When planning a path to better nutrition, charting the amount of sugar you intake can make a ton of difference and make sure you’re not consuming too much sugar. Sugar is an incredibly common addition to prepackaged and prepared foods, making it incredibly difficult to track exactly how much you might be eating every day.
According to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, the average American consumes 17 teaspoons of sugar every day. That’s 270 calories of extra sugar.
That might not seem like a lot, but sugar is packed with calories but lacks any form of nutrients to sustain proper health and nutrition. Cutting back on the amount of sugar you intake and adding foods packed with vitamins, minerals, and nutrients will revolutionalize your health and fitness goals.
If you’re wondering whether or not you’re consuming too much sugar, here are a few signs you might want to watch your intake more closely:
Cravings
Cravings are normal, but overwhelming cravings for sugar and sweet things could be an indication that you’re consuming too much sugar. The more sugar you eat, the more you crave. Sugar gives your system a burst of energy just before bottoming out, leaving your system craving more. That trigger response means you might want to find another alternative for your diet.
Moodiness and Sluggishness
Everyone has natural cycles–periods where they feel slightly more energized and times when they might be more sluggish. What isn’t good is when these swings are a result of drastic changes in the amount of sugar in your system. After sugar causes a spike of insulin, there is an inevitable crash. Avoiding sugar will help your body naturally regulate and help to alleviate those huge swings in mood and energy.
Cavities
If you’ve seen an increase in the number of cavities in your mouth, there’s a good chance that sugar is to blame. Eating too much sugar throws off the natural ecosystem in our mouth and allows bad, cavity-causing bacteria to thrive.
Weight Gain
Since sugar has none of the nutrients, protein, and fibers that helps to sustain your body or give you the sensation of “feeling full”, it doesn’t feel you up. And since those empty calories aren’t giving you the nutrients you need, you might be eating more than usual. Coupled with the impact that sugar has on the insulin levels in your body, having a diet with too much sugar is a recipe for dramatic weight gain.
Tracking the amount of sugar in your meals can be difficult. Fit Five Meals makes it easy! Each of our meals are crafted to provide you with the specific diet you’re looking for–and you’ll be able to see how much sugar you eat in each meal.