I met Corey at my heaviest weight. And what I did not know at that moment is that Corey was also at his heaviest since leaving the Air Force. That was several years ago and since then Corey has lost nearly 100 Lbs and I have lost nearly 80.
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Although I don’t talk about it much I have a full time job. I’ve been in the Information Technology industry for nearly 25 years. A lifetime ago when I was enlisted in the Army I had the good fortune to be exposed to many things, one of which was IT. In fact, my small team was tasked to field test one of the very first digital cameras that took video. This would have been nearly 18 years prior to the launch of the iPhone.
One of my very good friends who lives in upstate New York, Corey, served in the military also. The Air Force to be specific.
Corey and I were catching up on a project we were collaborating on for the Department of Interior. After working out the details on the project we started catching up on life. He started telling me about the last two weeks and his Sugar Detox. He was trying to reduce the sugar in his diet significantly..
He said it was a challenge but it all came as a result of an epiphany he had one reading the nutrition label on a bottle of ketchup. He was telling me that he learned nearly 25% of what is in a serving of ketchup is sugar of some kind.
One packet of ketchup weighs 9 grams and 2 grams are sugar some experts suggest. It is recommended to stay below 50 grams of sugar a day. Well Corey asked himself what 50 grams of sugar looks like.
Currently adults in the Western World consume an average of 101 grams of sugar per day, according to The World Health Organization.
As an example: during breakfast you have two slices of white bread toast with chocolate spread, a 7 ounce glass of supermarket orange juice and a hot chocolate, you have already consumed around 63 grams of sugar, 13 grams more than what the WHO recommends for the entire day.
The average American will consume 152 pounds (six 25 lb. bags of sugar cane) of sugar a year.
Some people will try to convince you that some sugars are better than others. It is true that different types of sugars will have a different impact on your metabolism. But sugar remains something that you should not consume in a large quantity regardless if it is coming from fruit juices, honey, or a muffin.
It is recommended we stick to less than 50 g of sugar a day. A packet of sugar is about 4g, one glass of cow milk is around 14 g of sugar, a popular brand of store-bought muffin is approximately 32 g of sugar added.
By reducing your sugar intake, you increase your chance of losing weight and staying healthy while preventing chronic disease. Reading labels can be difficult, look for the word sugar on the nutrition label, you will see how many grams of sugar there is in the product. Many companies hide the ingredient by using multiple names to describe the sugar added, they use at least 60 names for sugar on labels.
Here’s an example, the order of ingredients on a popular can of pumpkin pie filling reads like this: pumpkin, water, sugar, salt, spices, dextrose, natural flavors.
Dextrose is a type of sugar, and some companies choose to use that term instead of sugar because it would’ve placed sugar before pumpkin in the ingredient list. Same with a popular bottle of our ketchup that has the following ingredient label: tomato concentrate from ripe red tomatoes, distilled vinegar, high- fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, salt, spice, onion powder, natural flavoring.
I know, choosing healthy seems like a lot of work, but once you know which products are good for you, it makes your grocery shopping quicker. Some labels now say low sodium or no sugar added, this can help you pick the right item faster.
One of the the things I like about following a Paleo Eating Way of Life is when I look at my food options, either in the grocery store or out working, it’s fairly simple to ask myself if a caveman would have this as an option. Apple? Yes. Pasta? No. And after my conversation with Corey I realized by following this kind of logic I had methodically, without realizing it, cut a massive amount of sugar out of my diet. By this logic sodium also.
Steak? Yes. Frozen boxed burger? No.
I’m excited to keep up with Corey and learn more about his efforts with the Sugar Detox
