MAX NUTRITION

BY LISA MORETTI

Wanted: A Healthy Relationship

Without Added Sugar...
You may think youve made the switch
to a low-sugar diet, but sneaky hidden
sugars might be keeping you addicted,
depleted and downright fat. Its time to
revisit your relationship and fnd out
the truth about what has been hiding
in your cupboard. Heres a background
check and some insiders 411 on the
sneaky culprit who may have weaseled
back into your life.

Did You Let An Uninvited

Guest In Your Door?
Have your New Years health and
ftness resolutions become buried
under the kids artwork or fallen off
the refrigerator door completely? Its
OK life happens! (P.S. Resolutions
dont have expiration dates.) One of the
reasons you may have lost momentum
is that you didnt see the kind of results
you were hoping for in the early days
of your new plan. Falling off the wagon
may not have been your fault though.
A sneaky saboteur is lurking in your
refrigerator and pantry and you might
not have even known it was there.
Undercover sugar may have robbed you
of your 2015 goalsuntil now! Rekindle
your healthy relationship and get back
on the road to you = fabulous.

Not Searching for Mr. Goodbar

Clearly, weve gotten the message about
the benefts of a low sugar diet (see
sidebar), but suppliers are still trying to
maintain their market share, so sugar
is being hidden in products where you
would never expect to fnd it. Highfructose corn syrup is being added to
those new -rita beverages, boatloads
of sugar are baked into bread and
added to things like balsamic vinegar
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FEBRUARY 2015

DID YOU KNOW?

The American Heart Association

recommends that most adults
should not consume upward of 25
to 37 grams of added sugar per
day the equivalent of six to nine
teaspoons, or 100 to 150 calories.

or BBQ sauce, and that healthy green

drink in your grocers refrigerator is
probably loaded with more sugar cubes
than a sugar-glazed donut. Who knew?!
Simple carbohydrates (versus the deep,
meaningful, complex ones), which turn
into sugar when the partys over and
sugar in disguise have become the
dysfunction junction in our relationship
with food. Weve become what author
JJ Virgin, CNS, CHFS (jjvirgin.com) calls
sugar burners rather than fat burners.
She explains that while glucose
is our primary source of energy, the
overabundance of it in our diets means
that our livers are hiding it as fat for
a rainy day and our pancreas is just
becoming that repetitive nagging friend
whom our cells stop listening to, which
creates insulin resistance. If you get
crazy hungry and super cranky when
you and your beloved sugar are far
apart, youre a sugar burner.
But, as Virgin points out, not all sugar

50 SHADES OF SUGAR

Sugar sneaks in wearing many different disguises. Heres a

list of aliases sugar uses to keep us in bondage:
Barley malt
Beet sugar
Brown sugar
Buttered syrup
Cane juice crystals
Cane sugar
Caramel
Corn syrup
Corn syrup solids
Confectioners sugar
Carob syrup
Castor sugar
Date sugar
Demerara sugar
Dextran
Dextrose
Diastatic malt
Diatase
Ethyl maltol
Fructose
Fruit juice
Fruit juice concentrate
Galactose
Glucose
Glucose solids

Golden sugar
Golden syrup
Grape sugar
High-fructose corn syrup
Honey
Icing sugar
Invert sugar
Lactose
Maltodextrin
Maltose
Malt syrup
Maple syrup
Molasses
Muscovado sugar
Panocha
Raw sugar
Refners syrup
Rice syrup
Sorbitol
Sorghum syrup
Sucrose
Sugar
Treacle
Turbinado sugar
Yellow sugar

DONT GO THERE!

We still have
an unlimited
fruit mentality,
and that excess
fructose has
got to go
somewhere.
Usually, it ends
up around your
midsection,
because your
liver repackages
fructose as
triglycerides (fat).

Here are fve health foods that people

think are super healthy but are actually
full of hidden sugars and are sabotaging
your success (as noted by JJ Virgin):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Balsamic vinegar dressings

Fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt
Bottled green tea
Green drinks
Any dessert sweetened with agave,
honey or another health-halo
sweetener

(and not all calories) are created equal.

