5 Tips to Reduce Sugar in Your Diet

Tips to Reduce Sugar in Your Diet

Avoid Sugary drinks

The American diet heavily relies on sugary drinks, including sports drinks, energy drinks, and sweetened teas. Even seemingly healthy beverages like fruit juices and smoothies can have high added sugar content. Drinks are not recognized by the body as much as meals, causing blood sugar to rise quickly. They also don’t satisfy hunger like solid food, so those who consume large amounts of calories from drinks don’t cut back.

Reducing sugar intake can help with weight loss and overall health. Some naturally low-sugar, healthier beverage options include:

• Water
• Sparkling water without sugar
• Herbal teas
• Coffee
• Green or black tea.

Avoid Desserts with Added Sugar

Desserts typically don’t have a lot of nutritional value. They have a lot of sugar, which raises blood sugar levels and can make you feel hungry and drained and want more sugar. Desserts made with grains and dairy, such as ice cream, pies, doughnuts, and cakes, make up more than 18% of the additional sugar consumed in the diet of Americans.

Try these substitutes if you want something with less added sugar that will still satisfy your sweet tooth:

• Fruit baked with cream
• Dark chocolate
• Fresh fruit
• Greek yoghurt with cinnamon (70 percent cocoa or higher)

You may cut down on sugar while simultaneously increasing your consumption of fiber, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants by substituting baked or fresh fruit for treats high in sugar.

Eat Full Fat Foods

There are several low-fat options available for your favorite meals, such as salad dressing, yoghurt, and peanut butter. It might seem natural to choose these options over the full-fat varieties if you’ve been taught that fat is unhealthy, especially if you’re attempting to reduce weight. The disturbing fact is that, compared to their full-fat equivalents, they frequently have higher sugar and occasionally higher calorie contents.

A 6-ounce (170-gram) portion of low-fat vanilla yoghurt, for instance, has 144 calories and 24 grammes of sugar. Only 104 calories and 8 grammes of naturally occurring milk sugar are found in the same quantity of full-fat plain yoghurt. Consuming a lot of sugar has also been linked to weight gain, which defeats the purpose of initially selecting a low-fat meal. It’s usually preferable to pick full-fat foods while attempting to reduce your sugar intake. But in order to make the best decision, be sure to study the ingredient list.