OK. So this is where it gets interesting and a little bit tricky. As in, good tricky.
Today I’m going to cover off two key issues. Yesterday I said I’m eating more (good) fat and protein as a way of getting me through this quit sugar business. This is in part cos fat and protein satiate. They fill me up. So I don’t crave sugar. Or anything else for that matter. Oooh, but they’re fattening, you say!? Actually, no. Sugar is. Let me explain.
But first, know two things to kick off with:
sugar doesn’t fill you up. it makes you want to eat more and more (thus making you put on weight)
and
the real issue here is FRUCTOSE…
not sugar per se. Sugar is half fructose and half glucose. But it’s fructose that causes the issues.
fat doesn’t make us fat, sugar does
I’m going to dot-point this part because it is tough to follow. I’m going to leave out most of the fancy scientific language. If you want to know more (and it’s really worth learning more) can I highly recommend David Gillespie’s Sweet Poison?. It’s the full, glorified biological breakdown of the deal. But for now:
* every substance we ingest has a corresponding appetite hormone that tells our brain (the hypothalamus) that we’re full. It’s like a little detector/messengar. It finds the protein or the fat or the carb and goes, “Hello! Better tell the brain we have a visitor”. It is also able to tell the brain when we’ve had enough. The brain then issues the edict: “Time to shut down appetite”. You’ve probably noticed when you eat cheese or nuts it gets rid of hunger straight away. Yeah?
* every substance, that is, except for fructose. Fructose is a sugar found in fruit and honey and in table sugar (sugar contains 50% fructose, 50% glucose). When we eat fructose, it’s like our body doesn’t notice it. It goes undetected. And so we can eat and eat and eat it, but our bodies don’t feel full.
* people often say fructose is good because it doesn’t cause insulin spikes (as glucose does). This is actually a bad thing…for a host of reasons…but in part because insulin is an appetite control hormone.