14 Ways To Eat Less Sugar In 2015

One way to stay healthy and be successful in you weight loss efforts is to limit your sugar intake, to an healthy amount. This will not only help you in loosing weight but will improve your health as well. Here are 14 ways to eat less sugar in 2105

1. Know how much is too much.

Women should eat no more than about 25 grams of added sugar per day (that’s roughly six teaspoons, or 100 calories). Men should eat no more than about 38 grams of added sugar per day (about nine teaspoons, or 150 calories).

2. Mentally prepare yourself.

“Just prepare yourself that this is going to be a little bit of a challenge at first,” Erica Giovinazzo, MS, RD

3. Keep a food diary for a few days before you start.

“Write down everything you eat for three days,” Giovinazzo says. “And make them three real days, not three days where you’re eating as ideally as possible.” She says this will help you pinpoint your biggest sources of sugar on a daily basis, and get you to start thinking about ways you might make substitutions.

4. Learn the difference between naturally occurring sugar and added sugar.

Here’s what you should know: Some sugar occurs naturally, like in fruits, veggies, and dairy products. But when it comes to your health, the sugar you should be most concerned with is the sugar added to products as an extra ingredient, Stanhope says.

5. Read nutrition labels and ingredient lists so that you can identify how much added sugar a product has.

Yes, boring. But also incredibly important if your goal is to cut sugar. Beyond the obvious culprits — cookies, cakes, cupcakes — sugar is also in the vast majority of all of our packaged foods.

6. There are 56 different names for added sugar you might see on a list of ingredients.

7. Watch what you drink.

Sugary drinks include soda, of course. Also many flavored coffee beverages, bottled teas, sports drinks, and energy drinks. Check the label before buying a bottled drink to see how much sugar it has. You may be shocked. Stick to water, black coffee (or coffee with minimal sugar), unsweetened tea, sparkling water, or milk if you can stomach it.

8. Limit your juice intake, also.

Even if the juice is 100% fruit juice with no added sugars, the fructose in it will be digested much faster than if you were to eat those sugars in the original fruit form, due to lack of fiber. This leads to a spike in energy and then a crash, which makes you crave sugar again pretty quickly, Giovinazzo says.

9. Snack on foods with fat and protein throughout the day.

Pear slices and almond butter. Plain Greek yogurt with berries. A hard boiled egg. Shrimp cocktail. And so many more delicious options! Eat ‘em.

10. Don’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry.

Don’t make things harder for yourself — when you’re hungry, it’s easier to lose sight of your goals (less sugar!). If you go shopping when you’ve already eaten, though, you’ll be better able to focus on picking healthier food.

11. Stick to the outside edges of the grocery store when you’re shopping.

In other words: Focus on loading up on whole foods as much as possible. Veggies, fruits, protein sources like nuts and meat… essentially, things that have been minimally processed. The less processing, the less added sugar you’ll encounter.

12. Beware of low-fat products.

Fat free may have slightly fewer calories, but in some cases fat-free products can be loaded with sugar to make them taste better, Giovinazzo says. Just check the label to be sure.

13. Get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep a night.

Not getting enough sleep makes you crave high-calorie foods — like anything with a ton of sugar in it. Fight your sugar cravings by sleeping soundly.

14. Eat fruit to satisfy your sugar cravings.

f you’re craving sugar, fruit is a totally healthy way to satisfy that craving, Giovinazzo says. One way to make your snack even healthier is to combine it with a healthy fat, she says — so try some apple slices with almond butter, or nuts. This will help the snack take longer to digest and keep you feeling more satisfied for longer.

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