All your hard work could be sabotaged by this hidden enemy if left unchecked.
Here at HIIT Academy we’re all about exercise. We know that it is incredibly important to a healthy life. But it’s only part of the equation that makes up your best health; the other part is what you put into your body.
Unless you’re Tom Dickson, you wouldn’t put rocks into a blender and turn it on. And if you did, and your blender suffers it’s inevitable fate, that’s okay because there will always be more blenders that you can buy.
But unlike a blender, you only get one body. And you know how to treat it – don’t eat junk, don’t smoke, drink in moderation, and drugs are bad (m’kay).
These things listed are some of the most talked about inhibitors of great health. But there is one thing that is commonly left off the table: sugar.
We all live under the myth that a little sugar is okay for you. You know, a cookie here, a frappuccino there, the daily can of soda. Well how much can you get away with and still be okay? According to the World Health Organization your small amount of sugar,which usually comes in the form of sucrose, or common table sugar, should only be about 25g a day.
To put it to you this way, in one can of Coke there are 39g of sugar. Thats 156% of your daily intake in one can!
And you wouldn’t know that by looking at the nutrition label. The documentary Fed Up brought to our attention that sugar is the only thing on the nutritional facts label that doesn’t come with a percentage of your daily value.
So is sugar as harmless as you think it is? Not when you’re consuming it at an incredible amount, which is normal for a western diet.
According the Department of Agriculture, Americans are eating an average of 156 pounds of added sugar a year. That’s not taking into account the sugar found in fruit and grains.
Over the years that starts to add up in the human body. The harm of all that extra sugar for so many years leads to of metabolic issues such as obesity and diabetes.
So the answer of course is to limit your intake of sugar. Simple, right?
But it’s a hard habit to kick. Sugar is super addictive and releases dopamine in the brain. According to an article that wanted to test this bold claim it found it to, indeed, be a fact. And as absurd as someone suffering from “food addiction” sounds, it’s actually pretty accurate because those hooked on sugary sweets share similar behaviors with those addicted to drugs.
Another article in Psychology Today talks about the effects of the added sugar on memory formation. Sugar is being linked to damaging the hippocampus, the part of the brain that is responsible for memory formation. This is impairing your ability to learn.
So if you feel like you’re getting dumber and fatter, it’s probably because you’re eating the equivalent of 21 newborn babies in the form of sugar every year.
But don’t beat yourself up because how would you know?
A lot of money goes into the food industry and they want to keep it that way. The bigger our appetites get the bigger their wallets get. So why would they tell you that a main ingredient in so many of their manufactured foods isn’t really helping you stay healthy?
So we offer to you an experiment- to go without added sugar for a week or two. See how it affects you. You might find yourself in a state of withdrawal, angry and tired. But you might also find yourself a little clearer, a little thinner, and a little smarter.
The only way to know is to try!
P.S. I’m going through a 60 day experiment of my own. If you want to join me or talk about it, comment below or give me a shout out on twitter @HIITAcademy.
Leave a Reply