The 14-Day No Sugar Diet(5)

I must have eaten half a bag without even thinking about it.

That’s a perfect example of mindless snacking. How often do you do that? Most of us don’t remember many of the foods we consume because we snack automatically when we see something salty or sweet within arm’s reach. It doesn’t even register.

If you’re trying to resist temptation, a bowl of salt and vinegar potato chips within easy reach is not the way to do it. You know that. But researchers at Cornell University and the University of Illinois wanted to prove it, scientifically. In an experiment, they placed dishes of chocolate candies in an office setting in different locations that made the chocolate either easy to see and reach or not very visible or convenient to grab. They found that when the candy dishes were easy to see and convenient to reach, office workers ate 5.6 more chocolates per day than when the dishes were visible but inconvenient to access and 2.9 more candies when the dishes were convenient but not visible. What this means to you: Hide those high-calorie snacks. Make them hard to see and access at the back of a pantry shelf. Instead, keep a bowl of fruit or cut-up vegetables front and center on the kitchen counter. You’re more likely to snack on the good stuff if it’s staring you in the face.

Step 4



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Write ’Low Sugar/High Fiber’ on the Top of Your Grocery List

Next time you make out your grocery shopping list, write “Low Sugar/High Fiber” on top and review what you’re planning to buy while keeping those four words in mind. Then revise your list. Erase most of the groceries that don’t fit under one of those categories. Doing that should automatically steer your grocery cart toward the perimeter of the store where you’ll find the whole foods: fresh produce, dairy, eggs, fresh meats, poultry and fish. Here’s why this is a key practice:

It’s well documented that a diet rich in processed foods, low-quality carbohydrates, and other foods that cause spikes in blood sugar can lead to type 2 diabetes. And guess what? Processed foods, low-quality carbs and other foods that trigger blood sugar spikes make up the bulk of the typical American grocery cart. A recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition analyzed grocery shopping habits of 157,142 households and found that 61 percent of food purchased came from highly processed foods and beverages, in other words, packaged foods that are loaded with saturated fat, sugar, and lots of preservatives to ensure long shelf life. Sixty-one percent! If you add in moderately processed foods, then more than 75 percent of all the energy we consume comes from a box, bag, jar or can. Get in the habit of eating fresh and clean.



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Head Start Summary

Step 1. Identify Hidden Calories



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Step 2. Substitute Water for Sweet Drinks



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Step 3. Put a Dent in Mindless Eating



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Step 4. Write Low Sugar/High Fiber on the Top of Your Grocery List



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CHAPTER


3


How Sugar Trouble Starts

To prevent high blood sugar, know the enemy and how it attacks

I REMEMBER MY grandfather poking his swollen feet with the end of his cane. He said they felt numb.

“I have sugar,” he explained.

At 8 years old, I didn’t understand. Sugar was the stuff in the bowl that we had just sprinkled on our blintzes. I didn’t know he was referring to “adult-onset diabetes,” which is what type 2 diabetes was known as back in the late 1960s. My family just called it “having sugar.”

Type 2 “sugar” didn’t show up in grandpop until his 80s. He was lean and active all his life—a coal miner and a laborer in a brick factory—but age is a risk factor for problems with sugar. So is high blood pressure, which he had. This is important to know because having a family history of type 2 diabetes makes you more susceptible to the disease.

As I’ve said before, type 2 diabetes doesn’t invade your body overnight. It’s a long-term process that can sneak up on you. But it’s occurring at younger and younger ages. Even children are now developing type 2 diabetes.

Knowledge is your first line of defense. By knowing the risk factors and understanding how high blood sugar happens in your body and develops into diabetes, you can take action long before a doctor needs to get involved.

Type 2 Diabetes Risk Factors

You are more likely to develop prediabetes and type 2 diabetes if…

you are age 45 or older

you are overweight or obese

you have excess abdominal fat or a large waist

you aren’t physically active

you have a family history of diabetes

you have high blood pressure

you have a history of gestational diabetes

you are African American, American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino

you have a history of heart disease or stroke

you suffer from depression

As you can gather from the risk factors above, there are some things, like your age and heritage, that you can’t do anything about. But just look at what you can control: your weight through the foods you eat and moving your body more, the two factors that prevent type 2 diabetes best!

Know Your Carbs

Do you know about the three macronutrients? They are protein, fat, and carbohydrates. Protein and fat do not raise blood sugar. Carbohydrates do, so let’s focus on carbs because there seems to be a lot of confusion around this macronutrient.