Are You Addicted to Sugar??

Guilty as charged!!!!

I remember being a child & spending summers at my grandparents' pool.  The minute we got there, the first place I would go was her pantry because my grandma was known for her strong sweet tooth (and so am I).  

She always had the BEST sweets in her house and it was free-range!  

I always loved when I got an invite to a birthday party, because I knew there would be cookies, cake, and/or ice cream (not the actual party itself).

Sugar is one of the most addictive substances in our food and it's in almost EVERY food we eat.  And it's highly addictive - its proven to be more addictive than Cocaine!

Americans consume 150 pounds of of sugar each year! The average adult will consume about 22 tsp of sugar daily, while the average child consumes 32 tsp daily!!!

If you have kids, it's always nice to "treat" them with something sweet.  Even going to mom's groups or parties, there are always bowls of candy or some kind of dessert put out to pick on after a few glasses of wine (also high in sugar).

Two reasons why is sugar so bad:

1) Too much sugar irritates blood vessels and creates inflammation and damages the skin.  This damage leads to puffiness, redness, excessive oiliness or dryness.  Too much sugar also increases our blood sugar levels and causes them to spike quickly.  This rapid spike causes the collagen & elastin in our skin (which is known to keep the skin taught and youthful).  This prevents the collagen & elastin from properly repairing themselves and over time, leads to aging.

2) It causes Glycation!  Glycation occurs when sugar binds to proteins in the skin.  It collapses to form wrinkles and dry skin.

Eating a sugar free diet isn't the answer either, because our bodies still get sugar from breads, pastas, rice & other starches we consume.  Sugar is also in ALL processed foods in some form and not necessarily listed as sugar.

There are at least 61 different names for Sugar listed on food labels, some of the most common ones are Sucrose, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Barley Malt, Dextrose, Maltose & Rice Syrup.

Manufacturers aren't REQUIRED by the FDA to list total amount of sugar on their labels, which means that we don't know how much extra sugar is coming from fruit, grain or milk sources.


What can we do about eliminating Sugar??

1) Eat more Grass-fed proteins, Beans, & Good fats like Avocados and Coconut Oil and read food labels when buying processed foods.

2) Eliminate foods such as sweets, high fructose corn syrup, soda, breads, pastas, rice, and even alcohol.



Any questions, please email me samanthaspagirl@yahoo.com - I LOVE to help!