Does your sweet-tooth control you?
If you walk down the cereal aisle of your local supermarket you can’t help but notice the amount of crappy breakfast products lining the shelves. Read the labels on these items and you will be surprised at the amount of sugars they contain. This is the typical morning meal eaten by millions of people every day.
And it’s unfortunate that our children have become hooked on these sugar laden meals. It’s no wonder diseases like diabetes and pre-diabetes have become such a major health concern today.
Breakfast, which is one of the most important meals of the day, is nothing but a quick sugar fix for so many people — it supplies a short-lived energy-rush. In a short time, more sugars are needed; so, the person has to eat again or they’ll experience the dreaded ‘dimming the light syndrome’. This happens when your energy quickly leaches out.
Sugar has proliferated so many products we consume each day that we are becoming blind to the presence of it in our foods. Not only are we not noticing it in our foods but we are also craving it unconsciously. We have to make a full-on effort to do more to avoid this poison as much as possible.
Control your sweet-tooth cravings by doing the following . . .
- Learn to read product labels. Researchers have pointed to the fact that if a product has a label on it then it probably has some added sugar in it. It has also been noted that of the 600,000 product that line our store shelves 80 % have added sugar. Know how much sugar a product has so that you can control the amount you are consuming daily. Remember – it has different names.
- Learn to eat your meals with as little sugar as possible. If you are a two-spoonful-in-the-morning person then cut it down to one starting today. Get your body used to not wanting sugar.
- Teach your family, especially young children, to select low-sugar natural foods – such as fruits and veggies.
- Schedule fun physical activities during the day – window shopping, nature walks. Cut back on the snack time – especially when watching TV or playing electronic games.
- Do a pantry checks regularly and discard any products containing a lot of added sugar. For example, replace sugary cereals with steel-cut oats . . . and add cinnamon and raisins to it for flavoring.
- Have a cheat day when you can satisfy your cravings for the sweet stuff. Mine is Saturday. It doesn’t mean you should go crazy and eat everything that’s not nailed down. Use your discretion and make good choices.
- Keep a bag of nuts handy for those times when you get a craving for sugar. Re-assess your healthy snacks like protein bars or fruit bars. Many of them have more sugars than a candy bar.
- Keep a food journal to find out where you are sabotaging your diet.
- Be sure to eat your meals on a timely basis. When you skip meals, you tend to reach for the junk.
- Lobby your local government to start a reduce-sugar movement in your local community.
Put these habits into practice starting today. If you want to prevent pre-diabetes and a potential life-time of dependency on medications these are some of the best moves you can make.