The Sugar Smart Diet: Stop Cravings and Lose Weight While Still Enjoying the Sweets You Love (15 page)
Authors: Anne Alexander,Julia VanTine
Now that you’ve identified your sugar profile and swapped the sugar bombs in your kitchen with whole, natural foods, you’re ready to start your journey to sugar freedom. The first step? Removing all sugar from your diet—temporarily, we promise. We’ll stick with you every step of the way, offering practical ways to prevent and relieve cravings and curb any crankiness. The benefits you
stand to gain in Phase 1 far outweigh any short-term discomfort you may experience. Less than a week from now, your jeans will be looser, your energy higher, and your mood brighter.
Just as important, you’ll have turned your diet around in ways that maybe you didn’t think were possible. You, passing up your morning bagel and coffee drink or kicking your 2-liter-a-day cola habit or eliminating those nightly ice-cream fests? Yes—and that’s just for starters. The sweet life is within your grasp. Turn the page and reach for it.
9.4
POUNDS LOST
AGE:
43
ALL-OVER INCHES LOST:
10.5
SUGAR SMART WISDOM
“I feel like I’m shopping in my own closet. I tried on an outfit that I haven’t worn in 6 years, and it fit!”
“SUGAR IS THE LAST THING YOU NEED!”
That was Robin’s response when a coworker was complaining that she was tired and needed sugar. She should know! The Sugar Smart Diet gave Robin a huge energy reboot. On a single weekend during her time on the plan, she took a 14-mile hike and walked 10 miles on a rail trail. To top it off, she logged another 6 miles on Monday. Now she’s training to walk a half-marathon. “I feel better today than I did in my twenties,” she gushes. “When I say this plan changed my life, I mean it with every ounce of my being.”
But Robin could relate to her coworker’s desire for sugar. “I used to have chocolate every afternoon as a pick-me-up, and I missed it at first,” she says. However, Robin was surprised to discover that she didn’t think twice about the ice cream, pastries, and other sugary foods she typically ate. To deal with her chocolate cravings, she’d take a short walk. “It really helped! And pretty soon I was able to simply talk myself out of wanting the candy. For me, realizing that I didn’t need sugar was very freeing.” Even staring down aisles of cookies and bakery cases full of treats didn’t put a dent in Robin’s resolve. “I needed to order some cupcakes for friends, and when I walked into the bakery, I was amazed—nothing even appealed to me. I walked out with a huge smile. Life without sugar is grand.”
Robin knew she was losing weight and inches—2¼ inches off her waist and 4 off her thighs—and that she was getting healthier. Robin’s high cholesterol level went from 268 to 221 and her LDL dropped from 198 to 153. Her borderline high blood pressure dropped a total of 36 points, getting her into the healthy zone. She didn’t realize just how much she had changed, though, until her husband returned from a business trip. “He was gone the entire 4 weeks I was on this plan. When he came home, he couldn’t believe his eyes. He kept staring at me and telling me how great I looked, even a week later!”
Phase 1: Days 611
THE TOUGH LOVE TURNAROUND
C
atch your breath: In the past 5 days, you’ve done a lot of challenging but eye-opening work. You’ve assessed your unique emotional connection to sugar. Discovered where it’s lurking in your diet. Determined how much you’re currently consuming. Identified the sweets that matter most to you. Learned about the major sugar bombs in the American diet. In short, you’ve amassed crucial knowledge about yourself and the role that sugar plays in your diet and your life—knowledge you’re about to put into action to slim your body and safeguard your health.
Welcome to Phase 1. This is where the rubber meets the road, where the determined take action.
When a toddler melts down in aisle 4 of the market, or a
teenager howls “it’s not fair!” as she stomps to her room, loving parents do what they need to do—put them on time-out or ground them—because they care. Faced with an unruly sweet tooth that wants what it wants when it wants it—
Doughnut! Now!
—you need to exert the same tough love. During this phase, you will remove sugar from your diet. Even fruit. That’s the only way to break sugar’s grip on you.
