What the food industry doesn't want you to know
Eliminating one simple ingredient accelerates your fat loss and boosts your health. Many companies spend millions of dollars hiding their secrets behind marketing. Every cardiologist knows that uncontrolled blood sugar puts you at high risk of heart attacks.
I'll spill the beans and give you the diet that NBA superstars have used to achieve their greatness.
The deception
Fifty years ago the food industry set out to influence public perception. Scientists were starting to discover an inconvenient truth: sugar consumption promotes heart attacks.
The Sugar Research Foundation invited Dr. Frederick Stare to be a member of their board. Dr. Stare was the chair of Harvard University's School of Public Health Nutrition Department.
With his new position, the Sugar Research Foundation assigned Dr. Stare with the task of writing a review paper in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Stare cherry-picked papers to shed a good light on sugar. He also pushed for evidence that far was the culprit.
With this first review paper published here. The Sugar industry continued to spread information that sugar is:
not that bad for you
can even be healthy for you.
The Sugar Research Foundation knew that thinly veiled "scientific" studies used in marketing campaigns will convince buyers.
They knew full well that very few people will actually read those studies. Even fewer people will have the needed knowledge to critique the research.
Other companies joined in, hoping to disguise the effects of sugar and boost sales:
Welch's Grape Juice funded a study to claim that grape juice may boost brain function.
A Quaker Oats study found that a hot oatmeal breakfast "keeps you full for longer".
Coca-Cola gave $132.8 million to high-profile scientists and organizations to promote a message that exercise is more important than diet.
The company funds the Academic of Family Physicians and the American Academic of Pediatrics.
This is a lie. From personal experience, you cannot out-train a bad diet.
Coca-Cola continues to use its funds to spread this message.
This strategy actually worked. Coca-Cola's stock continues to rise as they continue to sell sugar water. Good marketing works.
Despite causing obesity and diabetes, we associate Coca-Cola with happiness, Christmas, and polar bears. Good marketing hides the real effects of these drinks.
Don't take my word for it. Here's Hasan Minhaj on the global expansion of obesity through soft drink companies.
Here's the thing. Even if you don't believe the research, the medical community does. We still use blood sugar levels as a strong risk factor for coronary artery disease. If you have bad heart disease, we know you would do better if diabetes is under control.
If you have diabetes you are more likely to need bypass surgery if you have a heart attack. That is not a fun road to go down. After seeing my patients have to go down this road, I'd rather keep myself and my family away from that fate. Avoiding sugar doesn't guarantee I don't have a heart attack but it decreases the odds. It decreases the odds more than most medicines.
Effects of sugar
Sugar stops weight loss efforts, not only because of the calories. Sugar causes insulin spikes. Insulin is a hormone that has a lot of effects on the body. This is a long list of insulin’s effects. Here's a short list of effects:
stops the body from burning fat as fuel
increases the rate of bad cholesterol creation (LDL)
increases the rate of fat deposition in fatty tissues
38%
sugar increases the risk of dying from a heart disease by 38%.
Consumption of sugar increases your risk of dying from heart disease by 38%. This assumes you get 17-21% of your calories from added sugar, which is pretty much the American diet. Most of our medicines don't have that much of an impact.
The Greats
Even elite athletes know how bad sugar is. Coca-Cola, Gatorade, McDonald's, and Wheaties sponsored Michael Jordan.
Despite Jordan's sponsorships, his coach, Tim Grover, encouraged a strict diet that eliminated sugar. Grover has been very vocal about this diet which hinges on the elimination of sugar. He put Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant on this diet to prime their bodies for peak performance. After reviewing the effects that insulin has on the body, it's no wonder why.
Sugar is everywhere. It takes a massive amount of effort to avoid sugar altogether, but it is possible. It may not be easy at first but it gets easier. Take it from someone that loved frappuccino's and like coffee only if it had 4-5 tablespoons of sugar. These days I try to limit my sugar intake to 1 day each week. It’s a work in progress.
What do you think? Would you be able to cut sugar out of your diet?