One big question that puzzles many of us is whether we should completely cut out sugar from our diet when trying to lose weight.

The first point is to know whether you have diabetes or not. All those above 35 years of age must have a blood test done regularly, once a year, to check blood levels and lipid levels (cholesterol and triglyceride, etc). This must be done after 12 hours of fasting which means, if you have eaten dinner at 8.30 pm then you should not have eaten anything thereafter and no bed coffee or tea and at 8.30 am give your blood for testing.

If your fasting blood sugar is above 120 you could be border line diabetes. Then you have to eliminate refined sugar from the diet. Otherwise at any age you dont have to eliminate sugar in coffee, tea, milk, etc. to achieve weight loss.

Sugar by it self does not contain fat in its chemical composition. Also when it is consumed as one or two teaspoons of sugar in a cup of coffee/tea, milk/curd it does not register as fat in the body. It comes in as carbohydrate food which gets immediately used as energy. However if you consume it as toffee or candy, one piece is 3-4 teaspoons of sugar. When you drink it as a soft drink 300 ml is 7 tsp of sugar and this excess amount has the chance of getting converted to fat. The other form in which we consume sugar is as jam, jelly and honey. This too, if consumed as one to two teaspoons at a time, gets used up as energy.

However if you take sugar as sweets, chocolates, ice-cream, pastries, cookies, cakes and desserts, then it is sugar combined with ghee, cocoa butter, cream, starch and saturated fat and this is surely the most dangerous thing you can do. You will put on weight over night!

The statement I am making is that you may safely consume 3-4 teaspoons of sugar daily distributed over the whole day in 2-3 cups of milk, coffee, curd, etc. and still loose weight. But you cant eat even a single piece of chocolate or mittai a day and lose fat properly and healthily from your body.

A diabetic has the freedom to completely give up sugar and manage or use sweeteners in coffee, tea, etc.

However, just to loose weight I would never recommend that you eliminate sugar and use a sweetener. Many sweeteners on long term use can have harmful side effects, so please avoid.

Give up the sweets completely but go ahead and use your sugar. I lost 25 kgs by giving up all sweets for 1 year but used sugar in all my milk that I drink everyday.