She notes that food is information
with a set of marching orders for our
bodies. Glucose in our foods makes our
bodies run but fructose is a fake friend
(maybe even a 'frenemy') because it
bypasses our normal sugar processing
functions and goes directly to the liver.
By cutting the line, fructose takes
up the glucose spaces on our dance
cards quickly and the leftovers get
repackaged as triglycerides (a.k.a. fat).
That fat gets stored for emergency fuel
and its tucked away in places that dont
see a lot of muscle action (inside of the
knees, top of the hip bones, around the
bra line and on the back).
Chances are youre not looking to add
more of this kind of fat to your body.
Says Virgin, We all know the obvious
sugar sources. I mean, everybody
knows chocolate cake is bad. Sugar
consumption is at an all-time low. What
I see [as the culprit] are so-called
healthier versions of your favorite bad
foods. I saw a famous doctor promoting
a healthier chocolate cake with stuff
like dates and raisins. Altogether, it
probably has more sugar than the
original, plus youre going to get that
health halo so youll probably reach for
seconds.

I Hate To Tell You This:

Youre in an Arranged Relationship
Our bodies are hardwired to crave
sugar/sweetness (and fat), a fact about

us that food
companies have
hijacked to create
foods we crave. So
much food engineering
has become part of our
daily lives that if you hadnt
changed your diet in the last 20
years and you were just eating the
same old stuff, you would be eating
more sugar without even trying. For
food companies, sugar addiction equals
brand loyalty.
Dr. Robert Lustig caused a huge stir
when he called out high-fructose corn
syrup (HFCS, which is loaded into so
many things you put in your mouth) in
his YouTube video, Sugar: The Bitter
Truth. Michael Moss, an investigative
reporter for the New York Times,
blew the doors wide open on food
engineering with his book, Salt Sugar
Fat How the Food Giants Hooked Us,
taking readers behind the curtain to the
labs where food scientists use cuttingedge technology to calculate the 'bliss
point' of sugary beverages or enhance
the 'mouthfeel' of fat by manipulating
its chemical structure.
Moss also shares his discussions
with concerned industry executives,
who admit that they could never
produce truly healthy alternatives to

JJ Virgin, CNS, CHFS

their products, even if

serious manufacturing
regulations were
enacted. For most massproduced products, companies are
using hard-driving marketing campaigns
to distract consumers from the concerns
they have about the health implications
of their products while touting the
miniscule changes they have made to
the ingredient list in short, theyre
lying on their dating profle.
The good news is that just as
our palates have been conditioned
to crave sugar, they can be
conditioned to crave it less.

This Relationship
is Burning You Out!
Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum (endfatigue.
com) has been helping people to
understand the relationship between
sugar consumption and adrenal
fatigue/chronic fatigue syndrome.
Its a dilemma he knows too well. Dr.
Teitelbaum had to take off time during

UM, YOUR UNDERWEAR IS SHOWING

Finding hidden sugars means becoming a label detective. Its amazing what turns up. For a prime example, check out this label for
Naked Juices Green Machine. First, the nutritional supplement facts panel notes that this 8 ounce bottle is 2 servings so everything listed
needs to be doubled for a true picture of what youre getting. A little math shows one bottle will give you 30 mg of sodium, 66 grams of
carbohydrates (of which, 56 grams will be sugar), and not a signifcant amount of calories from dietary fber. But you should be consoled
by the fact that it has No Sugar Added oh yaaay.
FEBRUARY 2015

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51

medical school training due to crushing

fatigue that interfered with his ability to
train as a doctor.
The adrenal glands are like a big
brother ready to fght or help us fee
from threatening people or situations;
they handle stress and communicate
with the brain to release fuel under
duress. Adrenal glands do this in part by
keeping our blood sugar from dropping
during high stress. Dr. Teitelbaum
explains, Eating sugar initially spikes
our blood sugar level upward, so we
feel better. This high level is toxic,
however, so our body pours out insulin
to remove it from the blood stream.
He points out that processed sugars
are quickly metabolized unlike sugars
found in whole foods, which break
down slowly and are in the bloodstream
for a while. The quick drop from
processed sugar triggers the red fags
of the bodys intelligence set up for low
blood sugar so the adrenal glands get a
message that there is reason for alarm
and they release adrenaline as if it was
a fght/fight/freeze threat.
The adrenal response is meant to
be an "every so often" occurrence,
but in most Americans its happening
day in and day out due to lifestyle and
hidden sugars. This means that when
your blood sugar drops the adrenal
system is unable to prevent the fall, and
you develop symptoms of low blood
sugar such as irritability and fatigue,
and increasing sugar cravings, putting
people on what I call the sugar roller
coaster, says Dr. Teitelbaum.
The habits of a bad relationship can
keep you trapped. Some of those habits
we know arent healthy, like sodas,
which Dr. Teitelbaum points out have
teaspoon of sugar per ounce. Some bad
habits we try to rationalize, like fruit

