In my efforts to reach my health goals, there is one opponent I battle more fiercely than all others.
This opponent lurks in every morsel, hiding among the sometimes misleading \”serving size vs. grams per serving\” conundrum, which foils even the most well-meaning herbivores. I stumble into his traps more regularly than I\’d like to admit, and when he\’s beaten me, I deal not only with the ill feeling he creates, but also with the depressing results they show on the scales. He adds two pounds here, five pounds there — sometimes all in the span of a day or two!
His name is sugar, and he is a Ninja Assassin of great skill and cunning. You should run from him.
One of the maxims of the Esselstyn diet is that you should watch how much fruit you eat, mainly to avoid having too much sugar in a given day, packing on pounds. I generally try to limit my fruit intake to three or four pieces of large fruit, such as bananas or oranges, or maybe a bowlful of a small fruit such as grapes, all of which I love!
Fruit, however, isn\’t the weapon sugar uses against me, however. It\’s always the goodies. I will occasionally allow myself such treats as Blue Bell\’s Lime Fruit Bars, or their Mixed Berry Bars. Sometimes, I will allow myself some Haagen-Dazs Fruit Sorbet. On occasion, I like to eat Kashi\’s Cinnomon Harvest cereal, or something similar to munch on when I\’m watching a movie. All of these items are loaded with sugar (not just fruit sugars, either), and I try to compensate my fruit intake if I know I\’m having these desserts.
The problem with sugar, however, is its almost supernatural ability to persuade and coax you into eating more and more. I can never settle for just a bowlful of the cereal, or just half a pint of the sorbet. I eat it — I inhale it, truthfully — but don\’t feel satisfied because these snacks aren\’t dense foods at all. So I eat more. And then I eat more.
And then I don\’t feel good at all, and I\’m going to feel worse in the next couple of days when I see the scale.
The ninja has beaten me again.
The last few weeks, I\’ve really been working on keeping these sugary snacks out of my stomach. The best way to beat them is to avoid them as much as possible, filling them instead with something else. I really like fruit, and the more I eat it, the less I need the super sweet stuff.
There are also a ton of quick and easy recipes online to make frozen desserts with fruit, or healthy alternatives to things like ice cream.
And finally, as G.I. Joe used to say, \”Learning is half the battle.\” So I leave you, my four faithful readers, with this great article, entitled, \”9 Surprising Foods With More Sugar Than A Krispy Kreme Doughnut.\” Number three was a COMPLETE surprise, by the way! The article comes complete with a chart of how many doughnuts you would have to eat to equal each surprising food.
Sugar is a ninja…everywhere and nowhere. Tread carefully!
A well-written post, and so very true. As someone who also follows the Esselstyn diet, I have managed to gradually decrease my taste for sweets over the course of several months. In my particular case, the cravings eventually faded into the background once my consumption of all sweet-tasting foods decreased substantially. It’s like my brain quit getting those daily reminders of how much I -loved- sweets and eventually became complacent about it. I began by slowly reducing the amounts of artificial sweetener added to my morning oats, decaf iced tea and various bean dishes (where I like a bit sweetness to offset the heat of chiles and other spices) until I finally felt like I could get by adding none at all. I cut out my regular consumption of the larger, sugary fruits (except as a special treat). I stopped eating something sweet for dessert after meals (that used to be an unbreakable ritual, for sure). If I just had to have something sweet, I allowed myself a slice of Ezekial bread with a drizzle of honey–and so far, I have only felt like I needed that a handful of times at the beginning of this experiment. It’s gotten much, much easier. And here is something truly weird that may only be a figment of my imagination: when I started drinking these big glasses of unsweetened, decaf iced tea with no sweetener added it really took on a slightly bitter, astringent taste. It was thirst-quenching and yet… something about the mild bitterness of it seems to further banish my cravings for snacks or sweets. If I’m sipping on a glass of tea, my mind rarely fixates on food until meal times. I should try a week of plain ice water as a control and see if that is really the case; it may just be the overall absence of added sweeteners has made me less peckish. In any event–best of luck to you, sir. I’ve enjoyed reading many of your older posts as well. Quite inspirational. 🙂
Thanks for the comment, Mike! Sweets can certainly be a struggle for me, so I really hope this helps. Thanks for sharing your experience, too. I think we can all learn from each other on this journey, for sure.
You should try the week of water. It definitely helps cut down on sugar cravings and overeating as well. Getting off caffeine, especially sodas, was one of the more difficult things I’ve had to do while pursuing this lifestyle. Now that I’ve done it for almost a year now, I don’t really crave the sugary drinks, and I imagine I’d have the same reaction you’re having to a soda or tea or anything like that.
Keep up the good work, and thanks for sharing!
“Knowing is half the battle.” Knowing. Not learning.
It’s true, though, knowing what you’re eating is eye-opening. I tend to look at sodium content of food. A low-sodium diet seems nearly impossible without avoiding a ton of stuff. Ditto if you want to avoid high fructose corn syrup and its cousins.
I’ve been surprised how some things that are supposedly healthy are packed with sugar, salt, and unpronounceable things. Just craziness.