Category: Personal Habits

Kick the sugar habit—or it will surely kick you

Update, January 2020: Sugar addiction is no longer a metaphor.

The sugar that is added to processed food and beverages acts as a slow poison that disrupts normal liver functions in the same way that alcohol does. It leads to high blood pressure, heart disease, Type-2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, pancreatitis, liver disease, fetal insulin resistance, and, of course, obesity.

That’s the bad news from Dr. Robert Lustig, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, where he runs their obesity clinic for children. You can hear it straight from him in a 90-minute presentation that has been posted on YouTube.

The good news? All of this damage is 100% preventable. Here’s how:

  • First, eliminate all soft drinks, sports drinks, fruit drinks, and other sugar-flavored beverages from your diet.
  • Second, eliminate all commercially-processed food products, including “fast foods”, of course, because these are loaded with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) that slowly kills your liver, makes you fat, and eventually kills you.

To put it more simply: Forget all that complicated stuff about calories, low-fat diets, and good cholesterol. Just cut out the added sugar.

Your only source of sugar should be fruit, where it is mixed with a lot of fiber—essential to a healthy diet—and other important micro-nutrients.

In Dr. Lustig’s obesity clinic for kids, the patients

  • drink only water and milk—no sugared liquids
  • eat high-fiber carbohydrates (i.e., not fast-food carbs, which have little or no fiber)
  • wait 20 minutes before eating a second portion
  • and must “buy” video/computer time minute-for-minute with physical activity.

This program, if followed, is successful. I know: you are not surprised that eliminating junk food and exercising would lead to weight loss. Here’s what is surprising: in studies conducted at Lustig’s clinic, kids who gave up sugared liquids still lost weight, even if they ignored the other three rules. But kids who did the other three—ate high-fiber carbs, waited 20 minutes before taking a second portion, and exercised—failed to lose weight if they kept drinking sugared liquids.

Conclusion? Above all, it’s the sugar.

Here are some other highlights from Dr. Lustig’s presentation:

Obese babies

Worldwide, there is now an epidemic of obese 6-month-old babies. Why? Because they are being fed commercial formulas that are loaded with sugar—”milkshakes for babies.” Popular diet and exercise theories cannot explain obesity in 6-month-olds—only the sugar in baby formula can.

Fructose

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) was invented in Japan in 1966 and introduced to the American diet in 1975. Since then its use has exploded. Why? First, it costs half of what sucrose (table sugar) costs. Second, it is added to processed foods and soft drinks—and baby formula—to make them taste good.

Competing diets

The Adkins diet is all fat, no carbohydrates. The “Japanese” diet is all carbohydrates, no fat. If followed correctly, they both work. Why? Because they both eliminate fructose. On the other hand, if you follow either of them but keep your sugar consumption constant, neither of these diets work. In other words: it’s the sugar!

Why fiber is important

Over-production of insulin—one of the effects of fructose in the liver—leads to Type-2 diabetes. According to Lustig, fiber in the diet slows the speed at which food is absorbed in the intestines, and inhibits the absorption of some free fatty acids, both of which reduces the insulin response. Pre-industrial people consumed 100-300 grams of fiber each day. Today the average American consumes just 12 grams of fiber per day. Fiber is removed from processed foods and fast foods because it takes too long to cook, takes too long to eat, and won’t store well.

Why exercise is important

The common notion is that we exercise to “burn calories”, but Lustig ridicules the idea that we can overeat sugary foods and then burn those calories off with exercise. Just one cookie, he says, would require 20 minutes of running. So we simply cannot exercise enough to compensate for a sugar-soaked diet.

Instead, here are the benefits of exercise. First, it improves skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity—i.e., like fiber, it helps prevent Type-2 diabetes. Second, it reduces stress, which in turn reduces our appetite because stress makes us feel hungry. Third, it increases our metabolic rate, which again improves insulin function in the liver.

Why everyone is fatter than they used to be

Americans of all ages are eating more than they did 30 years ago. Why? Because sugar in the liver screws up the normal processes that make us feel full when we have eaten. We eat, but we are still hungry. The biochemical system in our bodies that tells us when we have had enough to eat has been disrupted: it doesn’t work anymore. And this is a direct result of sugar consumption. And it’s not only in America. All over the world, wherever soft drinks and fast food are replacing traditional diets, we see the same effects: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc.

Why Coke makes us fat

What is in Coke? Caffeine and salt. Caffeine is a stimulant and diuretic, i.e., it makes us urinate. There are 55mg of salt in a can of Coke—the equivalent of drinking a pizza. So if you take in salt and lose free water, you become thirsty, and want to drink more. Why is there so much sugar in Coke? To hide the taste of the salt. (This is like sweet-and-sour pork in a Chinese restaurant: the sugar disguises the saltiness of the soy sauce.) “New Coke” has more salt and more caffeine, and therefore makes people even thirstier than old Coke. So they drink more and more, and their sugar consumption skyrockets. No wonder kids who drink soda pop get fat. In just five years, 1989-94, soft drink intake by American children increased 41% and fruit drink intake increased 35%.

