I generally do not eat sugar… period!
The boss brings donuts to the office – I can walk past them; dessert is on the menu – not tempted; pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving – not interested.
But those little chocolate bars that get handed out a Halloween – man, those get me every time!
I think it might be because that typically is the ONLY time chocolate is in the house; or it might be because they are so tiny! How bad could eating just one be??? Except of course, that one tiny chocolate bar can lead to five in a heartbeat!
This Halloween was no exception. We bought way more candy that we needed, and I was left with two boxes of it. One box was packets of sour patch candies that I can’t even stomach the thought of eating, but the other box was full of those little, itty, bitty chocolate bars!
After all the kids had gone, why not have one or two of them??
And so, I conducted an experiment by indulging is a couple. I paid attention to the taste, so sweet! The first one was yummy, but then I noticed that it was almost too sweet, sickly sweet to be exact, and there was a film left in my mouth. And then I noticed that the chocolate tasted more like sugar than chocolate – because after all this was probably the cheapest and worst made chocolate there could be, right?
Later, I had difficulty falling asleep and tossed and turned all night. As I was struggling, I KNEW it was because I had added in more sugar to my body that I would probably get in a month!
We tend to think of sugar as a treat, but the reality is that sugar has been added to pretty much every type of food we buy, not just chocolate bars. There are only 10 companies in the world that control all of the world’s food brands, and the reality is that the sweeter a food tastes, the better it sells.
At one time, sugar was used only for special occasions, but at the rate that we are consuming sugar today, sugar is no longer a “treat”. And the food industry has labelled so many of the foods full of sugar as “healthy” – fruit flavoured yogurt has more sugar, ounce for ounce, then Coca-Cola; we buy fruit chews for our children’s school lunches which are NOT made from fruit; and we have replaced sugary soft drinks with sugary sports and energy drinks which are becoming a key part of today’s obesity epidemic among youth.
The World Health Organization reports that there are over 420 million people with Type 2 diabetes – a number that just keeps rising.
Now I’m not saying that you should cut out all sugar, all of the time. But, if you can keep most of your food as healthy and wholesome choices, and reduce the sugar and the highly processed carb foods you are intaking to a more occasional basis, then that is a great first step.
Sugar is NEVER going to make you feel at your best or motivate you to have a great day. However less sugar WILL get you more energy, more productivity, better sleep; all things that will help to make you the best version of you that you can be! Reducing sugar and highly processed carb foods from your diet could change your life!
I know this because I see it all the time in the clients that I’ve helped to change the nutritional components of their diet. If you want to know how I do that, click the link to my website https://livingvibrantly.ca/ and book a free discovery call with me.
In the meantime, read the labels of the foods you are buying and see if you can reduce the amount of sugar you are eating.