A:
Milk and yogurt contain lactose, a type of sugar (a combination of glucose and galactose). We haven’t eliminated them from the Sugar Smart Diet, though. Lactose is digested more slowly than other types of sugar, and therefore does not have as big an impact on your blood sugar and insulin response. Milk and yogurt are also packed with protein, which further slows digestion, and calcium, which you need for a healthy heart and bones. Finally, these products don’t taste sweet in the way most of us think of as sweet, so they are less likely to trigger cravings.
Why no fruit? Fruit is good for you. But you need to readjust your palate and get your metabolism running smoothly. That’s why we don’t want you to have
any
sugar. To that end, this phase also cuts out two vegetables that rival fruit in sugar content: sweet potatoes and beets. Like fruits, these are incredibly nutritious, packed with fiber and antioxidants, and, along with fruit, can come back into your diet in Phase 2.
To further help you quell cravings, improve the quality of your diet, and rebalance the way your body uses glucose and insulin, there are no processed grain products—white or whole wheat—in this phase. Because it can be hard to go without bread or pasta for very long, we begin to bring them back in Phase 2 in limited amounts. However, you don’t have to eat them.
We can’t sugarcoat it: We call this phase the Tough Love Turnaround because we know that it may not be easy. But we promise you’ll love the results! For the first several days, you may not feel at your best, physically or emotionally. Did you ever quit smoking or know someone who did? Do you recall the fatigue and irritability? You may experience similar symptoms, such as headaches,
fatigue, and edginess, and the cravings may get intense. Your score on the quiz you completed on Day 1 or 2 (
this page
) will give you an indication of how strong your sugar cravings are likely to be. But don’t let that scare you—let it be a motivation. Take a cue from one of our test panelists, Lisa. On the first day of the Tough Love Turnaround, she posted a picture of a 5-pound bag of sugar on Facebook, with the caption: “I’m breaking up with you! I CAN do this!” Let your score spur you on.
The good news: It’s all over in 6 days, and the meals you’ll be eating are designed to keep you satisfied, keep your blood sugar levels steady, and keep cravings at bay. All of the meals and recipes (see
Chapter 11
, were developed by Stephanie Clarke, RD and Willow Jarosh, RD, who ensured that they contained the right balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fat to prevent the wild swings in blood sugar and insulin that trigger cravings and promote fat storage.
But in no way did Stephanie and Willow sacrifice flavor. These meals are delicious! How does
Fiesta Egg Salad
sound? Or
Potato, Pepper, and Chicken Sausage Sauté
? Or
Steak and Roasted Baby Potatoes and Carrots
? Every one of the meals and snacks will dim your palate’s demand for sugar by providing you with vibrant, straight-from-nature flavors. One of our test panelists, Robyn, said that the
Broiled Mustard Salmon with Roasted Broccoli and Quinoa
“was as good as anything you might order at a five-star restaurant!” I’ve included a daily food log with all of your options on Phase 1—I encourage you to make copies of the log and check off what you eat each day.
Plus, I’m giving you two ways to make the process as painless as possible. Each day, you’ll follow a
Cravings Crusher
tip and a
Sweet Freedom
strategy. Cravings Crushers come straight from the latest scientific research. They’re designed to help you overcome the physical symptoms that may occur when you remove sugar from your diet or better manage your blood sugar levels. Sweet Freedom strategies are so named because they soothe stress or offer emotional comfort
better
than sugar. (You can also turn to rewards you identified and jotted down on your Rewards Card,
this page
.) When you use all of these tools faithfully, you create a positive spiral that sparks your motivation to stay on track. And because you’ll carry the strategies you learn each day into the
next, your discomfort eases day by day. Any symptoms you may experience typically fade, replaced by a positive upswing in energy and mood.
By Day 9, you should begin to notice just how good you feel. More energy, a brighter mood, and sound sleep are just the start. As your body regains its sensitivity to insulin and maintains steadier blood-sugar levels, sugar’s iron grip on your body and mind will loosen.