Approximately the amount that each

American has of sugar added to his/
her diet each year in food processing.
This represents 18 percent of our
calories that have been stripped of
vitamins and minerals, triggering
widespread nutritional defciencies. In
fact, we are seeing people being both
obese and malnourished for the frst
time in human history.
Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum

juice. Dr. Teitelbaum says they have

the same amount of sugar as sodas
and none of the fber in the fruit, so eat
the fruit! Other sugar disaster foods
Teitelbaum recommends working out of
your diet are granolas, packaged cereals
and non-plain yogurts; they are all
sneaking sugar into your kitchen in the
guise of something healthy!

Sugar, Its Time for Us to Break Up

Like the old song says, Breaking up is

hard to do but you can do it and you
will be better off.
Sherry Pagoto, PhD writes in her
blog called, Shrink The Psychology
of Weight Loss, on Psychology Today,
The process is pretty straightforward.
If you repeatedly eat a food, your
affnity toward it will increase even
if you didnt like that food in the frst
place. This is how we have gotten into
trouble with sugar we have created
too much of an appetite for it. To like a
food less, we have to work this process

HONEY, LETS TRY SWAPPING

Get out of your rut and try something new. You might be surprised by how much more gratifying your
new choices can be.

You Can Stay

85 percent dark chocolate

Dark chocolate
Erythritol
Chicory syrup
Monk Fruit (Lo Han)
Raw brown sugar
Blackstrap Molasses
Xylitol
Stevia
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FEBRUARY 2015

You Are Banished From the Kingdom

55 percent dark chocolate

Milk chocolate
Agave (it breaks down into fructose)
Maple syrup
NutraSweet
Processed brown sugar
Processed molasses
Splenda
Granulated sugar

in reverse. The key is to train your

palate to prefer less sweet. Notice I
said sweet and not sugar. Non-caloric
sweeteners are sweet, too, sometimes
even sweeter than sugar. Using noncaloric sweeteners instead of sugar will
not reduce your sugar addiction, it will
only feed it.
JJ Virgins new book, Sugar Impact
Diet, shows you how to end your bad
relationship in just 2 weeks (and drop
10 pounds while youre at it!). Virgin
starts out by telling readers, Were
designed to eat sugar, our genes tell us
so. But getting it in the right amounts
and from the right sources is the real
secret. Her frst recommendation is a
background check on your foods. In her
book, Virgin has a copiously researched
index of foods rated by fructose load,
fber content, nutrient density and
glycemic load. From there, she gives
them a rating of green, yellow or red.
Its like having a matchmaker!
And like any good matchmaker, Virgin
recommends a slow approach to your
more honest relationship with sugar.
If you jump in with both feet, youll
probably not see success. The key is a
well-planned transition to a new lifestyle
without foods that are hiding sugar and
robbing you blind (literally). MS&F

TOMORROWS
SUPER HERO?

Lee Winters, PhD, at Dartmouth

Medical School, has been studying
an enzyme that may hold the
key to Type II diabetes, appetite
control and cancer. AMPK (AMPactivated protein kinase) is an
enzyme that regulates the constant
supply of energy our cells need
to function. AMPK is like a gas
gauge: it senses how much energy
the cell has, and if the cell is low,
it activates another enzyme that
signals the cell to conserve energy
or generate more. Cells with low
energy levels dont divide, which
may help to control cancer. The
body may turn to other sources for
fuel burning, which is a boon for
diabetes, and the cellular call out
for energy may be normalized,
which has implications for appetite
control. AMPK is the ongoing
subject of more research and
certainly one to keep an eye on!