Most people have a sweet tooth. An average adult consumes around 22 teaspoons of sugar in a single day. This amount is on top of what they consume after intaking the natural sugars in grains, fruits and dairy products. All the excess sugar you consume causes obesity, heart disease, high cholesterol, high cholesterol, diabetes, inflammation of the body and high blood pressure.
Tips to Consider
If you are adopting a low sugar diet you can reduce the risk of getting the above health conditions. Listed below are the tips you need to consider while getting started with low sugar protein bars.
Begin Gradually: Make a plan about what you want to eat. You should always consider starting the process of a low sugar diet slowly and steadily. You need to be slow on getting your taste buds adjusted to the low sugar diet so that they don’t crave for it. You can eat food which has natural sugar to adjust to the new diet you are trying to adjust with. These fruits also help you in getting the required nutrients and fiber. As you gradually become more knowledgeable you will be able to make more changes to your diet and to reduce the sugar intake. Generally, the sugar withdrawal symptom happens during the first week for most of the people. You might feel cranky and might crave for sugar. You should know that you are not alone in this situation. Making these changes can reduce these cravings in the long run and you would be in the right path which you seek.
Obvious Sources of Sugar to be cut: You have to make sure that your diet is off limits to sugary sweets which includes muffins, pastries, cakes, baked items, cookies and frozen items like sorbet and ice-cream. Also remove the food items which naturally have high sugar from your daily diet. When you settle down into your new diet you have to keep your mind off from having cravings for sugar. You can remove the naturally occurring items which have sugar such as dried fruits, fruit added in yogurt and milk.
Read the Labels: You need to learn how to switch to a low sugar diet and it often takes some time to learn how to master it. To understand the food you eat, you need to start reading the label on the food. When you start reading the labels you would find that most of the food items have hidden sugar which are available in supermarkets nowadays. The food items such as crackers, boxed rice, baked beans, tacos, grains and frozen food. So, to eliminate the hidden sugar sources you need to start reading the information about the ingredients on the food label. Be aware of the ingredients written on the labels. Many times, nutrition information is written in grams on the labels. This means that four grams of sugar is equal to one teaspoon. Look up for information online if the ingredients like fruits don’t come with labels about the nutritional value. Many companies have now come up with adding additional information about the nutrients so that you can make better decisions.
Code Names: There are many names for sugar so you need to know the alias names for it if you want to reduce the intake of sugar. Any word which ends with “ose” is usually sugar such as glucose, sucrose, maltose, fructose, dextrose, lactose and fructose. It might also be labeled as malt sugar. They are also known as agave, molasses, fruit juice concentrate, syrups or maltodextrin. When you understand the ingredients and learn to identify sugar you will easily be able to avoid sugar.
Artificial Sweeteners are to be avoided: Artificial sweeteners are much sweeter than real sugar. You should not let yourself think that you are eating real sugar as it may later trigger a craving for sugar. It would then be harder for you to control the eating plan. You may find many products in the markets such as Stevia, Equal, Splenda, Nutrasweet and Sweet ‘N Low. You might know them as sugar replacement, but it is good to avoid them. They contain ingredients such as aspartame, neotame, saccharin, acesulfame potassium and sucralose.
Avoid Sugary drinks: Keep a check on not only what you eat but also what you drink daily. Sugar is also found in drinks such as fruit juices, coffee and milk which is flavored, hot chocolate and tonic water. Even some liquor and cocktails contain high sugar content. Even wine has sugar, so you need to keep a check on what you intake.