So will your waistband. By Day 11, if you’ve followed the Turnaround faithfully, you can expect to lose an average of 7 pounds and nearly 8 inches all over, nearly 2 inches from your waist and hips, and an inch off your thighs. Those numbers aren’t theoretical—they’re the average losses experienced by our test panelists. Women and men just like you, who broke their health-threatening dependence on sugar, shrank their sugar bellies, and retrained their taste buds to savor the sweetness of whole, natural foods. These rewards aren’t temporary, like a sugar buzz. They’re lasting, and the benefits only get better as you progress through the plan.
A:
As you may recall from
Chapter 2
, grains, beans, dairy products, nuts, vegetables, and milk contain sugar naturally (as do fruits). Not much, mind you, but when you combine foods in a meal, it adds up. This is not added sugar, the kind you need to worry about; food manufacturers don’t distinguish between natural sugar and added sugars on their products. But because we created these meals and recipes, we know exactly what went into them. I’ve given you the total amount of sugar in the dish, and I hope that you’ll be able to get a sense of which foods contain sugar naturally and how much, so you can make healthy food choices when the food label is confusing.
What to Do
•
Have breakfast every morning.
As I explained in the Sugar Smart Diet Rules, breakfast goes a long way toward keeping cravings at bay. Choose from the six high-protein options you’ll find on
this page
or try one of the breakfast recipes in
Chapter 11
. Breakfasts have about 300 calories and at least 15 grams of protein.
•
Mix-and-match the lunch and dinner options.
They’re interchangeable from a calorie and a nutritional perspective. Lunches and dinners contain 400 to 450 calories and, of course, they contain no added sugar. Have something different every day, or stick to three or four meals you love—it’s up to you. Every meal is easy and quick to prepare. When you feel like doing more cooking, you can choose from the recipes labeled “Phase 1” in
Chapter 11
. If you’re pressed for time, we offer a few restaurant options in this phase. If you just want something familiar, you can always have 4 ounces of lean protein (chicken or turkey breast; pork tender loin, loin, or chops; lean beef like sirloin or eye of round; fish; or tofu), 1 to 2 cups of vegetables, 1 cup of a whole grain or a medium potato, and 1 to 2 teaspoons of butter or oil or 2 tablespoons of nuts or seeds.
•
Don’t forget to snack!
Eating every few hours prevents the blood sugar dips that trigger appetite and sugar cravings. When you have the snacks is up to you. You can snack midmorning to tide you over until lunch or in the afternoon to hold you over until dinner. Or you can save your snack for after dinner. Just aim for eating something about every 4 hours. One of your snacks contains 100 calories and the other 150 calories.
•
Avoid the following foods:
Fruit, fruit juice, dried fruit, sweet potatoes, beets, processed grain products (both white and whole wheat), and sugar in any of its many forms (including the table sugar you might add to foods, honey, and maple syrup).
•
Set your daily intention.
I firmly believe that spending a few minutes at the beginning of each day acknowledging what you hope to achieve that day, practically or spiritually, and giving thanks for what is good in your life is beneficial to your health, your weight, and your overall well-being. As I mentioned, setting an intention every morning helped me put my own health and my well-being first. Today (and every day throughout this plan), set your daily intention. The box below shows you how.
•
Begin each morning with thanks.
Whether or not you’re a person of faith, beginning your day with what you’re grateful for sets a positive tone for the entire day. I start my day usually with something as simple as, “Thank you for one more day to be on this planet, seeing my children grow and blossom into the special people that they are.”
•
Pick a focus.
Once you’ve given thanks, pick one area of your life that you want to improve or decide on something you want to accomplish. Then create an intention around it and write it down. Intentions sound something like this:
Today, my intention is to be strong and to nourish myself with love. I want to become aware of how I feel, physically and emotionally.
Today, my intention is to do one thing that gives me pleasure.
Today, my intention is to take steps to ease my stress.
Today, my intention is to start my day with a protein-rich breakfast.
Today, my intention is to stick to three meals and two snacks.
•
Move into a few minutes of meditation.
It will help calm your mind and help you stay focused on the intention you’ve just set. A study in the journal
Emotion
showed that a type of meditation called mindfulness—which requires you to tune in to your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations—significantly improved people’s working memory, the short-term memory needed to manage emotions and solve problems. The result: You’ll feel more centered, less stressed, and have more energy to create a healthy, balanced life you’ll love.