Sugar Leads to Weight Gain

I found some shocking staples to my diet had large amounts of sugar. I'm allotted a total of 30g of sugar each day and you'd be surprised how quickly those 30g come and go... I eat an apple almost every day and just one gala apple has 16g of sugar! I drink Vanilla Chai Tea Protein shake and it has 26g of sugar! FAGE 0% Total Greek Yogurt has 9g of sugar! And my cranberry and nut trail mix has 14g of sugar! If I ate all these every day, it adds up to 65g of sugar...well over my allowed amount. While I won't be cutting out apples or Greek Yogurt from my diet, I'll probably cut back on eating them daily. And I sure won't be drinking that protein shake anymore!

Since caloric and nutritional intake differs between men and women, the same goes for sugar. The American Heart Association notes that men should limit their sugar to 45g, that's about 9 tablespoons of sugar in a day. For women, it's recommended 30g, which is about 6 tablespoons of sugar.

So why is sugar bad for your diet? Eating a lot of sugar leads to fructose being metabolized by the liver. Once in the liver, it gets turned into fat, which is then secreted into the blood. Fructose also causes resistance to a hormone called leptin, which makes the brain not notice that the fat cells are full of fat. This leads to increased food intake and decreased fat burning. See now why you should stop the sweets?!

When you go shopping at the grocery store or eat out at a restaurant, be sure to carefully check the food labels and restaurant websites for nutrition information. If you don't, you may be guzzling down more than double your daily allowance of sugar! And if you don't get a handle on it, you may just start growing some handles...love handles!

What's your favorite sweet tooth indulgence?