sources are sweetened beverages, desserts, and ice cream. These tips can help.
If you’re a soda sipper or juice guzzler:
Today: Sip the full-sugar variety, but step down to a smaller bottle or can. Tomorrow or the day after, swap every other serving with ice water or seltzer with a twist of lime.
If you’re a dessert lover:
Today: Have your regular dessert. Tomorrow: Opt for a fruit-based dessert, like a baked apple or poached pear. The day after: Step down to raw fruit. Splurge on the varieties you love most—mangoes, berries, purple or red seedless grapes.
If you’re an ice-cream junkie:
Today and tomorrow: Eat one serving, then give away or dispose of the carton. (If you’ve got a family of ice-cream lovers, place it below your line of sight in the freezer.) The day after: If you want ice cream, go for it, but drive to the local ice-cream shop. Going forward, you might set an ice-cream ground rule: You can have it if you go out for it—but only on a Friday or a Saturday.
It’s 2 hours before quitting time. You’re so lethargic you’re about to slide off your chair, and chocolate is whispering your name. Before you open your mouth, get to your feet: A short walk can short-circuit chocolate cravings, according to a study published in the journal
Appetite
.
To observe the effect of physical activity on chocolate cravings, researchers recruited 25 “regular chocolate consumers” for their study. This designation was precise. To get chosen for the study, they had to report scarfing at least 3.5 ounces of the sweet stuff every day. To ignite their volunteers’ cravings, researchers had them abstain from their favorite sweet for 3 days and told them not to exercise or have caffeine 2 hours before their test periods.
The research team set up two test sessions and held them on separate days. At the first session, one group of chocolate lovers sat quietly while the other group walked briskly on a treadmill for 15 minutes. At the second session, the walkers sat and the sitters hit the treadmill. During each test session, volunteers filled out a scientific questionnaire designed to assess food cravings but adapted to measure chocolate cravings specifically.
After each session, both groups sat quietly for 10 minutes. Then every volunteer performed two 3-minute tasks, with 10 minutes between each task. In the first, the volunteers took a computerized test known to cause psychological stress. The second task? Testers presented the volunteers with a selection of chocolate bars and asked them to open and handle—but not eat—the bar they’d chosen. (If that’s not stressful, we don’t know what is!)
The sweet results? Compared to how they were at the start of the study, the walkers’ cravings dropped by 12 percent, while the sitters’ cravings actually intensified. Like chocolate, exercise may increase the levels of feel-good chemicals in the brain’s reward regions, thus reducing a desire for sweets, the study said.
Goals for Day 4
•
Uncover your hidden sugar triggers.
•
Identify and eliminate the Secret Sugars in your diet.
•
Identify and eliminate the Sugar Mimics in your diet.
The situations that lead you to reach for sugar
Cravings and food preferences aren’t the only things that draw us toward sugar. Habit, external cues, or the situations we’re in are also a factor. Today, you’ll review your typical routine to identify the times and situations that trigger a desire for sugar or starches. For instance, maybe you’re in the habit of multitasking as you eat. If so, practicing mindful eating may help you feel more satisfied, with less sugar.