Sugar is the Devil…

Yep that’s right Sugar is evil.  It will mess you up, hinder your recovery, and let you down just when you need energy.  Sadly the average North American eats 21 tablespoons!!! of added sugar each day.  That’s 3 times the upper limit set by the American Heart and Stroke Foundation, and way – way – more than anyone needs to consume.

Here are some problems with Sugar:

1. It has zero nutritional value – zilch – nada – zip
2. It displaces other foods that actually have nutritional value
3. It spikes blood sugar levels and therefore insulin
4. By spiking Insulin it disturbs the rest of the bodies hormone balance
5. It leads to an increased likelihood of obesity (it makes you fat and tired – no good)
6. It leads to energy crashes – get all pumped up on sugar – crash 20 minutes later – eat more sugar, etc, etc…

Here are some words to avoid on your food labels (although even better would be food without labels – like fresh produce, meats, etc and making your own home cooked non-processed food):

• Sugar
• Sucrose
• Fructose
• Glucose
• Sucralose
• Corn Syrop (probably the WORST offender)
• Sugar alcholols
• basically anything ending in a …ose

So the basic rule of thumb is eat REAL food not processed “food”, read nutritional labels, and avoid the really bad choices like Pop (at approx 12-13 tablespoons of sugar per can).  Remember to keep your meals balanced – 30% Protein, 30% Good Fats, 40% favorable Carbs.

Sugar = Bad!