Super Sneaky Sugar

I was planning on writing this blog and then I got an email asking “How much sugar should I aim for?” What a nice coincidence. 🙂

A few quick facts:

• Sugar has 16 calories per teaspoon and it does not contain any vitamins or minerals.
• Most American’s consume 22 teaspoons of sugar per day!

I encourage you all to check labels and start to educate yourselves on where sugar is hiding in your diet. I can almost guarantee you are eating way more of the white stuff than you think. Most of your sugar intake should come from fruit and low fat dairy (natural sugar sources: fructose and lactose), not from processed foods with added sugars. One thing to really keep in mind if you’re trying to lose weight is that foods labeled as low fat generally contain even more sugar than the full fat version. They have to replace the flavor somehow!

Sneaky places where sugar hides:

• Juice
• Gatorade and many pre/post workout drinks
• Coffee drinks (think Starbucks, but also the flavored creamers you buy for home!)
• Added sugar on frozen fruit and dried fruit (check the labels…some are perfectly fine and others have tons of loaded sugar!)
• Pasta/pizza sauce
• Salad Dressing
• BBQ Sauce and marinades
• Instant Oatmeal Packets
• Cereal
• Low fat packaged foods
• Flavored yogurts (yes…even the “light” yogurts…check out the labels!)

Satisfy your sweet tooth with naturally sweet foods (think all kinds of yummy fruit). If you’re are indeed a ‘counter’ try to keep your added sugar amounts (mainly from processed foods) under the following amounts per day:

• Women: 5 teaspons (20 grams)
• Men: 9 teaspons (36 grams)
• Kids: 3 teaspons (12 grams)

Side Note: Stop drinking your calories!!! Do you know that one soda contains more sugar than you should have all day? A can of soda contains 8-10 teaspoons of sugar!

Some of the most common added sugars are corn sweetener, corn syrup, dextrose, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, honey, maltose, malt syrup, molasses, sucrose, and syrup. Look for these items in the list of ingredients. If any of these items are listed near the beginning that means there is more added sugar than if they are listed at the end.

Find out where the sneaky sugar is hiding in your “healthy” foods and cut down. You will see a difference. And remember, keep the 90%/10% rule in mind. You don’t have to eat perfect ALL the time.

For more info on added sugar check out these articles!

• What are added sugars?
• Foods surprisingly high in added sugar
• Heart group urges daily limit on added sugar

Have a wonderful holiday weekend…the weather in the Northeast is supposed to be fantastic! Get out there and MOVE. If you’re gonna eat sugar (which I know I certainly tend to do more of on the weekends) you gotta at least be willing to burn it off! 🙂