What's So Bad About Sugar?
Glucose. Fructose. Sucrose.
Translation: Sugar. Sugar. Sugar.
Sugar
is not only going to affect your potential to release fat,
it is, in a sense, chemically addictive. If you have
more fat on your body than you'd like, and you experience
frequent sugar cravings, you can be sure the two conditions
are at some level related. The good news is, you can
fix it. Let's take a look at what sugar does and how
it relates to body composition.
When
you ingest a simple sugar, even if it's in a "fat-free"
cookie, all of that sugar gets absorbed into the bloodstream
at once, so for the moment you experience a blood sugar elevation.
That's OK. You can handle it. In response to the
momentary hyperglycemic condition, your pancreas begins to
increase its production of the hormone insulin. Insulin's
job is to remove excess sugar from the bloodstream and store
it in the muscles and in the liver as glycogen. There's
another hormone produced by the pancreas. It's called
glucagon. While insulin is a "storage" hormone,
glucagon has an opposing action. It is a "release"
hormone. Glucagon is, in fact, the hormone responsible
for releasing bodyfat. When the pancreas suddenly has
to crank out increased amounts of insulin to deal with sugar
induced blood glucose elevations, it backs off on its production
of glucagon. The result - fat release is crippled.
It gets worse. Your pancreas actually manufactures
more insulin than you need. About 30-45 minutes after
the sugar rush, you wind up with residual low blood sugar.
In order to restore blood sugar to normal, you begin to get
cravings for . . . . you guessed it . . . sugar! So,
if you eat sugar . . . you're pretty much guaranteed to crave
sugar.
The trick is to stop the insulin / blood sugar roller coaster.
If you at "supportively" as I recommend, the starchy
carbohydrates provide an ongoing slow release of sugars preventing
those sudden blood sugar spikes and keeping the insulin/glucagon
balance stable. Sugar addicts will usually experience
a few days of severe cravings when they abandon their sugar
intake. The first day you might experience a headache.
The second day the headache may become worse and may be accompanied
by insomnia. Get through three days, however, and those
sugar cravings are quite likely to become a thing of the past.
Blood sugar stabilizes, energy becomes consistent, and . .
. fat release can take place all day long!
Suggested Next Page:
Click on [ Sugar Free ] for
a detailed list of simple sugars to watch out for.
Also See:
How Much Sugar is OK?
If You Haven't Been There
Yet:
Click on [ Supportive
Eating ] to learn the keys to the "Right Nutrition."
Click on [ Fitness
Superstore ] to get any of Phil's Proven products.
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] to explore other topics and fitness truths.
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