By Live Energized
Kick Sugar Tip #8: Stay Hydrated
Dehydration is a leading cause of both sugar and carb cravings.
When you’re dehydrated your body gets depleted of necessary minerals and nutrients and your body will start to crave anything and everything to replenish them.
This often leads to sugary snack binging.
As you’ll know if you’re a regular reader of my blog: you should be aiming for between 2-4 litres of good quality (preferably alkaline water).
While that might sound like a lot to begin with, start small. Just aim for 2 litres to begin with and build up from there.
Of course, black tea (with or without milk), coffee, alcohol etc are dehydrating and juices, cola etc…well, we’ll get onto that in just a minute.
Try swapping your black tea and coffee for herbal tea (here are some of my favourite alkaline herbal teas) and this will easily contribute a litre or more of your hydration intake (if you have 3 cups per day).
And if you want some yummy ways to make your water more tasty, here is my guide to Making Water Delicious (contains five or six delicious recipes).
Kick Sugar Tip #9: Get Rid of Liquid Sugars
Any form of liquid sugar is worse than solid food.
Why?
Sugar without the fibre and bulk is far more detrimental to the body, hits harder and more directly on your liver and it turns of the fat storing process in your liver, leading directly to fat gain.
When you drink sugars (including fructose, in fact, fructose is absolutely the very worst type of sugar you can consume, especially when you drink it) without the fibre, your brain is not sent the message that the calories have been consumed.
Your body literally does not register those calories. As a result of this you stay hungry and crave more sugar.
This includes sodas, juices (ANY juice containing ANY fruit), alcohol, sports drinks, sweetened tea and coffee etc.
This is why I am so adamant about having NO fruit in my green juices or smoothies.
When you consume liquid sugars (and more on fructose below) you don’t feel full, so you eat more all day and you crave more sugar and carbs.
I could spend all day talking about the dangers of consuming soda, but that’s for another day.
Put simply – you have to cut soda and liquid sugars (and sweeteners) from your life if you ever want to get to your true health potential.
Kick Sugar Tip #10: Don’t O.D. on Fruit
I know there is a lot of debate about fruit, fructose and how much fruit is healthy.
I’m going to very breifly give you my beliefs here and an explanation, but ultimately you have to do what works for you.
Fruit is not alkaline-forming (generally). There are some exceptions, and these are all of the very, very low sugar fruits (lemons, limes, avocado, tomato, grapefruit etc).
The reason why these are alkaline forming is because they contain all of the alkaline minerals that most fruits do, but almost no fructose.
(Explanation as to why lemons and limes are alkaline forming here).
As mentioned above, when you consume fructose without the fibre (i.e. when you juice it, or drink a shop-bought juice) it goes straight to the liver, causes massive blood-sugar spiking and turns on the fat storing mechanism in the liver.
Without the fibre, the brain does not register the calories from this as being consumed and therefore you still remain just as hungry as before, and still have the sugar craving.
Fructose has been manipulated by the food industry over many years to be seen as the ‘healthy’ sugar, but in reality is simply isn’t.
However, fructose in a fresh, in-season piece of fruit is different to fructose in juices (fresh or bought) and is certainly different to High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup.
BUT, I personally recommend keeping fruit intake down to one piece of in-season fruit per day (maximum two).
Mercola (who has done more research on fruit and fructose than perhaps anyone!) recommends keeping fructose intake under 15g per day as an absolute maximum.
And considering 1 medium banana on average would have around 7-8g of fructose, you can see how you can easily overdose!
If you’re struggling with sugar cravings, but eating a lot of fruit, I recommend looking into this.
Mercola has a fructose per fruit chart here which you might find useful(note: you have to scroll about half way down the page).
And finally…
Bonus Kick Sugar Tip #11: Just Start Over Whenever Your Slip Up (right away…)
Just remember:
If you ever slip up, have a sugar binge, or even just something you know is a bit naughty, it’s not the end of the world. Or even the end of the day. Just get back up, dust yourself off and carry on where you left off!
So many people slip up and then think “oh well, that’s it, may as well start again tomorrow/next week/after my holiday/next year” and it’s just wasted time!
There is no benefit from writing off the rest of the day, week, month or year!
Just stop for a moment, think about what led you to making the mistake, what emotions you felt, what physically happened and swear to learn from this. See it as a positive learning experience.
And as ever…
If you liked my guide please do hit the share button below, and feel free to ask me any questions either below here or on Facebook!
It’s always my pleasure to serve and I look forward to hearing your story or tips below!
Scientific Research & References:
Added Sugar Intake and Cardiovascular Diseases Mortality Among US Adults ; Yang Q, Zhang Z, Gregg EW, et al. JAMA Internal Medicine. Published online Febraury 3 2014 (Link to research)
Opposing effects of fructokinase C and A isoforms on fructose-induced metabolic syndrome in mice.; Takuji Ishimoto, Miguel A. Lanaspa, MyPhuong T. Le, et al; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 27, 2012; (Link to research)
Greater Fructose Consumption Is Associated with Cardiometabolic Risk Markers and Visceral Adiposity in Adolescents; N. K. Pollock, V. Bundy, W. Kanto, C. L. Davis, P. J. Bernard, H. Zhu, B. Gutin, Y. Dong; Journal of Nutrition, 2011; 142 (2): 251 (Link to research)
The internal circadian clock increases hunger and appetite in the evening independent of food intake and other behaviors; Frank A.J.L. Scheer, Christopher J. Morris and Steven A. Shea; Obesity Journal; Volume 21, Issue 3, pages 421–423, March 2013; (Link to research)
Effect of ground cinnamon on postprandial blood glucose concentration in normal-weight and obese adults; Magistrelli A, Chezem JC.; Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics; 2012 Nov;112(11):1806-9.; (Link to research)
Effect of cocaine and sucrose withdrawal period on extinction behavior, cue-induced reinstatement, and protein levels of the dopamine transporter and tyrosine hydroxylase in limbic and cortical areas in rats; Grimm, J.W., et al.; Behavioral Pharmacology 2002 Sep 13(5-6):379-88; (Link to research)
