Fat is the enemy! Eating fat makes you fat!
The warnings are everywhere. There is tons of diet advice telling you that eating a low-fat diet is the key to weight loss. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But there is another culprit out there that are lurking in nearly everything you eat.
Sugar.
Perhaps instead of counting calories or fat grams, you should be counting grams of sugar. Read on to learn how cutting sugar from your diet can be a great way to start winning your battle of the bulge.
Sugar Spikes Your Blood Sugar
Your body needs a certain amount of sugar in your bloodstream to have energy and function correctly. But dramatic spikes to your blood sugar, especially on a regular basis, can start creating some serious problems.
In fact, if your body can’t properly regulate your blood sugar, you would die.
In order to keep you alive, your body produces insulin. Insulin deals with excess sugar in the bloodstream and helps to maintain a more even blood sugar level. Thus, when you eat sugar, your body makes more insulin to maintain the right equilibrium.
However, continuous, serious spikes in your blood sugar can lead to long-term health problems. Most commonly weight gain (particularly in the belly) and, in some cases, diabetes. It can also lead to inflammation, which contributes heavily to heart problems and cancer.
Thus, sugar is more often the source (as opposed to fat) of belly fat. So cutting back on sugar can help you target that stubborn belly fat that frustrates you. And it can help a lot to decrease your risk of contracting the health problems that we mentioned.
Sugar Makes You Hungry
A very important fact about sugar is that it can make you feel more hungry. You then tend to eat more because you feel hungry. But your body doesn’t actually need those extra calories and stores them as fat. It’s a vicious cycle that is hard to break.
How does sugar make you hungry?
Let’s explain a little about fat cells to help you understand.
Not All Fat Cells Are Equal
There are different types of fat cells that your body uses to store extra energy. The fat cells that are created from eating refined carbs like sugar are called visceral fat. This is the type of fat we mentioned earlier that tends to reside around your middle.
The amount of visceral fat in your body has a direct relation to how hungry you feel. The reason is that it greedily sucks up whatever fuel or energy you have in your bloodstream. The rest of your cells aren’t getting the energy they need and send distress signals telling you that you are hungry.
When you’re feeling a snack attack coming on, you don’t often make time to go make yourself a balanced meal. Instead, you reach for a box of cookies or some other easy snack.
The Role of Sugar and Insulin
The trouble with store-bought snacks is that virtually all processed foods are loaded with sugar and other refined carbs like flour. Eating them causes a spike in your blood sugar, which triggers the release of more insulin, which contributes to creating more visceral fat cells.
And the cycle just keeps going. No wonder why you feel like you are stuck in an endless cycle of frustrating diets and little to no results.
Sugar Makes You Tired
Another way that sugar can sabotage your weight-loss efforts is by making you feel fatigued and tired.
But wait. When you give a kid a candy bar they get wound up and start running around like a mad person. They don’t look very tired, do they?
Well, what happens next? They crash and usually end up falling asleep on the couch or curled up on the floor.
The reason this happens is that sugars are simple carbohydrates. These simple carbs are easy to convert into energy and therefore hit your bloodstream fast. This gives you a strong burst of energy that has you feeling like you can run 5 miles just like that!
But because that energy all hit your bloodstream fast and at the same time, your body frantically went into insulin production mode. After all, it needs to regulate the amount of sugar in your bloodstream at any given time.
Because of this reaction, your blood sugar tends to drop too low as your body seeks equilibrium once again but overshoots it. This causes you to feel tired and lethargic.
By the time you make it to the gym, you’re usually hitting this stage and just want to go take nap. You can barely get out of your car and walk up to the door, let alone run 5 miles on the treadmill.
Cutting Sugar May Be Your Answer
If you’re having trouble losing weight, cutting sugar may be the answer you’re looking for. This is especially true if you notice that your weight troubles tend to center around your belly.
Cutting sugar completely from your diet is an unrealistic feat. But if you start reading labels, you’ll probably be surprised just how much sugar you’re consuming in a day.
Don’t try to quit eating all sugar cold turkey. Once you start label checking, you’ll realize how impossible it is to eliminate completely.
Instead, set a goal that you feel is attainable for you. Perhaps you might start by cutting the amount of sugar that you eat by half. Try it for a couple weeks and see how you feel. You might be pleasantly surprised by the results.
For more excellent weight loss tips be sure to check out other articles on our blog. We have a ton of information designed to help you reach your weight loss goals.