Women Heal Yourselves

Sugar: Is your Sweet Tooth Rotten?

Did you know the average American consumes 26 to 135 pounds of refined sugar a year? It is no wonder we are a nation riddled with disease.

Sugar’s major problem is that it raises the insulin level and inhibits the release of growth hormones. This depresses the immune system.  Excessive Insulin also promotes the storage of fat. Eating sugar can produce rapid weight gain and increase triglyceride levels, causing cardiovascular disease.  Eating sugar is like an open invitation to the onset of disease.

Sugar is addicting.  Have you ever notice when you give into a sugar craving that you seem to want more and more for days on end? I find myself getting into these cycles when holidays come around. I think, “I haven’t had any sweets for awhile what will a couple of cookies harm?” But then I can’t seem to stop eating them. Sometimes it takes a week to get off the sugar go round. My best defense from this cycle is to get back into the gym, nothing like seeing that it takes an hour on the elliptical to burn off that 300 calorie candy bar to make you not want to eat one.

 Want to know just how bad sugar is for you?  Here is a list of all the bad things refined sugar does: (scroll to the bottom of the page) http://www.healingdaily.com/detoxification-diet/sugar.htm

So why do we have sugar cravings anyway?

 It could be an emotional issue. Did your family gatherings as a child center on sweets? Sometimes we can relate sweets to a time in our past ‘when everything was right with the world’  a ‘feel good’ time like a family gathering that was special to us and deserts were a yummy part of that feeling. So now as adults when we feel stressed we desire to go back to that calm time and the taste of sweetness puts us back there.

But there can also be a physical reason we crave sweets, such as low serotonin levels. This is quite common in menopausal women. Serotonin is a brain chemical that makes you feel content and happy.  Sugar may increase the absorption of tryptophan, an amino acid, which the body uses to make serotonin. This means that eating something sweet may make you feel happy and avoiding sweets may make you feel crabby. That is why many women who have been on antidepressant medications and get off of them may crave sweets, the medication worked by keeping serotonin levels high, as your level drops, you crave sweets.

Do yourself a favor and buy a supplement like tryptophan or 5HTP, and if low Serotonin levels are the problem, your cravings should subside. You may also want to supplement your diet with Chromium Picolinate; a mineral that studies have shown may reduce carbohydrate cravings.

 Here is a video on how to break the sugar habit.

But let’s get real; we all want a treat every now and then.

How can we enjoy our sweets and not overdo it?  First keep in mind that not all sugar is bad. Basically anything ending in “ose” on an ingredient label such as, sucrose, fructose, and glucose plus corn syrup has had its natural goodness removed, the end result is a product that severely inhibits the immune system and compromises the body in many ways. Stay away from these bad sugars as much as you can. Read the labels of processed foods you buy, you’ll be surprised how many have these types of sugars in them.

I have been buying a certain brand of yogurt for years. I had thought I had read the label but took another look the other day. It had high fructose corn syrup. Something I never would buy if I had been paying attention. I found another yogurt that has plan sugar and I found it actually tasted better. An even better choice would be plan yogurt and add my own fresh fruit. But at least for now I switched to a lesser evil. Best rule of thumb is opting for products with the most natural ingredients you can find. Many organic cookies use pure cane juice or fruit juice as the sweetener much better than any processed sugars. It will still cure your sweet craving but won’t put you into the sugar cycle.

Did you know that some sugars can actually be GOOD for you?

 Here is an interesting note from one of my favorite health letters. You can read the whole article here: http://wrightnewsletter.com/2007/09/20/sugar-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

“A sugar cane extract called ‘policosanol’ is an excellent alternative to cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. It also appears to be effective at lowering triglyceride levels.

Another sugar cane extract that does the body good is D-mannose, which is naturally found in cranberry juice and is often used to treat E.coli, the common cause of most bladder infections.

Xylitol is also on the list of helpful simple sugars. One of my colleagues reports a 93 percent reduction in ear and sinus infections in his patients who use an intranasal spray made from xylitol. In another form, xylitol can actually prevent tooth decay, and some manufacturers have even added it to breath mints and chewing gum.

Then there are polysaccharides, which are simple sugars that combine in metabolic “chains” and cause immune cells to be more active and vigilant against bacteria and other germs. Echinacea, a well-known immune-boosting herb, is a rich source of polysaccharides.”

Don’t use Artificial Sweeteners.

 I won’t get into it now but artificial sweeteners are not the answer. It will take a whole other post to tell you why. Lets just say they are not natural to your body and have been linked to cancer and Alzheimers,  Plus they have found that your body still reacts as if they are refined sugars so the cravings are still there which actually causes you to eat more carbs thus causing weight gain. Just don’t do it. Honestly you are better off just eating sugar than using these.

So I hope you have learned something by this post. Get off the sugar go round, you’ll feel better and live healthier if you do.