Reducing sugar intake or eliminating added sugar from your diet altogether, has many health benefits. Perhaps the most important aspect is that eliminating added sugar helps control your blood sugar levels, preventing or delaying the development of diabetes. Reducing the amount of sugar you eat can also stabilize mood swings, aid in weight management, and improve oral health.
The question is how can you integrate a sugar-free diet into your current lifestyle? Luckily, it’s not really that difficult. The key is to do it gradually rather than all at once, so you are not overwhelmed by all the changes you are making.
If you do not want to make these changes all at once, there is no reason why you can’t slowly integrate sugar-free foods into your lifestyle. If your diet is currently high in sugar, it can be difficult to cut it out all at once, and that means it’s all too easy to slip back into old habits. To eliminate added sugar in a less stressful way, consider incorporating one change into your lifestyle every one or two weeks.
Watch what you drink as well as what you eat
Many beverages are loaded with sugar, even the seemingly-healthy juices. To eliminate added sugar from your diet, cut out sugary sodas, juices with added sugar, and pre-packaged tea and coffee with added sugar. Don’t forget that alcohol also contains sugar, so to entirely cut sugar out of your life you’d need to eliminate alcohol as well.
This doesn’t mean it’s not ok to eat fruit. But it’s good to remember that eating fruit is definitely better than drinking fruit juice. When you eat fruit, you’re also eating fiber and plenty of vitamins and other nutrients that might not make it into the juice you buy at the store.
Read labels carefully
Choosing healthy foods based on nutritional information on packaging is nowhere near as clear-cut as your might think. It’s not only a case of looking at the calories, you have also got to check out how big servings are, how many servings you get per package, and how much sugar is present in the food. Do not just assume something is healthy because it is fat-free. Many low-fat and fat-free foods are packed with sugar, because adding sugar replaces the taste that is lost by eliminating fat. So be especially wary of foods that are fat-free, or labeled as diet foods. Also, be especially careful when you see food that’s labeled as a “health food.” If that food was really healthy, would it need a label telling you so?
Watch out for hidden sugars
Not all forms of sugar are labeled as such on packages, so take the nutritional facts on the box or wrapper with a grain of salt. For this reason, it is important to learn how added sugar might be “disguised” on food labels. All of the following words can be used to describe added sugar: fructose, lactose, galacctose, dextrose, glucose, maltose (in general, any word with “ose” on the end is a sugar). In addition, honey, corn syrup, and rice syrup may also be added as sugary sweeteners.
Another useful thing to know is that products can be labeled free if they don’t contain any added sugar, but they might still contain sugar in one form or another. Fruit juices, for example, contain plenty of sugar, because fruits are themselves high in sugar.
Choose complex carbohydrates
Sugar is not just sugar. Sugar is also a carbohydrate, and in fact, carbohydrates are themselves simply long chains of sugar molecules.
However, not all carbohydrates are the same. Some are very short chains of sugar molecules that the body breaks down quickly, providing a rush of energy. Any form of pure sugar works this way. Complex carbohydrates, such as those found in beans, legumes, and whole grains, are made up of much longer chains of sugar that the body breaks down more slowly. This is why complex carbohydrates give you a more prolonged feeling of energy that can last for several hours.
So what does this mean? It means simply that complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, legumes, brown rice, and whole-wheat pasta are much better options than white rice, bread, or pasta, or sugary processed cereals.
Eating out Sugar-Free
Keeping your sugar-free lifestyle up when you go out to eat can be extremely difficult. When you go out to eat, remember to choose complex carbohydrates rather than white rice, bread, or pasta, and when it comes to dessert, try fresh fruit instead of the usual fare.
But more importantly, remember that it is ok to eat sugar once in a while! If you really want that molten chocolate cake or another delectable treat, go for it. It is perfectly fine to eat a little sugar occasionally.
Bake with artificial sweeteners
If you love baking and eating your creations, cutting out sugar can be tough. Luckily, with a wide range of artificial sweeteners now available, you don’t have to forgo those tasty treats. Splenda and other sweeteners can be used in baking with excellent results, so a piece of cake or a cookie doesn’t have to mean letting sugar back into your life!
