Is Sugar permitted during a Weight Loss Diet

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 sugar 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 110 you could be a border line diabetic. Then you have to eliminate refined sugar from the diet. If your fasting blood sugar is below 100 then you don’t have to eliminate sugar in coffee, tea, milk, etc. while on a weight loss diet.

Sugar by it self does not contain fat in its chemical composition. Also when it is consumed as one teaspoon of sugar in a cup of coffee/tea, milk/curd it does not register as fat in the body. It comes into the body 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 consumed at one time 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 teaspoon at a time, gets used up as energy.

Sugar in sweets, chocolates, ice-cream, pastries, cookies, cakes and desserts also come as 3-5 teaspoons in one piece or one serving. Besides this sugar in these items are 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 lose weight. But you can’t eat even a single piece of chocolate or mittais in a day and lose fat properly and healthily from your body.

If you are a diabetic you have to completely give up sugar to control your diabetes as well as to lose weight. But just to lose weight I would never recommend that you eliminate sugar completely. Many who eliminate sugar completely while on a diet crave sugar and finally break the diet or cheat by eating a chocolate or sweet every now and then. Others cut out sugar completely and start using sweeteners. 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 if you are not a diabetic. I lost 25 kgs by giving up all sweets for 1 year but used a little sugar in all my milk, coffee or tea that I drank daily.