No need to count calories? All you can eat every day? Just eat less "sugar" and you won't be hungry or feel wronged on the road to losing weight!

Just eat less sugar

Fasting to reduce sugar intake means "reduced sugar diet + two meals a day without breakfast". This combination can not only significantly eliminate visceral fat, but also keep away diseases.

The principle of reducing sugar intake is very simple. Just eat less staple foods such as rice, bread and noodles, as well as high-sugar foods such as snacks, biscuits and sweet drinks. That’s the main point.

People take in three major nutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates) from their diet, which are then converted into calories to provide for people's daily activities, exercise, and life. The current situation is that the typical Japanese person gets about 60 percent of his energy from sugars. Therefore, the most fundamental approach should be to limit sugar intake and "adequately" consume protein and fat.

Try to eat less foods high in sugar, and consume foods that contain almost no sugar , such as meat, fish and shellfish, eggs, soy products such as tofu and natto, vegetables, mushrooms and seaweed . From main dishes (main courses), side dishes (side dishes), and soups that soothe the throat and fill the stomach, you can take in nutrients other than carbohydrates, such as protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber.

The basic combination of Japanese cuisine is "rice + three dishes and one soup". The so-called three dishes and one soup is "soup + one main dish + two side dishes". However, a low-sugar diet basically means omitting rice. If it only consists of three dishes and one soup, the nutrition is too low and you will fall into a low-energy crisis. To avoid insufficient nutrition, you need to add another dish, basically four dishes and one soup: "two main dishes + two side dishes" or "one main dish + three side dishes".

Among nutrients, only "sugar" will cause blood sugar levels to rise, while protein, fat, vitamins, minerals or dietary fiber will not.

The intestinal flora uses dietary fiber as food and synthesizes short-chain fatty acids to provide a small amount of energy, but this does not cause blood sugar to rise. I will explain this to you in detail later, but the point here is that the increase in visceral fat is not due to fat, but to sugar. "Eating fat will make you fat" is a misconception. What actually makes you fat is sugar. Please do not misunderstand this.

Eat less rice, bread, potatoes and biscuits

The average Japanese adult consumes 240 grams of sugar per day. The American Diabetes Association believes that daily sugar intake should be controlled within 130 grams of sugar. The Kaohsiung Hospital, which promotes a low-sugar diet in Japan, believes that a daily intake of about 30 to 60 grams of sugar is best, but the standard in this book is slightly relaxed, with a target of about 100 grams of sugar. First of all, eating less "staple foods" such as rice, bread and noodles is the most basic of the basics. Staple foods are often made from grains such as rice and flour, which contain a lot of starch, which is a type of sugar.

Since Japanese people consume too much sugar from starchy foods such as rice and bread (about 40% of their calorie intake comes from grains), simply eliminating these staple foods can significantly reduce sugar intake and eliminate visceral fat.

Eat less of the following high-sugar staple rice products, such as porridge, salty congee, glutinous rice, fried rice, and stewed rice . Breads made from wheat or rye, such as toast, French bread, bagels, and croissants . Noodles made from wheat, such as udon noodles, Chinese cold noodles, somen noodles, soba noodles, and spaghetti .

● You should also eat less starchy foods such as potatoes that are not staple foods.

-Tubers, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, taro, and yams. Dishes using potato ingredients, such as potato salad, potato stew, potato chips, baked sweet potato, candied sweet potato, and boiled taro.

-Foods made from potato starch, such as cornstarch and glass noodles.

●It’s a pity, but you should also eat less cakes and biscuits

-Sweet pastries (containing large amounts of sugar, fructose, and glucose), such as wagashi (Japanese pastries) and yogashi (Western pastries).

- Salty crackers that use rice but are not sweet, such as senbei and rice crackers.

-Foods made from potatoes, flour, or corn, such as potato chips and corn biscuits.

● Foods that give the impression of being healthy, but are actually foods that should be avoided

- Dried fruits high in fructose.

-Honey, brown sugar, and Wasanbon (traditional Japanese sugar) are made of sugar.

No need to limit calories, eat as much as you want

As long as you reduce sugar intake, you won’t gain weight even if you eat a lot, and you can lose weight to your ideal weight in a short period of time. As I mentioned before, I started reducing my sugar intake 17 years ago and lost 10 kilograms in half a year, returning to the weight of my 20s (standard weight). My weight has not changed until now (69 years old) when I was writing this book.

A low-calorie diet is "mistakenly believed" to be the best way to lose weight, because it requires you to endure hunger due to the extreme reduction in food intake. There are many examples of people who try to resist eating but are attacked by hunger. Even if they try hard for 3 to 6 months, they will eventually give up in frustration. As long as you eat sugar, visceral fat will not decrease. Even if you lose weight, the risk of disease is still extremely high. What’s worse is that you will gain weight again, or even be fatter than before. In comparison, sugar reduction only limits sugars, not calories, so you can eat to your heart's content.

Some people say, "Reducing sugar makes my head feel dizzy" or "It's too hard to continue." These people usually say that reducing sugar is also restricting calories. The last thing you need on a sugar-reducing diet is salt restriction. If you reduce sugar and salt at the same time, you will feel tired very easily, so you must be careful.

Restricting calories in order to lose weight can easily lead to a significant loss of muscle and bone mass, and can even be dangerous. Our bodies will automatically balance calorie intake and expenditure. Once calorie intake is reduced, the basal metabolism will decrease, thereby reducing calorie expenditure.

The so-called basal metabolism refers to the energy used to maintain body temperature, internal organs and brain functions when the body is at rest. This amount accounts for 60% to 70% of the total daily calorie consumption. 18% of basal metabolism is consumed by muscles. Therefore, once the calorie intake is reduced, causing the basal metabolism to decrease, the body will naturally begin to break down muscles in order to "save energy", reduce muscle mass and reduce consumption, and become an "energy-saving physique" to maintain calorie balance.

The process of losing muscle mass is likely to reduce bone mass (thereby increasing the risk of osteoporosis), so reducing calories is both ineffective and dangerous for weight loss. Once you develop an "energy-saving physique", it is easy to gain weight again as long as your diet no longer restricts calories. Because the basal metabolism is reduced, the body's calories consumed naturally decrease, while the calories consumed are higher than when calories are restricted, so gaining weight is natural.

Regarding this point, since a sugar-reducing diet does not restrict calories, it will not cause problems such as muscle loss, decreased basal metabolism, decreased bone mass, and weight regain.

This article is excerpted from Sancai Culture's "Lose Belly Quickly! The Complete Book of Intermittent Fasting to Reduce Sugar: Evidence from Authoritative Physicians on Sugar Reduction, Lose 3 kg in a Week, Quickly Reduce Visceral Fat, and Fight Diabetes! 》, written by Yasuji Ebe