The 14-Day No Sugar Diet(12)

Avoid heavy snacks before bedtime. Have a little something like half a banana, a protein shake or a small bowl of cereal with milk an hour and a half to two hours before bed. Walnuts work. They contain melatonin. Warm milk? Grandmom was right. Milk has calcium and tryptophan, both of which your brain needs to produce melatonin. Also, the warm liquid warms your body. As your body cools, you become sleepy.

Now that you know the steps that will, over the next 14 days, put you on the right track toward preventing or reversing type 2 diabetes, let’s turn to a chapter that identifies certain foods you should do your best to avoid, the most energy-dense, high-sugar foods you’ll encounter each day. Eliminate or reduce these 30 foods most of the time and you will make great strides toward losing weight and maintaining healthy blood sugar levels.





CHAPTER


5


Avoid or Limit These High-Sugar, High-Carb Foods

Half the battle is just being mindful of what you put in your mouth

A GARDEN SALAD with dressing. Grilled chicken. Baked beans. And a Vitamin Water. Sound fairly healthy to you? That was my dinner at an end-of-summer cookout at my friend Eric’s place on Labor Day. I felt pretty good about my choices, especially when I said no thank you to the hamburger bun for my chicken, the potato chips and bottle of craft beer he offered. I was watching my carbs.

Then, after drenching my salad with the fat-free sundried tomato vinaigrette, I glanced at the nutrition label on the bottle. Huh, 12 grams of sugar—more than I expected. The ingredients list explained why: high fructose corn syrup. Then I checked my pink Vitamin Water bottle. Whoa! 32 grams of sugar. That’s 8 teaspoons. At home, I looked up the sugar content of those baked beans: 12 grams. Add in the two generous squeezes of barbecue sauce I squirted onto my chicken breast, and I figured my meal would have hit 68 grams of sugar, as sweet as eating 30 Willy Wonka Pixy Stix candies. Luckily, I swapped my Vitamin Water for a Coors Light and saved 20 grams.

It doesn’t take a degree in nutrition science to figure out that your frosted pink jelly donut with multi-colored sprinkles is loaded with sugar. But it’s very easy to allow the sugars in many other foods to go unnoticed—and sneak into your bloodstream.

As you’ve learned, certain foods that contain a lot of sugar and carbohydrates and make your blood sugar spike rapidly can act as an appetite stimulant. When your body releases insulin to help push the influx of sugar that’s in your blood into your cells, sometimes your blood sugar drops too low, too quickly, and you feel weak and hungry for more sugar. That’s a sugar cycle to avoid, and you can, by being aware of the foods that spike blood sugar and eliminating them from your diet or at least minimizing them.

A quick glance at where you’ll find high amounts of carbohydrates and sugars in common foods:



Serving size

Carbs

Sugars



Ketchup

1 Tbsp

4.5 g

3.7 g



Wheat crackers

6 crackers

20 g

1 g



Jelly donut

1 donut

32 g

14 g



Plain bagel

1 bagel

46 g

9 g



Fast-food cheeseburger

1 small

33 g

7 g



Jarred pasta sauce

1/2 cup

13 g

10 g



Granola bar

1 bar

18 g

8 g



Banana

1 large

31 g

17 g



Corn muffin

1 large

58 g

8 g



Microwaveable tomato soup

1 cup

20 g

14 g



Orange Juice (fresh squeezed)

1 cup

27 g

21 g



Peach yogurt

1 container

32 g

25 g



(Number of grams will vary by brand.)



A quick glance at where you’ll find high amounts of carbohydrates and sugars in common foods: Maybe some of those foods surprise you. That’s my point: Sugars are everywhere. If you want to get off the roller coaster of blood sugar spikes that cause cravings and start losing weight quickly, it really helps to be a sugar sleuth and be disciplined about avoiding the most notorious culprits. Work toward becoming a more mindful eater. Think before you swallow. Do some investigative work when you go food shopping by reading nutrition labels and targeting calories, carbs and sugars. (See Name Your Poison on page 56.) And get to know some of these common foods that pack the lion’s share of carbohydrates and added sugars—some containing 20 g or more.

Apple Sauce

Remember that no one ever said “an applesauce a day keeps the doctor away.” You’re better off eating an apple than going for the pureed version. One cup of sweetened applesauce contains 36 grams of sugar but only 3 grams of fiber. A medium-sized apple, on the other hand, has 4 grams of fiber and, although still sweet, only has 19 grams of sugar. And apples are rich in cancer-fighting antioxidants.

Banana

Bananas are a good source of magnesium, a nutrient that aids protein synthesis, which, in turn, increases lean muscle mass. Magnesium also helps boost lipolysis, the process by which the body releases fat from its stores. And, of course, it’s one of the best sources of potassium, which lowers blood pressure. Bananas, therefore, are good for you. But they are high in carbs at 35 g per large fruit. So have a banana, but not a whole bunch. In fact, half a banana may be enough to satisfy you.