February is American Heart Month and an incredible opportunity to focus on your heart health. According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease accounts for about one in every three deaths.
Taking care of your heart starts with your diet and making healthy changes. Cutting back on sugar, which experts say most Americans consume too much on an everyday basis, is an incredible place to start. Refined sugar adds empty calories to your diet and can disrupt your metabolism, making weight loss or maintenance difficult and posing serious health risks.
The average American gets about 16 percent of their daily calories from added sugar, according to a Food and Drug Administration report, but the USDA’s dietary guidelines recommend less than a third of that amount. And it isn’t just regular sugars like candy, cookies and cakes that can cause a sugar surplus.
“Foods like white bread and bagels break down the same with added sugar, so it is about the types of carbohydrates you eat too. In fact, I do not think fat makes us fat, it is sugar. said dr. Arthur Agatston, founding father of the South Beach Diet.
To avoid adding sugar to your diet and achieve better health, consider these easy strategies.
• Perimeter shopping. Sticking around the grocery store is a good rule of thumb, as this tends to be where you will find the least processed foods, such as vegetables, fruit, dairy, meat, and seafood, most of which are freed from added sugar. .
• Read Food Labels. Look for foods that contain little or no sugar, reading labels carefully. You may must look tough, because sugar is ubiquitous in the American diet. Remember that ingredient lists on packaged foods are ordered by volume.
• Learn Other Names of Sugar. “Almost anything that ends in ‘ose’ is sugar. And whether it’s fructose, dextrose, or sucrose, it’s going to be the sugar in your body,” says Mandi Knowles, Registered Dietitian at the South Beach Diet. Avoid them if you want to eat less sugar.
• Buy Unsweetened Foods. Look for food labels that say the food is unsweetened. Not “naturally sweetened”. Unsweetened. That means there will not be anything lurking there to knock you off your feet.
• Perform a Sugar Exchange. A straightforward swap can help you save on sugar. Swap the soda for plain iced tea and save 31 grams of sugar. Swap nonfat flavored yogurt for Greek yogurt with fresh strawberries and save 19 grams of sugar. Swap your favourite vanilla latte for black coffee with a little cream and save 35 grams of sugar.
• Trying something new. Consider a diet plan that focuses on good carbohydrates, good fats, healthy protein, and high fiber, such as the South Beach Diet, which has been shown to positively impact heart health, weight loss, and belly fat. Providing an average of only 1 percent of calories from added sugar, it was the first plan that proposed dieters focus less on reducing fat and carbohydrates and focus more on considering the quality of the fats and carbohydrates they eat.
A balanced diet and lifestyle is one of your best defenses to help fight cardiovascular disease. This American Heart Month, you can help improve your heart health and overall health by reducing sugar in your diet.
