Week Five Challenge - Kill 'Em with Sugar

I have a little secret. I love sugar. Okay, that's not really a secret. If you've been around me at all, you know that my sugar consumption is a sight to behold. I'm that woman at the party who unabashedly loads up a plate full of brownies, cupcakes, and cookies, and might even go back for a second helping. Yes. Unabashedly. I'm not even going to pretend to be embarrassed about it.

More broadly, I love anything that tastes really good, whether it's sugar or not. I have a deep appreciation for really good food with lots of good flavor. Sugar just happens to take the cake in most cases. Ha!

We all know that sugar consumption is off the charts, harming our health and our waistline. In fact, Americans eat three to five times MORE sugar than is recommended, and it's easy to see why. It's everywhere, even hiding in that fast food salad that we chose over the burger and fries! DANG IT!

The thing is, sugar has been linked to so many health problems, including the obesity and diabetic epidemic of our generation. We are literally killing ourselves with sugar. Although it is so very prevalent, and so very tempting, we must kick our sugar addictions if we want a healthy happy body. Easier said than done, I know!

One of the primary reasons we consume so much sugar is all the added sugar we find in our foods. Food corporations figured out long ago that added sugar can make their products much more likable. So we go to eat the foods we buy but end up eating a whole lot of sugar on top of it. Sometimes a glance at the product label can shock us with it's sugar content! It's amazing how well sugar can hide. If it's in a package, plan on extra sugar, no matter what it is.

Our challenge for this week is to eat the recommended grams of sugar each day. For women, that's 25 grams and for men, that's 37.5 grams. So you'll need to find the sugar content on the product labels and keep track throughout the day to make sure you don't go over. For each day you stay under your sugar goal, you get 1 point, with 6 points total for the week.

The good news is that you don't have to count sugars in the WHOLE FOODS that you eat. Yes, if you are eating something that is completely unprocessed, then you don't have to count its sugars. I don't believe in completely cutting out any and all sugar from our diet. It's unreasonable and unsustainable. And let's face it. It would SUCK! So I'd rather promote sugars found in whole foods as opposed to the added sugars you find in your packaged products.

Our bonus is to find a NEW food or snack that is low in sugar and tell us about it on our Facebook page. I'd prefer you to find something that actually tastes good. We all know some of those snacks out there are borderline unpalatable. I'd like you to find something you might actually keep eating on a regular basis because it's both healthy AND yummy without all the added sugars. You get 2 bonus points if you find a new low-sugar snack and tell us about it.
Sugar addictions can be super strong so I wish you all the best in your battle against sugar!

Pray for me.


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