Sugar, Can good healthy treats really be as nice?
Do you love that sweet treat in the evenings whether it be that bowl of cereal, slice of toast or a few biscuits? More importantly can you stop with just a small amount or does one bite of something sweet send you into a sugar frenzy being unable to control how much you intake?
For most people being active during the day is not the downfall but by the time evening comes and your sitting down relaxing the mind starts to wander. Even myself as a trainer have spent many an evening searching through drawers and presses looking for the remains of something sweet to satisfy that craving and it is true that only one thing works don’t buy it and have it in the house but lets take a look at what sugar actually is.
Sugar and what it really is.
Firstly there are 4 main different types of sugar, fructose, dextrose, sucrose and glucose.
Glucose: Basically most of the carbohydrates we eat are made up of chains of glucose When glucose enters the bloodstream, the body releases insulin to help regulate it.
These include, white bread, white rice, pasta, cereals, white potatos etc.
Fructose, Found in fruit this is processed in the liver. Low in the Glycemic index which means it takes the body a long time to break down which releases a slow amount of sugar rather than a quick rush of energy. However when too much fructose enters the liver, the liver can’t process it all fast enough for the body to use as sugar. Instead, it starts making fats from the fructose. So controlling the quantity of fruit you consume is essential. Portion control is key and just because it is fruit does not mean there are no calories in it.
Sucrose: known as table sugar extracted from sugar cane and sugar beets. I try to avoid sugar as much as possible until cheat days and even then I try to limit them.
Dextrose: Not a natural sugar and found in beer and wine. Again these are sugars that are best kept to your cheat days.
The problem is that the body only has storage for around 2500 calories worth of glycogen providing your glycogen stores were totally empty which really isn’t possible.
Most people only have room to store about 500 calories of glycogen from any given meal. After these storage areas become full, insulin pushes the remaining sugar into the other infinite storage area, eh voila FAT STORAGE.
Lets be honest sugar cravings can make us irritable and moody to say the least. Firstly we need to accept that Sugar is highly addictive hence why most people struggle to stop at just one sweet or biscuit. So in order to control sugar levels to avoid cravings we need to clean up our diet.
Avoiding high fructose like table sugars corn syrups etc would be high on the list but do you realise how much sugar you are taking in on a daily basis? That small diet youghurt can have up to 7 heaped teaspoons of sugar or 500mls of orange juice which could have up to 10 teaspoons of sugar.
White breads, pastas, white potatos, fruit juices, jams etc can all give us an insulin spike so choosing a healthier option like brown breads, wholemeal, sweet potato and low gi fruit like berries can help us control our insulin levels and help combat those dreaded sugar cravings.
In my own personal quest to banish high fructose from my diet I looked at the reality of what I was consuming.
First up the craving was for a chocolate brownie easy enough to make a atasty high fructose version but could I possibly come up with a healthy high protein alternative?
Well the reality is that if you are a high sugar lover it will take you time to adapt to a less sweet alternative but you will feel better for it.
Unhealthy standard Protein Brownie Recipe
- 400grams Caster Sugar
- 220 grams melted butter
- 60 grams cocoa powder
- 4 Full eggs
- 225grams plain flour
- Half Tsp baking powder
- Half Tsp Salt
Blending all the ingredients to a thick mixture and baking at 180degrees for 25 mins in a preheated oven. You will agree this is a fairly simple recipe easy to follow but look at just how many calories and how much sugar you are consuming.
Compare with Healthy Protein Brownies
- 2 scoops Chocolate Whey Protein Powder
- 3 tbsp Almond Butter, (no added oils, salt etc)
- 1.5 cups ground down oats almost to a flour consistency
- .5 cup of Linwoods milled cocoa & berries flaxseed
- 5 Egg Whites
- 3 Bananas mashed
- 1 ounce Agave Nectar or honey
- 4 ounces Skim Milk
- 1.5 tsp Cinnamon
- 1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
Blend all the ingredients together in order then bake in a preheated 180degree oven for 15-20 mins.
And this was the result. The protein brownie on the left had a much nicer texture and unlike its unhealthy counterpart didn’t have that high sugar crunch around the edges which Im not particularly fond of.
Taste wise both were nice the healthy option had a much lighter feel and didn’t feel as dense while the unhealthy option was very heavy and dense and instantly made me want more. Insulin spike I hear you say? What would you expect with 400grams of Sugar?
The conclusion
I would choose to make the healthy option its easy to stick to just one or two small pieces. There was no insulin spike and I saved myself a whopping load of calories with no high quantites of sugar.