Tag: health

Let’s talk sugar strategy here… Now remember that everyone’s definition and needs are different. Why? We are all on different health paths and our readiness or behavioral change journeys are different too. So take what you feel to apply to you to help you be just one step better and work on it. 

We are talking three strategies today – food ingredients, abstaining vs moderating, and replacing. Along with some other tips to get your sugar break up started, there is something for everyone here.

First item of business, learning how to find sugar in your foods. You won’t find it on the front of a label, but you can search for it in a couple places on the back of labeled foods. Here are five tips that I use with my clients on nutrition labels:

1. The best tip I can give is to purchase foods that come with NO ingredient labels. Can you think of any? Like fresh meats, fruits, veggies, etc. 
2. Going along with #1, if it does have a nutrition label, try to stick to less than 5 ingredients. The number is pretty arbitrary but the principle is that the less ingredients, usually the less processed. And less processed usually means more nutrients because they haven’t been stripped away during the processing and random additives put back in. 
3. In looking at the ingredients, if there is sugar (see the many names below), try to look for foods that do not have sugar in the top 5 ingredients. The top 5 ingredients mainly constitute the bulk of the food you are eating, so the further down, the better. 
4. There are SO many names for sugar (see section below). Companies are getting smarter about the placement of sugar on their ingredient list. To make sugar later on the list, they are actually using more than one kind of sugar to break things up so there are two + types of sugar in your product, but all those sugars can add up to a lot. So educate yourself on the names of sugar and what you need to look for on a label. 
5. Look at the added sugar line in the nutrition facts. If it has less that 10 grams of ADDED sugar, you are pretty good for a more whole food. 

So an apple doesn’t come with a label (good), it has less than 5 ingredients (good), and there is NO added sugar (even though they are super sweet). These are just great basic guidelines to practice in your shopping. 

Next strategy is to learn if you are an Abstainer or Moderator. This comes from the amazing book of Gretchen Ruben called The Four Tendencies. Such a great read btw and worth your time! Helped me parent and wife in a whole new way. Anyway, she talks about people who are really good at being moderators and those that find it easier to just abstain. My hubby is a total moderator. He can take one bite of cake, taste it, and say no more. Me? I have a slice. Then a second. Then a third. And the rest of the pan when I am cleaning up. Then I’m sick. It is like I don’t have a system that tells me to stop. I’m that way in a lot of other areas of my life too. So it is MUCH easier for me to say NO to everything. And it works really well once I get going. 

This can help you decide better how a sugar strategy might look for you. 

During my luteal phase of my PMDD cycle I HAVE to be a complete abstainer because my hormones mess with my ability to regulate/moderate. During the follicular phase when hormones are running my body through a wringer, I am much better at regulation and can relax a little bit, but still do try to stay in the abstainer habit. Just makes it easier for me. 

If you are a moderator, it is helpful to set your limit before you eat your sweets so you stick to that with no exceptions. I have heard that after three bites of a dessert you really don’t taste it anymore. So you could set yourself at three bites, one small slice, one cookie, etc. We actually have set some guidelines like this with our girls. I talked a little about this in part 2 of this series but we have set that we only do baking on saturday or sunday, we don’t purchase and premade sweets from the store, and we only need one serving of what we make and can share the rest. 

This has saved our house immensely. There is less pressure to eat sweets as a “snack”, less pressure to snitch sweets because there aren’t any lying around, and we are enjoying our sweets more because we are making them ourselves! The girls (I only have girls) also can have any candy they get from school, class, friends, etc. There is no pressure from us as parents there because we know that there isn’t the rest of the bag. Loved setting some guidelines on health with our girls. They were part of that discussion. We talked about fully abstaining or allowing everything and we found what would work for use as a whole. 

The next strategy is a replacement strategy. I love to use this one with my clients but it always seems to take a while to kick in because we have to remember we have options and in the middle of a craving, this can be tough. The idea is this: instead of focusing on what you can’t have, what are some things you can have without guilt and that also add nutrients to your body. 

Other ways to cut back on added sugars:

• Sugary drinks – stick with sparkling water, Zevia soda, herbal teas, infused water (I love mango and strawberries), and pure water
• Avoid Sauces and Condiments – stick with spices, herbs, mustard, salsa (no sugar added), vinegars, and pesto. 
• Eat more healthy and full fat foods – there is usually more added sugar in low fat varieties of foods to help it taste good. Also healthy and full fat foods make you feel full. 
• Avoid any processed foods – you can be an unhealthy healthy – stick to as whole foods as possible
• Watch your breakfast – one of the sweetest meals of the day – start your day with a good protein and fat filled meal – eggs and ham, protein oatmeal, etc
• Add your own sugar – purchase unsweetened and then add your own sweetener in like stevia or erythritol.
• Don’t keep sugar in the house
• Don’t shop when you are hungry
• Get enough sleep
• Destress! 

In conclusion, I hope that this series has been helpful for your awareness and desire to take bits and pieces and apply them to your life to be healthier. It isn’t about perfection, it is about small little steps over time to create a lasting lifestyle. 

Below are the many names of sugar. I am sure this list probably isn’t all of them since new products are coming on the market, but it is great to be aware of the names when you are shopping. 

The Most Common Names for Sugar

(Excluding artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes)

‍Basic Simple Sugars (monosaccharides and disaccharides):

• Dextrose
• Fructose
• Galactose
• Glucose
• Lactose
• Maltose
• Sucrose

Solid or Granulated Sugars:

• Beet sugar
• Brown sugar
• Cane juice crystals
• Cane sugar
• Castor sugar
• Coconut sugar
• Confectioner’s sugar (aka, powdered sugar)
• Corn syrup solids
• Crystalline fructose
• Date sugar
• Demerara sugar
• Dextrin
• Diastatic malt
• Ethyl maltol
• Florida crystals
• Golden sugar
• Glucose syrup solids
• Grape sugar
• Icing sugar
• Maltodextrin
• Muscovado sugar
• Panela sugar
• Raw sugar
• Sugar (granulated or table)
• Sucanat
• Turbinado sugar
• Yellow sugar

Liquid or Syrup Sugars:

• Agave Nectar/Syrup
• Barley malt
• Blackstrap molasses
• Brown rice syrup
• Buttered sugar/buttercream
• Caramel
• Carob syrup
• Corn syrup
• Evaporated cane juice
• Fruit juice
• Fruit juice concentrate
• Golden syrup
• High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
• Honey
• Invert sugar
• Malt syrup
• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Rice syrup
• Refiner’s syrup
• Sorghum syrup
• Treacle