How to start a sugar-reducing diet? Nutritionists teach you 3 keys to lose weight naturally without using your brain!

What is a reduced sugar diet?

In recent years, reducing sugar has become very popular. If you want to give it a try, you might as well listen to what nutritionist Ricky says, learn relevant information, and compare it with general weight loss methods, and you will understand why reducing sugar is so popular.

The difference between general weight loss and sugar-reducing diets

○General weight loss method

The general way to lose weight is to calculate calories and the three major nutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrates). The three major nutrients are also the main nutrients that provide calories to the human body.

This method is good and accurate, but the disadvantage is that it is difficult to calculate the "actual nutrients". Because each food contains not only a single nutrient, but three major nutrients. For example, chicken thighs contain not only protein but also fat. If you really want to calculate the actual nutrients, you must weigh the rice, main dish, side dish, and ingredients one by one when eating, and then look up the food substitution table separately. This operation is very time-consuming and laborious, and it is easy to give up halfway.

In addition, unlike nutritionists, the general public does not understand what a food exchange table is, and is not able to quickly convert nutrients, so a lot of energy is wasted after one meal. And if you eat 3 to 4 meals a day and try to lose weight for 2 months, each meal has 5 ingredients, and you weigh and add them up one by one, you will do → each meal × 5 ingredients × 3 meals a day × 2 months (60 days) = a total of 900 weighing times. If your eating habits are simple and you prepare everything yourself, it won't be a big problem. But for people who eat out, it is very troublesome to adopt this method of weight loss, and it can easily become an obstacle for those who want to lose weight.

○ Reduce sugar and lose weight

A sugar-reducing diet is about reducing the amount of carbohydrates, which may mean reducing the amount of rice you normally eat from 1 bowl to 1/3~1/4 bowl. The benefit is that blood sugar will not fluctuate much, making hunger less likely to occur.

When you eat a lot of carbohydrates, your blood sugar will rise. The pancreas will receive an alert, knowing that blood sugar is soaring, and will rush out to put out the fire, secreting insulin to lower blood sugar. But many times, blood sugar drops too low, causing the body to be in a state of hypoglycemia. When the human body is in a state of hypoglycemia, the body's physiological response will stimulate your appetite, making you want to eat, and it is easy to want to have a snack after finishing a meal. The benefit of a low-sugar diet is that it can significantly reduce the above-mentioned situations, allowing you to finish a meal with a feeling of fullness, and your blood sugar level will not fluctuate easily, so you can easily hold on until the next meal.

A great blessing for those who want to lose weight and reduce fat

The main benefits of a low-sugar diet include: less hunger, improved mental strength and concentration, and a more sustainable diet for those who want to lose weight. A reduced-sugar diet is less likely to cause blood sugar instability due to eating a large amount of carbohydrates, resulting in the bloating and hunger caused by hypoglycemia.

Reducing sugar intake will gradually change the body's energy usage pattern from "burning only glycogen" to a "fat burning" system. Using energy from fat burning will produce a byproduct - ketone bodies, which have a good appetite suppressant effect. In addition, it can also stabilize insulin and keep it at a low level, which is great news for those who want to lose weight or reduce fat!

A high-quality weight loss method that uses every ingredient

As a body sculpting nutritionist, I have come across too many people who want to lose weight. One of the biggest obstacles they encounter is that they cannot control their appetite and always want to eat. A reduced-sugar diet is easier to sustain, and you don’t need to endure not eating certain foods for a long time. Basically, you can eat any food (but not junk food). You just need to control the portion size and avoid overeating without suppression.

I think a reduced-sugar diet is like a balance between a balanced diet and a ketogenic diet, where almost every ingredient can be consumed. This is very important because rice and bread, the staple foods of Asians, can be eaten less but cannot be banned. It would be very hard and inhumane to forcibly ban them from eating them. So, I have encountered many cases where they would rather continue to drag around their obese, unhealthy bodies than change. For people who want to lose weight, a reduced-sugar diet is a good starting point.

Balanced diet, reduced sugar diet and ketogenic diet

A balanced diet is 50-55% carbohydrates, 15-20% protein, and 20-30% fat.

The sugar-reduced diet is based on 20% carbohydrates, 50-60% fat and 20-30% protein as the dietary principles. The principle is similar to the ketogenic diet, but the method is less drastic. The ketogenic diet consists of 5% carbohydrates, 75% fat and 20% protein.

