The Sugar Smart Diet: Stop Cravings and Lose Weight While Still Enjoying the Sweets You Love (2 page)

To take control, it’s vital to make friends with sugar—to respect its power yet regard it as just one pleasure in the banquet of life. And that’s coming from a woman who savors dark chocolate almost every day and devotes a cabinet above her refrigerator to sugary goodies! I enjoy sugar, yet I’m free. You can be, too.

Having
choices doesn’t make you free.
Making
choices—smart, informed ones—does. This plan gives you the knowledge you need about sugar: the forms it takes, which kinds are healthiest, and how to satisfy your natural desire for it in ways that empower you. It also offers you a framework for building a full
and satisfying life so that you can right-size sugar’s place in your diet and savor it in the ways that give you the most pleasure.

Once you’ve learned about sugar’s effects on your health and well-being, you can make those smart choices while continuing to enjoy your favorite treats. Every choice that elevates your health, your happiness, and your dreams and aspirations represents one step on the path to the sweet life. But to make such savvy choices, you have to be informed about sugar. Sad to say, it seems that the less you know about it, the better the food industry likes it.

Now that I’m back at Rodale and am editorial director of
Prevention
, the top health magazine in the country, I read a
lot
of medical journals and health books and talk to a variety of experts to stay on top of hot-button public health issues. After my lightbulb moment, I set my sights on added sugars and found study after disturbing study about their impact on health. A
New York Times Magazine
cover story on sugar was particularly illuminating. Evidence of the deleterious health effects of sugar overload have been amassing for decades. They’ve just been kept quiet. Until recently.

As part of my investigation, I met with Robert Lustig, MD, of the University of California at San Francisco, whose explosive YouTube video,
Sugar: The Bitter Truth
, first sounded the alarm about the added sugars in our diet—on the eve of publishing his game-changing book
Fat Chance
. I’d read an early copy of his book and found his conclusions jaw-dropping. Talking with him about how the food industry had sugarjacked America’s food choices was like meeting Deep Throat (minus the clandestine garage setting), and it compelled me to dig even further into the research. From the American Heart Association and the Centers for Disease Control to the Harvard School of Public Health, scientists are reaching consensus: The huge amount of sugar we consume, often unknowingly, is a public health crisis that can lead to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.

Specifically, research implicates fructose, a simple sugar found naturally in fruit that’s also present in refined sugars. At one time, most of the fructose in our diets came from natural foods like honey and fruit. The healthy fiber in fruit slows our bodies’ absorption of fructose and acts as a natural brake on our intake of this sugar. (Can
you
eat 10 apples in one sitting?) But now fructose in the form of high-fructose corn syrup is ubiquitous in our diets. Why? As high-fructose corn syrup became cheaper to make, food manufacturers began to add it to everything—not just soda, but jarred sauces, canned soups, crackers, and prepared foods. And although manufacturers of infant formula are not required to list the sugar content of their formulas, some brands add sucrose. That’s white table sugar in baby food!

When even infant formula contains added sugar, you know our food supply has been “sugarjacked.” In the past 40 years, sugars have become cheap, ubiquitous food additives—key ingredients that an enormous industrial food complex uses to sell more and more food products to a tired, busy, overworked, time-stretched, hungry populace.

You’re likely paying the price even if you rarely eat sweets or drink soda. Added sugars have seeped into virtually every food in a bottle, jar, box, or bag—even “whole grain” breakfast cereals and “100 percent whole wheat” breads aren’t the solution. Sure, these foods contain whole wheat or whole grains. But they’re highly
processed
whole wheat or whole grains. And during processing, their fiber—the stuff that slows the digestion—is pulverized. As far as your body is concerned, highly refined whole grain crackers or fluffy whole wheat bread aren’t much better than a cupcake. (Of course, portion sizes matter, too.)

To add insult to injury, added sugars seem to supercharge our appetites. In a study published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association,
researchers looked at brain imaging scans after people consumed fructose or another simple sugar called glucose. Fructose altered bloodflow in areas of the brain that stimulate appetite, the study found; glucose did not. What this means is that eating refined sugars may trigger cravings for more of the stuff that thickens our waists and threatens our health! No wonder I had such intense cravings when I moved back to the United States—my brain was being flooded by the sudden surge in refined sugary foods.

