This is a question that I get asked all the time. I made some suggestions in the blog of the same name Why Can't I Lost Weight? but because it's such a key area of interest I wanted to revisit the topic and add some more suggestions. Here's the next installment.
Why can't I lose weight? Part 2 - Hidden sugars
The average American consumes 2-3 pounds of excess sugar PER WEEK.
We know there's sugar in sodas, sweets, chocolate and desserts but that's only part of the story. Where does the rest of it come from?
One source is low fat food. Shocking I know. Why is low fat food high in sugar? Mainly to give it more flavour.
Lets use yoghurts as an example. Most people like yoghurt and anyone who wants to stay healthy will opt for a low fat version. I took a closer look at some yoghurts today and found that one brand of natural, probiotic, 2% fat yoghurt had 3 teaspoons of sugar in it. Another brand of low fat fruit flavoured yoghurt had 6 teaspoons of sugar in it.
Yes, you read right, 6 teaspoons of sugar in a small 150g pot of yoghurt. One pot of this yoghurt a day would see you consume 35,050 calories a year which could leave you heaving around an extra 10 pounds of body fat if you're not careful.
If you want to check out how much sugar is in some of the food you eat, look at the label, find the sugar quantity in grams and multiply this by 4 to get the amount of sugar calories in the product. Then divide this by 16 to work out how many teaspoons of sugar are present. When you're shopping compare similar products and opt for the ones with the least sugar.
Then you can lose weight!
Makes you think again before buying a low fat product. It might be low in fat but loaded in sugar is just as bad
ReplyDelete