Sports drinks

Gatorade was invented in the 1970s. It works very well for elite athletes who exert themselves to the point that their glycogen is depleted. The original formula, however, tasted terrible, so when the Pepsi-Cola company purchased Gatorade in 1992, they added loads of HFCS to it to make it taste good. Then they began marketing it to kids whose glycogen levels were just fine. Result? A generation of fat kids sucking down sports drinks.

I urge you to watch Dr. Lustig’s presentation. I used to take the view that a little sugar—or even a good whack, once in a while—was harmless, but Lustig has convinced me otherwise. If you don’t have time to watch the video, however, that’s okay: just stop consuming added sugar. Now.

UPDATE: June 1, 2011

Dr. Lustig’s thesis seems to be borne out by this news report from Shanghai, China:

Shanghai schoolchildren getting very fat very fast: survey

UPDATE: February 2014

Another link: 25 reasons to stop eating sugar.

UPDATE: April 2014

More evidence against sugar (including the high amounts found in canned and dried fruit, and fruit juice) in this article from the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/31/refined-sugar-real-villain .

UPDATE: June 2014

Vox interview with Robert Lustig: http://www.vox.com/2014/6/6/5786974/the-war-on-sugar

“Our Year of No Sugar: One Family’s Grand Adventure”: http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/my-health-story/year-of-no-sugar-one-family-grand-adventure/

UPDATE: February 2015

Sugar is 8 times more addictive than cocaine; it can take six weeks to kick the habit and overcome the craving for sugar. And why is pizza so addictive? —it’s all the added sugar in the tomato sauce.

http://abc13.com/health/study-sugar-is-as-addictive-as-cocaine/533979/

Plus: activist group in the UK calls for ban on sales of energy drinks for kids under 16.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31623771

UPDATE: March 2015

This excellent summary of the case against sugar is written by The Iowa Clinic, “the largest physician-owned multi-specialty group in central Iowa.” 

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/sponsor-story/iowa-clinic/2015/02/24/added-sugar-diet-nutrition-iowa-clinic/23934317/

UPDATE: April 2015

How to Break Your Sugar Addiction in Ten Days (from Dr. Mark Hyman and the Cleveland Clinic).

100 push-ups

HundredPushups.com is a great exercise site. They have sister sites for sit-ups, squats, and pull-ups. Each site provides a simple program that takes about 30 minutes a week, and promises that over six weeks you can dramatically improve your fitness.

The secret? A graduated sequence of repetitions in five sets. Each sequence is repeated three times (say, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

HundredPushups.com can give your workouts a highly effective structure. The goal-setting is done for you. All you need to supply is a bit of will-power. Go check it out!

(Thanks for the tip, Sean!)

Book excerpt: Take responsibility for your mistakes

Apologize, fix it, and move on.

What should you say if you’re caught doing something wrong? Apologize, first. Then, if you can do anything to repair the damage, do it.

All of us make mistakes. The question is, how do we respond to them? If we try to weasel out of trouble, point the finger at others, and deny responsibility, all we do is make ourselves look bad and lose the respect of those around us. All we do is show the adults involved that we are still acting like little kids. So if you get caught, don’t say, “It wasn’t me.” Or, “Those other guys were doing it first.” Or, “I didn’t know.”

If you make a mistake, have the courage to say, “I messed up, and I’m sorry. How can I fix it, or make up for it?” Then follow through. People are ready to forgive you—but only if you’re ready to take responsibility. Apologize, fix it, and move on. That kind of response will earn admiration and respect.

I once saw two students sweeping the entranceway to their school after having been caught for a minor misdeed. One of them saw this task as a punishment, while the other saw it as doing service to the school. The first one was angry at being caught and still refused to accept responsibility for what he had done. The second had admitted his mistake, apologized, and asked what he could do to balance the scales. It wasn’t a big deal, but this incident spoke volumes about each of these two individuals. They were the same age, but one was still a boy, while the other was clearly a young man on the way to becoming a responsible adult.

A few words about cheating
Have you ever copied homework from a friend? Used a “cheat-sheet” during a test? Plagiarized an essay or report? Far too many students would answer “yes.”

Why do students cheat?

First, because they are desperate. Bad habits have put them into a corner: their homework’s not done, they aren’t ready for the test, or they’ve put off writing the paper that’s almost due.

