Sugar, so sweet but so much of it is a bad thing

I wanted to let everyone know I have a addiction to sugar that I am continually trying to overcome. My sweet tooth is dangerous, recent studdies have found a link to increased sugar consumption and cancer growth. I personally have found the more sugar I eat the less energy I have.

I searched google and found that the recommended daily intake of sugar is only 40 Grams. I say only because I walked through the grocery store and was shocked to find that most of my favorite foods had 10 grams or more per serving. I routienly eat about 2 serving sizes of everything so I took a guess that I was taking in about 300 grams of sugar per day! Many foods I thought were healthy in fact were not (read the nutrition labels and ingredients). My favorite strawberry yogurt had 27 grams of sugar alone! That was almost 75% of the recommended daily intake by itself.

I have been trying to adjust my intake of sugar to more reasonable proportions, which is difficult because sugar is my drug of choice. I experience withdraw if I go a couple of days without eating something sweet. I also have a huge addition to having something sweet after dinner, it doesn't matter how much I had or how full I am, I need dessert.

I am finding a solution to this problem by eating lots of fruit and reading the nutrition labels on foods from the grocery store. Fruit does have sugar in it but is good sugar and therefore I can pig out. I also want to note that nutrition labels group all sugars together so a serving of grapes may read 40 grams of sugar but again its the good of sugar so it does not count. I have begun to read the ingredients to learn wether or not a product with added sugar is healthy. For example, a nutrition label for a grape will read sugar 40 grams but the ingredient list will read: Grape. The strawberry yougurt label reads 27 Grams of sugar and granulated sugar is listed as a ingredient. Thats the key, added sugar is bad.

So I will continue to read my labels, avoid added sugar, and fight the sugar monster within. I do still allow myself my 40Grams of added sugar because to cut out sugar entirely is ludacris. (So many cheese cake flavors, so little time). I also minimize my serving sizes and eat sweets slow so I can enjoy a sweet flavor and satisfy my cravings at the same time. My personal recoendation to everyone is to avoid added sugars as part of the diet portion of a healthy lifestyle. If you are like me it will be a challenge but you will experience a increase energy and you will reap loads of benefits long term.