If weight loss is your goal then going low fat and sugar free may seem a simple way to eat “healthier” and cut calories. In fact, the opposite is true.
A wealth of studies over the years have identified health risks of sugar-free foods. If you adapted the sugar-free, fat-free mentality somewhere in your past, it can be hard to shake it. In this post, I provide some facts to help you begin overcoming those old thoughts and habits. When you’re looking at cause and effect of what you eat and how you exercise on your results I think you’ll agree it’s worth making a mindset flip this year if you’ve been a sugar-free food fan.
A 2013 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition provides insight on why you’re not losing weight drinking that diet soda. The 14-year study of over 66,000 women is significant proof you need to ditch the diet-anything if you want to lose weight.
Here’s why:
- Diet sodas raised risk of diabetes more than sugar-sweetened sodas.
- Women who drank one 12-ounce diet soda had 33 percent increases risks of type 2 diabetes and women who drank one 20 once soda had a 66 percent risk.
- Women who drank diet sodas drank twice as much as those who drank sugar-sweetened sodas.
The Truth About Sugar-Free
Artificial sweetners are more addictive because in part, they are hundreds to thousands of times sweeter than regular sugar. So what does that mean? Several things, none of them good.
The average diet soda drinker consumers three diet drinks a day.
If you might be trying to justify your own diet soda (or sugar free food) consumption because you’re normal weight, consider this next finding. Artificial sweeteners increased diabetes independent of body weight.
They trick your metabolism into thinking sugar is on its way. This causes your body to pump out insulin, the fat storage hormone, which increases your belly fat.
Artificial sweeteners confuse and slow your metabolism down, so you burn fewer calories every day.
It makes you hungrier and you crave even more sugar and starchy carbs like bread and pasta, cookies and cake.
In animal studies, rats that consumed artificial sweeteners ate more, their metabolism slowed, and they put on 14 percent more body fat in just two weeks — even eating fewer calories.
In large population studies, there was a 200 percent increased risk of obesity in diet soda drinkers.
If your body can’t recognize it as a food, it gets confused and slows your metabolism.
The artificial sweeteners in your life aren’t the only thing to rethink. If you eat something your body doesn’t recognize as food, you’re going to have some kind of a reaction to it. Over 10,000 chemicals are approved by the FDA for use in foods. Consuming these kind of toxins that get stored in your body, typically in fat, makes fat loss much more difficult.
If you’re due for a sugar or a sugar-free sweetener detox, there is no time like the present. I’ll post more on the effects of fat-free foods soon too. Here’s a hint: people who ate sugar free and fat free both slowed their metabolism and put on weight – eating the same amount of calories as those who eat regular fat and replaced fat-free sugar-free foods with regular fat and protein.
The best way to shake your sugar or your low-fat, fat-free habits that might be keeping you tired and fat is to join Flipping 50’s 28 Day Kickstart.
Flip Your New Year with Me!
This is not an “info” product you get and forget. It involves 4 weeks of group coaching with me and the “why” you’re doing what we do during the program. You get answers to your questions, a private Facebook group where program alumni can offer their support and you have a 24/7 place to share a win or a challenge.
I’ll teach you how to identify your personal best nutrition plan, your personal exercise plan that makes you better not just tired, and lifestyle habits that are simple, sane flips you can do forever. You get:
- Weekly coaching calls
- Meal plan suggestions with recipes
- Exercise schedule with videos
- Support for mindset and a “pantry raid”
- fast results that stick permanently
- a private SOS call with me to get the most out of your program
Hurry! Next program starts January 9, 2016. Seeing this after? Click here for the next Flipping 50 Kickstart or connect about private coaching.
