Sugar - the Real Culprit

Excerpted from
Suzanne Somers' Get Skinny on Fabulous Food
By Suzanne Somers

One of the most important aspects of Somersizing is the elimination of sugar and foods high in starch (white flour, white rice, potatoes, and the like) that immediately turn to sugar upon digestion. I was shocked when I heard that the average American eats over 150 pounds of sugar and sweeteners (like corn syrup) every year! That's up 28 pounds since the early 1970s! We start off our morning with sugary cereals, Pop-Tarts, or a Danish. Or we look for low-fat, supposedly healthy alternatives like Nutri-Grain bars, granola, and muffins. A muffin is cake in a single serving size! These products are still loaded with sugar and often plenty of chemicals and preservatives.

I understand the addiction to sugar as well as anyone because I am a recovering sugar addict. My body used to crave sweets, especially an hour or two after a meal. When you work in television there is always a large table covered with snacks called the "craft service" table. Around two in the afternoon I would find myself hovering around the table, maybe popping a little piece of chocolate into my mouth or a freshly baked cookie ... and maybe just a corner of that brownie. I knew I was being naughty by snacking on junk food, but I thought the fat was the problem. I never linked my dips in energy to my sugar intake. I never knew my sugar intake was responsible for my irritability. I never knew my sugar intake was responsible for my rolling hips. And I never knew that eating sugar made me crave more and more sugar. Then I finally learned that sugar is the body's greatest enemy! Surprisingly, sugar is more fattening than fat.

Sugars and starches are carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are one of the body's main sources of fuel. The other is fat. In order to understand why some carbohydrates can cause weight problems, let's look at what happens when you eat carbos. When you eat carbos, they break down into glucose, which causes your blood sugar to rise. When the blood sugar is elevated, it is the job of the pancreas to secrete a hormone called insulin. Insulin balances the blood sugar by carrying the glucose to the cells, where it will be burned off for energy. By storing the sugar in the cells, your body balances your blood sugar level.

If we continue to eat too many carbohydrates at one time, insulin levels get higher and higher, and the cells need less and less energy. Most sugar is then stored as fat, and our energy-burning cells become resistant to the action of insulin or what is termed "insulin resistant." When the blood sugar is not accepted into the cells to be burned as fuel, it will be converted into fat, where it will be stored for later use. This explains how even fat-free carbohydrates, like sugar and white flour, can be converted to fat if we do not need the energy at the time we eat. In summary, eating too many carbohydrates at one time raises our blood sugar, causing the hormone insulin to be elevated. If the insulin cannot be balanced, due to insulin resistance, our entire hormonal system can become imbalanced, and hormonal imbalance leads to weight gain.

Most of us will experience some degree of insulin resistance because it occurs naturally as we get older (explaining why many of us gain weight as we age). Quite simply, as we get older our metabolic processes slow down and we do not need as many carbohydrates as we did when we were young. But if we don't change our eating habits, those carbohydrates we used to burn off as energy stall to get converted to fat, and we get thick around the middle as the decades stack up.

Many of us have varying degrees of insulin resistance leading to weight gain and disease. Even some children have a genetic predisposition to insulin resistance. That's why the caix of this program is to teach you how to keep your pancreas from oversecreting insulin, which will keep your blood sugar balanced. The result is healing your insulin resistance so that the carbohydrates you do eat will be burned as fuel rather than stored as fat.

The amount your blood sugar is elevated depends upon the amount and the type of carbohydrates you are eating. Carbohydrates in their refined form are much harder on our systems than those in their natural form. In the last century we have refined most of the nutrients out of our foods. Whoever decided that rice would be better without the nutty brown shell? Brown rice has a wonderful flavor and is loaded with fiber you won't find in white rice. And how about white flour? Breads and pastas used to be made with natural whole grains, and as the grains became more refined, we as a society gained more and more weight.

Some studies show that 75 percent of the average American diet is made up of refined carbohydrates like sugar, white flour, white pasta, and instant potatoes. It's no wonder that obesity is epidemic in our country! And being thin is not just a vanity issue. It is a cause for great concern regarding your health. Obesity is the number two cause of premature death next to cigarette smoking.