3 Keys to a Reduced Sugar Diet

Everyone's physical condition is different, so their adaptability to reducing sugar is naturally different. Nutritionist Ricky reminds us that not everyone can simply reduce carbohydrate intake. If you want to reduce sugar intake healthily and lose weight, you must master 3 key points.

Key 1: Control your daily carbohydrate intake

The amount of carbohydrate intake varies from person to person because each individual's blood sugar response to carbohydrates is different, but most people are sensitive to carbohydrates. After consuming the same amount of carbohydrates, their blood sugar will rise, causing large fluctuations in insulin.

The body's main energy source is carbohydrates. Only after the carbohydrates are consumed will it start using secondary energy - fat. Fat is the best storage energy. Touch the fattest part of your body, that is the body's reserve energy.

Although carbohydrates are the body's main energy consumption, the storage mode of carbohydrates is glycogen, which has a total weight of 200 to 500g, equivalent to 800 to 2000 calories. Without additional food intake, the body's glycogen will be exhausted within 18 hours. In other words, when we reduce carbohydrate intake as much as possible, when a small amount of glycogen is quickly used up, the body will switch to using fat as energy, achieving the effect of fat loss and weight loss.

○Recommended total amount of carbohydrates (sugars)

The recommended total carbohydrate intake for boys is 80 to 90 g, and for girls it is 60 to 70 g. Because there are individual differences, such as height, weight, amount of exercise, and muscle mass, this is just an approximate value. You can grasp the amount within this range to implement a sugar-reducing diet. Of course, when it comes to weight loss, the lower the carbohydrate intake, the better. However, in order to help everyone lose weight healthily, the amount of carbohydrates in this book is set between 60 and 100 grams.

Key 2: Replace carbohydrates with protein and fat

Generally, the intake ratio of the three major nutrients in a balanced diet is 50-55% carbohydrates, 15-20% protein, and 20-30% fat.

However, any weight loss diet must limit the total amount of calories, because energy will not increase or decrease on its own. Even if you adopt a very healthy diet and ingredients, as long as it exceeds your daily consumption, the excess energy will be converted into body fat storage. Therefore, while limiting calories, we reduce carbohydrates and then add protein and fat to achieve the goal of reducing sugar.

All ingredients contain the three major nutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats), but in different proportions. For example, chicken breast contains not only protein but also a little fat. It is recommended to set the calories you want to lose fat, and then adjust the proportion of the three major nutrients to 20% carbohydrates, 20-30% protein, and 1-(carbohydrate + fat ratio). For example, the fat part is as follows:

Carbohydrates 20%, protein 20%, fat is 1-(20+20%)=60%

Carbohydrates 20%, proteins 30%, and fats are 1-(20+30%)=50%.

Another reason for replacing carbohydrates with protein foods and fats is that these foods will not cause blood sugar to rise, so there will be no blood sugar problem mentioned above (causing insulin to rise, causing the body to constantly want to eat, and the amount of food eaten is also a major obstacle to weight loss). In addition, by reducing carbohydrate intake, glycogen storage will also decrease, and the body will use fat as energy more quickly, and the effect of fat reduction will be faster and more obvious.

Key 3: Choose vegetables low in sugar

Many people are worried that the "sugar" in vegetables will affect the sugar reduction effect and do not eat them. This situation will cause many problems, such as constipation, palpitations, etc. But vegetables are important because they are rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals and trace elements. A low-sugar diet has already reduced the intake of whole grains and cereals, and may lack many trace elements, so you must consume more vegetables. As long as you wisely choose vegetables with low sugar content, such as carrots, white radishes, bamboo shoots, sweet potato leaves, cabbage, bok choy, bok choy, broccoli, green cauliflower, bitter melon, loofah, beef tomatoes, king oyster mushrooms, enoki mushrooms, etc., you can help you implement a low-sugar diet more smoothly! (For a table of sugar content of related vegetables, please refer to P.187-188)

This article is from the book "Reduce Sugar and Lose Weight Fast with Air Fryer Cuisine: Sugar Reduction Empirist Xiao Yu Ma╳Body Sculpting Nutritionist Ricky, Tailor-made 58 Muscle-Building, Fat-Loss and Weight-Loss Meals" by Sancai Culture