No sugar: foods that only seem healthy

Proper nutrition – what is it? A healthy breakfast of granola and a glass of fresh juice? Skimmed yogurt so you don’t add extra pounds to your flanks? It’s time to rethink your diet and stop eating a lot of “healthy” or “harmless” foods that aren’t really so.

Muesli and breakfast cereals

You don’t always have time to cook in the morning, and why eat bland oatmeal when you can just add milk to your muesli and enjoy your breakfast. 100g of regular whole-grain cereal is on average 83% carbohydrates, including about 10g of sugar. If you look at the box with our favorite muesli, which has chocolate balls, pieces of fruit, nuts, honey, the caloric content increases, and, unfortunately, not in favor of proteins and healthy fats. After such a sweet and quickly digestible breakfast, after a short time there will be a feeling of hunger again, because sugar does not allow you to be satiated for a long time.

Why can not eat a lot of sugar? Sugar is necessary for normal life activity. But when we consume too much of it, the body can not process all the sugar into energy and begins to accumulate it in the muscles, liver and fatty tissues, until it is necessary to use these reserves. The daily norm of sugar consumption, recommended by the World Health Organization, is 50 g. And nutritionists say that women should stick to the norm of 6 teaspoons, and men – 9 tsp. because of the difference in metabolism.

It is important to know: with excessive sugar consumption, there is a high risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, atherosclerosis, liver disease and endocrine system disorders. And if it seems distant and unrealistic, here are the earliest symptoms of sugar overdose: lethargy, apathy, irritability, rapid fatigue, absent-mindedness, constant hunger, cravings for sweets, tooth decay, acne and flabby skin. Therefore, it is necessary to keep sugar intake under control.

Non-fat and low-fat yogurts

Yogurt manufacturers convince us that we should start eating their super light yogurts, as digestion will come to normal, the waistline will shrink, and the feeling of lightness will inspire new accomplishments. It’s a marketing ploy. After removing the fats from yogurt that give dairy products their proper taste, consistency and help satiety, manufacturers add sugar, thickeners, preservatives and sterilized fruit to keep the product’s pleasant sweet taste and flavor and motivate people to buy more and more.

Multigrain bars

Very often these come labeled “fitness” and we buy them and use them as snacks all the time. Cereals are slow carbohydrates and they give a feeling of satiety, but much more often in bars in addition to cereals you can find flour, palm oil, sugar syrup, stabilizers and emulsifiers. As a result, if you compare the calorie content of a full meal and 100 grams of candy bar, it is better to choose a healthy meal, or carefully study the composition of the bar, so as not to harm your health.

Fruit

“This is a source of vitamins and minerals!” – you will say. Yes, but you need to know the measure. Most fruits are very rich in sugar and it is only worth eating two apples, as you have already exceeded the recommended daily allowance. If you want to get all the vitamins and minerals from foods, then give preference to vegetables, which contain much less sugar, but are not inferior in usefulness to fruit.

Freshly squeezed juice

Nature came up with a special package for vitamins and minerals – fruits and vegetables. It is the combination of juice and pulp that allows a person to get the maximum benefit. But we, instead of chewing one apple, squeeze the juice out of three and throw away the leftovers. And we get in a glass of juice about 30 grams of sugar (and this is already a woman’s daily norm) and only half of the vitamins, sending useful fiber in the trash.

Dried fruits and nuts

Another familiar snack option, but here, too, you need to control the quantity and quality. It is the same fruit, but without water, so a glass of fruit will be equal to only ¼ cup of dried fruit. Moreover, it is not recommended to abuse dried fruits, because in industrial production sulfur is used, which in large quantities negatively affects the body.

In nuts, on the contrary, there is little sugar, but they are very caloric, so you can eat no more than one incomplete palm a day. Do not choose nuts roasted in oil, sugar, salt and other additives – the benefits of this will definitely not become more.

Rice breads

Another fitness product that advertising so advises us. But if whole-grain breads, indeed, can please with a small number of calories, then in breads from air rice they will be a hundred more. So again, you do not need to believe advertising, it is better to find time and read the composition before buying.

Sports drinks

It may seem that if you switch to sports nutrition, it will be possible to lose weight and keep healthy. But it is important to know that sports drinks without combining with physical activity will be either wasted money or will harm the body. If you train hard, then after exhausting exercise isotonic, for example, will quench thirst and restore carbohydrate and water-salt balance. But if you drink it just for fun, it is easy to exceed the daily allowance of carbohydrates, and excess salts will retain moisture in the body and lead to increased fluid levels in the body and excess weight.

Sugar substitute

“One small tablet contains a teaspoon of sugar,” but that’s no reason to switch to a sugar substitute. The most popular of the sweeteners, aspartame, is used in many sugary foods: candy bars, drinks, yogurt, chewing gum, and more. But scientists have proven that when ingested, aspartame breaks down into harmful components – methanol and phenylalanine, which is toxic when combined with other proteins. In addition, studies have shown that such a sugar substitute can lead to liver and brain cancer, cause headaches, depression, insomnia, it does not help to lose weight, but causes a feeling of hunger, which leads to a gain of extra pounds.

Honey

We have determined that you can not eat chemistry, but such a natural sweetener, such as honey, can also be harmful. Of course, it contains more useful macro- and microelements, but in terms of calories it is not inferior to sugar, in the body is broken down into the same components – glucose and fructose. When using honey be careful, because a large number of active compounds of useful substances can cause allergies.

You can live sweetly, the main thing is to know the measure. Do not believe advertising, study the composition of the product before buying. Think about what and in what quantities you eat: not only the health of internal organs, but also a blooming appearance, good mood and performance depends on it.