Here's why this consumption of so many refined carbohydrates is hard on our system. Complex carbohydrates (like whole grains and vegetables low in starch) cause moderate to minimal increases in your blood sugar. But simple carbohydrates (like sugar, white flour, and potatoes) cause a sharp increase in blood sugar. This surge of blood sugar gives us a "sugar rush" or a "sugar high." As we now know, when the blood sugar is elevated to such a high level, insulin tries to store the sugar in the cells, but if they become filled with sugar, they will not accept any more. Then the pancreas secretes even more insulin to attempt to balance the blood sugar. This results in an excess amount of insulin in the bloodstream, which causes a condition called "hyperinsulinemia." The higher the insulin levels, the more sugar is converted and stored as fat. (One of the leading theories is that type II diabetes occurs when the fat cells are also filled, which means the sugar has nowhere to go and remains in the bloodstream.)

It makes me crazy when I see companies promoting fat-free items loaded with sugar and carbohydrates that will make your insulin levels go through the roof. And the chemicals that accompany many fat-free products are harmful to your health Olestra, the fake fat recently approved by the FDA, must carry a warning label because it binds to some vitamins and nutrients so that they cannot be absorbed by your body. And it may cause abdominal cramping and loose stool syndrome. Is it really worth it for a bag of fat-free Lay's Wow! potato chips? Yes, you might say, "Wow!" after you eat the chips: "Wow! I wish I had an extra pair of panties in my purse." Besides, it's not the fat in the potato chips that makes you gain weight... it's the potato that raises insulin Fat causes virtually no insulin response. Effective marketing has duped our society into thinking if we are eating low-fat, we are safely eating food that is healthier for us and will not make us fat. But they don't tell you that fake food is harmful to your health and sugar turns right to fat!

After extra insulin has sent the sugar to the fat cells, eventually our blood sugar is lowered to even below its starting point. That's when we feel the let-down or the "sugar low." This sugar low leaves us feeling tired, listless, and artificially hungry. During this time we often feel like taking a nap, or we reach for something sweet or caffeinated to give us more energy-then the vicious cycle repeats. Sugar goes in, blood sugar goes up, pancreas secretes insulin, then blood sugar drops and we feel tired and hungry again, causing us to eat more and more without ever satisfying our nutritional needs.

Now you are beginning to see the importance of insulin in determining whether the broken-down sugar will be burned as fuel or stored as fat. As I mentioned, some complex carbos cause smaller insulin responses (whole grains, green vegetables) and can be utilized immediately by the cells as fuel. Other carbos cause larger insulin responses (sugar, white flour, potatoes) and will often be stored as fat because they contain way more energy than our bodies need for immediate use. One nutritionist told me that a single potato provides us with more carbohydrates than some people need in an entire day! Think about how many excess carbohydrates you eat in a normal day, and imagine how much your body actually needs for fuel and how much gets stored as fat. Unless you're a marathon runner, you're probably storing an ample supply of fat reserves from overindulging in the wrong kinds of carbohydrates.

Now I know what some of you are thinking: How come I have friends who live on tons of bad carbs like junk food, candy bars, cheeseburgers with French fries, and they are thin as rails? The answer is that each of us is created differently, with a unique and ever-changing metabolism. Some people have a metabolism that will always burn the food they eat as fuel rather than storing it as fat. Other people start out burning off all their food as fuel, and as they get older their metabolism changes and suddenly they find themselves with a weight problem. But nothing is free. Even if your skinny friends can burn extra energy, they still can be damaged by eating junk food. They may not gain weight, but they are prone to heart attacks, decreased energy, mood swings, and increased incidence of death from poor nutrition.

Whatever the case, Somersizing is the answer. By eliminating foods that cause large fluctuations in our blood sugar and by properly combining nutritious, delicious foods, we are able to lose weight and gain energy while achieving our maximum health. Most of us do not have a perfect metabolism, but Somersizing can show you how to get control over your metabolism. This program can actually heal your ailing metabolism. It's never too late to change.