So… you think you’re ‘addicted’ to sugar? 🙄🙄🙄. I can’t tell you how many times I hear this from my clients. ‘Sugar activates the same area of your brain as heroin!’ Ok, well so does sex, doing something you enjoy, and hugs from people you love. It activates the reward center of your brain but so do MANY things. That doesn’t make it addictive, otherwise anything you enjoy is addictive. I don’t see anyone holding up a 7-11 for bags of sugar 😂.
Funny enough, if sugar is so addictive but fat isn’t, then why aren’t people binging on pure sugar? That is because people don’t typically overeat on foods that are mostly sugar… they overeat on foods that are dense in sugar AND FAT! In fact many of these products provide more calories from FAT than sugar. So how is it that it’s sugar that’s addictive? You could make just as strong if not a stronger argument for fat being ‘addictive’ (It’s not FYI).
We have 5 basic taste sensors. These are: sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness, and savoriness. It is the complexity of these combined that makes food enjoyable or unenjoyable. Sugar and fat (sweet and savory) are extremely palatable and energy dense, thus making them easy to overeat on. But sugar doesn’t magically make you fat. In fact there is NOT one study showing that when calories and protein are equated between diets, that sugar intake makes any difference on fat loss. None. Zip. Zilch. In fact, all the studies that control calories between groups don’t show any negatives to sugar impeding fat loss more than other carbohydrate or fat.
Sugar isn’t very satiating and thus easier to overconsume than some other calorie sources. But stop saying you gained fat because you’re addicted to sugar, because most likely it was sugar consumption COMBINED with fat that caused your fat gain or simply just not eating mindful and tracking your macros because when you track macros with flexible dieting, you can have your cake and eat it too… you just can’t have as much as you want. 👌🏼
Clackamas, Happy Valley, Oregon, Personal Training