I admit it: As I pored over the research, sugar became an obsession. I’d go to the supermarket, pick up items at random, read their Nutrition Facts labels, and gasp out loud. Seriously? Thirty-three grams of sugar in a cup of yogurt? Twenty-five grams in a frozen entrée? And those kid-friendly tubes of yogurt that I thought were such a brilliant invention for moms and used to feel good about putting in my kids’ lunch boxes? Ten grams of sugar per 2-ounce tube—that’s 2½ teaspoons of sugar I was encouraging my kids to eat every day. And I was looking at the “healthy” brands! I could feel my blood boiling. Why, I wondered, are we being forced to swill these obscene amounts of sugar, when the research linking overconsumption to obesity and disease is so clear? And why is it in
everything
?

Deep in my sugar-outrage stage, I unthinkingly bought potato salad from the deli section of my supermarket for a party. I opened the lid, sampled a forkful, and—
what
? Even my kids, who love their cookies and ice cream, thought it was sickeningly sweet. What is sugar doing in potato salad?

There’s this feeling I get when I know I
have
to write a book. That no-turning-back moment was sealed after meeting with my longtime colleague and
Prevention
advisor Andrew Weil, MD. I asked him what one change he would recommend to
Prevention
readers that could dramatically reduce their risk of chronic disease.

“Cut out sugar-sweetened drinks,” he replied.

I nodded my agreement. I’d read the studies linking sweetened drinks with obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and the debate over New York City’s “Big Gulp ban” had reached critical mass. But then I thought,
What about people who don’t drink soda, who think they’re eating healthy? They’re getting sugar in “healthy” cereals and whole wheat breads. Jarred pasta sauce. Frozen diet entrées. Frozen pizza. What can they do to break free?

My mission: to devise a plan that would break the powerful grip sugar exerts on people’s bodies and minds so they could lose weight and improve their health while still enjoying nature’s greatest treat. I didn’t want to demonize sugar (You’ll have to pry Oreos cookies-n-cream ice cream from my cold,
dead hands!); I wanted to reclaim it by steering our desire for it back to healthy, natural sources of sweetness and by indulging in decadent sugar splurges when we consciously choose to and not because crazed cravings tell us we need to (or because we couldn’t have imagined that our “healthy” frozen dinner was a sugar bomb).

Fired up, I welcomed the challenge. I felt like Mel Gibson in
Braveheart
: They can spike our potato salad with high-fructose corn syrup, but they can’t take our sugar freedom!

My expectations for the Sugar Smart Diet were high. It had to reduce belly fat and result in a loss of up to 2 pounds a week, improve insulin sensitivity, reduce blood pressure, lower triglycerides, and slash the risk for type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases. The meals and snacks had to be delicious and based on whole foods packed with flavor to seduce sugar-logged taste buds and hearty enough to prevent hunger and sugar cravings. Finally, because so many people felt “addicted” to sugar, I wanted to build in strategies used by experts to help “comfort eaters” forge a healthier relationship with sugar and silence those cravings.

That’s a pretty big wish list. But my crack team of registered dietitians, emotional-eating experts, and an experienced personal trainer were up to the task. They developed the plan, found 18 people who struggled with sugar cravings or their weight, and had them follow it for 32 days. We even formed a private Facebook group for them called the Sugar Crushers. Having had the pleasure of meeting them personally, I cheered them on from my desk every day—I refreshed their page constantly when I should have been answering e-mails or returning phone calls.

The results: nothing less than spectacular. The Sugar Smart Diet’s effectiveness lies in its three-pronged approach to sugar:

It addresses your body’s physiological “pull” toward sugar as well as the powerful emotional connection that many people experience.
Our healthy and lip-smackingly delicious whole foods eating plan short-circuits cravings and
satisfies hunger and our inborn desire for sweetness by bringing levels of hormones that drive hunger, fullness, and cravings into harmony. (Before the sugarjacking of our food supply, they harmonized a lot better.) The exercise part of the plan is short and sweet, the way most of us like it, but keeps blood sugar and insulin levels steady so you burn fat instead of store it.