Second, they’re still thinking like little kids instead of responsible young adults. They think that if they “get away” with cheating, they will be better off. They don’t realize that they are only cheating themselves. If they earn good grades for work they didn’t do, they aren’t learning what the work was supposed to teach them. And no matter who else believes them, they will look into the mirror and see a cheater.

What’s the right thing to do if you find yourself in a corner and make the wrong choice? You already know: take responsibility. Apologize, fix it, and move on. Then when you look in the mirror, you won’t see a cheater. You’ll see someone who messed up but was courageous and smart enough to be honest about it.

Don’t drink the water?

A recent news article reports on research that appears to debunk the standard advice to drink lots of water—”8 glasses a day” being the usual formula.

Here’s the way Will Dunham, reporting for Reuters news service, opened his story:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The notion that guzzling glasses of water to flood yourself with good health is all wet, researchers said on Wednesday.

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb and Dr. Dan Negoianu of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia reviewed the scientific literature on the health effects of drinking lots of water.

People in hot, dry climates and athletes have an increased need for water, and people with certain diseases do better with increased fluid intake, they found. But for average healthy people, more water does not seem to mean better health, they said.

The article goes on to cite a long list of ailments that, according to the researchers, are NOT cured or prevented by drinking water.

Fine. But here’s my question: if you don’t drink water, what will you drink instead?

Coffee? Soda pop? Chocolate milk? Even fruit juice can be overdone. And if you think plain milk is a good idea, do a little research on lactose intolerance. Green tea?— only if it’s not loaded up with sugar.

The short answer: water may not cure your ills, but it won’t mess up your digestion or rot your teeth or lead to diabetes, either.

So go ahead: drink the water.

The habit of helping others

One of my Grade 9 students, still learning English, wrote this in an essay:

Helping others are also very easy. You can volunteer only one minute to others. For example, pick up rubbish, five seconds. Wait in the elevator while people are coming, five seconds. You can only use a minute to help others. Then, you will have a habit, helping others. No one forcing to help others, you get habit, that is the greatest habit in the world.

Couldn’t say it better myself.

The bad habits that kill

Heart attacks just come out of nowhere, right? They happen to anybody, without warning, right?

Wrong. In the vast majority of cases, they are caused by years of bad habits.

MyHealthInsight.com reports on a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association finding that 90% of the people who suffer heart attacks have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes, and/or smoke cigarettes.

In other words, people who are overweight because they eat loads of sugar and fat and processed foods, people who don’t exercise regularly, people who smoke—they are the ones, 9 times out of 10, who have heart attacks.

It’s not just bad luck.

It’s not just luck, either, that some students do well in school and others do poorly. Good habits make good students.

Thanks to The Habit Guy for pointing to this story.

The Homework Workout: exercise your mind and your body

“The experts” say you should take a short break every 20-30 minutes when doing homework. They also say you should exercise regularly. Teachers say the assignment is due tomorrow and if you don’t hand it in . . . .

What to do?

Enter the Homework Workout.

Set the timer for 20-30 minutes and start in on the homework. When the timer goes off, do a set of pushups, say, and a set of squats. Don’t forget to stretch. Reset the timer, and go back to the books. When the timer goes off again, do another set of each exercise. Don’t forget to stretch.

The Homework Workout will keep your mind fresh and alert, your muscles toned, and your homework assignments up to date.

You can do lots of exercises right in your bedroom or study: pushups, squats, ab crunches . . . try some isometrics, too. If you do yoga, try a few sun salutations. If you have weights, do some curls or overhead lifts.

You’ll end up in great shape, and so will your grades.

(Don’t forget to stretch.)

Arrive on time (book excerpt)

It’s a matter of respect.

In some schools, arriving late to class is viewed seriously, with strict rules, late slips, detentions, and other penalties for those who are tardy too often. In other schools, these issues don’t seem so important. Most students attend 6-8 classes each day, along with occasional assemblies, meetings, rehearsals, and practices. It’s a busy life, but it’s also often repetitive. If your school doesn’t stress the importance of arriving on time, it’s easy to slip into the bad habit of thinking it’s not really important.

However, in the real world, arriving on time can be very important. Some cultures value punctuality more than others, but in those cultures where it’s important, arriving late can be a serious problem. What’s the big deal about arriving late? It’s a sign of disrespect. A student who arrives late to class is sending a message to the teacher: “You and your class are not very important to me, and making you and the rest of the class wait for me or disrupting the class by entering late is really not a problem, because you and my classmates are much less important than I am.”

Later in life you’ll be happy to have the habit of arriving on time when you have to get to work each day, attend business meetings, make appointments with doctors, lawyers, and bank officers, etc. Arriving on time for dates can be important, too. In each case, by arriving on time you send the message that you respect others and appreciate the value of their time and attention.

If you are in the habit of arriving late, start arriving on time today.