Home Health & Fitness Goodbye Refined Sugar. Hello Good Health

Goodbye Refined Sugar. Hello Good Health

Cut out refined suagr from your diet for a healthier life.

Multiple meetings equals multiple cups of coffee. Here’s why you should cut out refined sugar from your diet.

How often do you meet your clients or partners over coffee? If you drink your tea or coffee with sugar, you should know that a normal cup contains two teaspoons (8 g) of sugar. If you are a woman, with just three cups of your favorite beverage, you risk going over your recommended daily sugar limit of 25 g! Men have their limit capped at 38 g per day, but that doesn’t stop them from consuming more either.

Moreover, tea or coffee is just one of the many ways through which refined sugar makes its way into your body. The granola bar you probably had for breakfast contains artificial sweeteners such as high-fructose corn syrup; the ‘healthy’ flavored yogurt you had to satisfy your midday hunger pangs also probably contains added sugar. Ketchup, mayonnaise, fruit juices, salad dressings, you name it, they all contain sugar!

Sugar in its natural state is comparatively harmless. Refined sugar on the other hand contributes to a whole list of health problems starting from tooth decay to even cancer. Cutting refined sugar wherever you can from your daily diet is the only way to stay healthy in the long run. In order to transform your business into an empire, you need to be in top health.

Here is a list of reasons why refined sugar is bad for you.

Consuming a lot of refined sugar leads to unhealthy weight gain.

Sugar is empty calories: Added sugars have no nutritional value. When you consume refined sugar, it makes your insulin level shoot up. Your metabolism is affected and this causes those calories to turn into belly fat. In other words, sugar leads to unhealthy weight gain.

Sugar is addictive: Until a decade ago, fat was the commonly acknowledged villain that stood in our way to good health. Today, sugar has taken its place and research shows how it is more addictive than even cocaine!

It leads to fatty liver: Fructose can be metabolized only in your liver. When there is an excess intake of sugar, it turns to fat and causes build up in your liver, and over the years, it can develop into nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Ultimately, it leads to liver cirrhosis for which there is no cure.

It is bad for cholesterol: Most people believe that it is only foods that contain high-cholesterol and trans fats such as eggs and bacon that worsen your cholesterol levels. But the truth is that sugar is also a major culprit. As insulin levels go up, your bad cholesterol levels also go up!

Too much sugar in the diet leads to insulin resistance.

Too much causes resistance to insulin: Excess sugar in your system causes the liver to keep making glucose. This raises the blood glucose levels even when insulin tries to keep the glucose production in check, leading to a condition known as insulin resistance. This is particularly harmful for those with Type 2 diabetes.

Excess sugar consumption leads to obesity and diabetes: Once you get diabetes, there is no cure. Being overweight is one of the main reasons why somebody develops type 2 diabetes. As we mentioned earlier, sugar is one of the main reasons for obesity. Unless you want this chronic disease upon you, you better watch what you eat.

Refined sugar increases the risk of cancer: When your blood sugar level spikes, it results in more IGF (insulin-like growth factor) being released. Higher levels of IGF help the growth of cancer cells, thus tying up increased consumption of refined sugar with an increased risk of developing cancer.

While excluding refined sugar from your diet is an excellent method to deal with all the health risks associated with it, your focus should rather be on including more healthy food such as fruits, vegetables, lean meats and whole grains. Only then can long-term holistic health and well-being be achieved. So, the next time you agree to have a business meeting over coffee, think twice.