If you tend to soothe stress or negative emotions with food, the expert-recommended coping strategies give you positive alternatives to “cookie therapy.” Unlike a fistful of Chips Ahoy!—a temporary fix, at best—these techniques offer the lasting comfort, calm, and sense of control you seek. I know, I’ve been there. In college, I discovered the dark side of sugar. Stressed by exams and looking to fuel all-night study sessions, I turned to things like Snickers bars for quick energy only to realize that the sugar rush put me on an express lane to a sugar binge. Fortunately, I learned how to recognize when such a tsunami of sugar cravings is building and how not to channel those feelings into a sugar raid, and you will, too.

It reduces intake of added sugars automatically and deliciously.
Our plan slashes the “straight-up sugars” in sweets and sodas as well as the “secret sugars” that lurk in foods you’d never think of. But you’re not likely to miss them for long—the menu is fabulous. (Mustard-glazed salmon, anyone?) It’s filling, too. Many of our panelists were so full after meals, they had to force down their snacks!

It sets its sights on Sugar Mimics.
I’ve already mentioned the pitfalls of refined carbs and highly processed whole grain products. On this plan, you’ll dramatically reduce your intake of both, swapping them for healthier alternatives that taste just as good.

In short, you’ll reap benefits sweeter than a handful of gummy bears. By cutting added sugars and adding pleasure to every day, the Sugar Smart Diet will help you:

• Crush cravings for sugar and carbs
  
• Lose weight
  
• Flatten a sugar belly
  
• Flip the switch from tired out to fired up
  
• Turn
  back the clock on aging skin, making it glow again
  
• Cut your risk of diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic diseases
  
• Enjoy sugary treats when you choose to, not because you need to
  

The cherry on top? Personal advice, tips, and recipes from
Prevention
advisors, including Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Arthur Agatston, Dr. Tasneem Bhatia, and Dr. David Katz, along with pros like Dr. Pamela Peeke and Ashley Koff, RD. They’re Sugar Smart mentors at your service.

As I was writing this introduction, one of my favorite sayings from Mohandas Gandhi kept running through my head: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Gandhi’s nonviolent approach to tyranny inspired a nation and changed the world. And similarly, we can take a quiet, but effective approach to changing our relationship with sugar. We don’t need to fight with sugar or even go to battle with the evil geniuses who are spiking our food supply with it. We simply need to find that kind of balance that Gandhi talks about: aligning our new knowledge about sugar with making conscious choices to eat in a way that makes us happy.

When you gain new information, as you will in this book, your thinking changes. You have your own lightbulb moment. The negative chatter in your head that stops you from giving your diet, your health, and your life the care it deserves is silenced, and a new, empowering inner voice emerges. And when
that
happens, you begin to treat your body and your soul with the same nurturing care that you lavish on those you love. It’s pretty simple: When you know better, you do better and feel better—about everything in your life, not just your diet.

We’ve all swan-dived into sugar to cool stress or hide from feelings or situations we’d rather not deal with. But on the Sugar Smart Diet, the
only
good reason to eat sugar is a positive one—to gift our tongues and (as you’ll learn) our brains with its pleasures. Stick to that one reason, and sugar returns to its proper place in your diet: as a treat to be savored with eyes-closed bliss.

It’s amazing how stripping the excess sugar from your diet sweetens your life. On this plan, you’ll ask yourself questions like, How can I nurture myself right now? Do I “need” this chocolate, or is a hug, a long walk, or a shoulder to cry on what I’m craving? What did I do today just for fun? What choices can I make today that will empower and revitalize me?

One of the best things about the Sugar Smart Diet (besides the weight loss, of course) is that it makes sugar special again. After periods of eating it mindlessly, not really tasting my share of doughnuts and candy bars, I came full circle to my experience of sugar as a kid: It’s a treat again. But so is listening to the cicadas on your porch on a summer evening, or racing downhill on a sled with your kids for the first time in years, or choosing a pedicure over folding the laundry because pretty toes make you feel good.