There is sugar in many foods. It’s one of the many nutritional traps one can fall into. Our author fell for it too. Today she avoids the sweet stuff. Experience report of a runner who wants to lose weight.
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A Sugar Skull – As you can already guess, this isn’t going to be a positive article about the sweet crystal. Actually, I’m not someone who damns single foods. When it comes to nutrition, it’s important to me that I enjoy it. Renunciation is not my thing, I have never been on a diet in my life. why? I’ve never been overweight either. At least that’s what my body mass index (BMI) says.
The BMI says little about the right weight
A highly unreliable value, as I have since learned. Because it says nothing about where the fat is on the body. Especially when it is deposited on the stomach, it is particularly unhealthy. There it forms a kind of super organ that firmly encloses the liver and co. – and constantly flushes pathogenic and inflammatory substances into the body. I first realized I might have a problem when my yearly blood test went down. Also, I had noticed myself that my pants were getting a little tighter month by month. Was that little tummy that was growing maybe not as harmless as I wanted to tell myself? Wasn’t I protected as a runner – and maybe I fell into one of the many nasty nutritional traps? And that’s exactly the topic of our new podcast episode of “She runs. He runs” that just went online. Let me tell you about my own experiences here – and then listen to the podcast with the top tips on how not to fall for the diet traps.
We humans love sugar. This is a legacy from ancient times. Sugar was an absolute rarity back then. Only occasionally did our ancestors come across berries or a bee’s nest filled with honey. Pure sugar is an excellent energy boost – it provides the body with energy quickly. And also floods our brain with feel-good hormones. There are scientists who say that sugar is a potentially addictive substance similar to alcohol or even cocaine. The problem: Large food companies have long understood how much we love the sweet stuff. And mix more and more of it into their food. Red cabbage, gherkins or sauerkraut with sugar are no longer uncommon. As a regular runner, I believed for a long time that I could compensate for minor dietary sins. The positive effects of sport will take care of that.
Until they didn’t – see my bloodwork. For me that was the point to take stock. How much sugar do I actually eat a day? Sweet muesli in the morning, a can of coke every few days. In between there’s always a few Toffifee, the sugar in tea, a little chocolate pudding for dessert at lunch, gummy bears and so on. It added up neatly. I honestly had completely lost track of how much sugar I was consuming per day. Open or hidden, always in between. After my little extrapolation, however, it quickly became clear to me: clearly too much.
It was high time for a radical change
So what to do? I had to change something urgently. From now on I decided that I wanted to try to avoid household sugar as much as possible. No more chocolate, no gummy bears, just nothing. Radical, because I was sure that I wouldn’t be able to just reduce consumption. Taste and stop – the temptation would have been too great. I know my weaknesses too well for that.
Sugar is a fake friend. He sweetens our lives – but we pay a high price. It is now considered by many scientists to be an addictive substance. Especially the household sugar that we consume so often and in large quantities. Chemically it is called sucrose and consists of two types of sugar, grape sugar (glucose) and fruit sugar (fructose). If we eat sugar, the two substances are processed differently in our body. The compound known as fructose in particular is suspected of increasing the risk of fatty liver. This is feared by doctors, because fatty liver increases the risk of diabetes and liver cell cancer. In the past these were diseases of old age, today they are observed in younger and younger people and even children. A fatty liver can also be an early sign of metabolic syndrome, a bundle of diseases: diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.
Sugar makes you happy – at least in the short term
Sugar is also a substance that activates the reward center in the brain particularly well and quickly. It makes us happy in the short term, in the long term we always want more. A vicious circle. There is also the assumption that bacteria live within us that can control our sugar cravings. So it seems possible that the body’s energy needs have long been covered, but this one group of bacteria wants more – and keeps us eating. With a preference for sugary foods. Because these bacteria need fuel to survive and multiply. So it’s no surprise that overweight people have a completely different bacterial colonization of their stomach and intestines than people of normal weight.
I’ve been going without sugar for about three years now. I’ve gotten into the habit of always looking at the list of ingredients in the supermarket. If it says sugar on it, things go back on the shelf. Sometimes it’s very difficult for me, but most of the time it works. And quite often I stand there and grumble: “Why does so much sugar have to be mixed into this muesli? And why do we let the industry mix this harmful stuff in at all?”
I can also feel the improvement when running
In the morning there is now unsweetened natural yoghurt with oatmeal. My fruit no longer comes from a can, but fresh from the market. I’m particularly fond of pears right now. I take carrots and chopped fennel to the office every day. Instead of chocolate, I nibble on almonds and all kinds of nuts. Because contrary to what was long assumed, they are very healthy. Mainly because of the high content of B vitamins. I avoid white bread altogether. I prefer to eat wholemeal bread. Tea also tastes good without sugar. I even got used to espresso without sweetness after three years. This is the hardest part so far. While strolling around town recently, I wanted to take a short break in a coffee shop. But the only non-sugar drink on the menu was still water. Then I left again.
But overall, giving up sugar is a small change in my life. Which is often exhausting because there are many hidden traps. But it’s worth it. Unfortunately I didn’t weigh myself before starting my attempt, but I bought a new pair of pants last week. When I started cutting sugar I was a size 42, now I’m 38. I feel fresher, more alert and my muscles tire much more slowly. Overall, I’m significantly less hungry. Between breakfast and lunch I get along completely without snacks. I don’t know that from before. On the contrary. Especially in stressful situations – and that’s where we women are particularly vulnerable – I reached for sweets.
I allow myself a cheat day once a week. Just like I know it from many professional athletes. A day when I just eat what I feel like. In the meantime, however, I have almost no craving for sugary foods during the day either. I also have a secret weapon against cravings: dark chocolate with a cocoa content of over 75 percent. It is delicious, contains almost no sugar – but flavanoids. These are antioxidants, i.e. the substances that render free radicals in the cells harmless. And this, in turn, protects against a variety of diseases.
Source: Stern
