Candy gets converted to fat

                                 (By Lisa Sarah John, Courtesy Bangalore Times, Jul 10, 2006)

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 check whether you have diabetes or not. All those over 35 years of age must have a blood test done once a year, to check blood and lipid levels (cholesterol and triglyceride, etc). This must be done after 12 hours of fasting.

If your fasting blood sugar is over 120, you could be borderline diabetic. In that case, you must eliminate refined sugar from the diet. Otherwise, irrespective of age, you don’t have to eliminate sugar in coffee, tea, milk, etc. to achieve weight loss.

Sugar, by itself, does not contain fat in its chemical composition. Also, when taken in a cup of coffee/tea, milk/curd does not register as fat in the body. In these cases, it enters the body as a carbohydrate, which gets immediately used as energy. Jam, jelly or honey, too, if consumed a couple of teaspoons at a time, converts to energy. But, one piece of candy, consumed by itself, contains the equivalent of 3-4 teaspoons of sugar. A soft drink (300 ml) contains seven teaspoons of sugar and this excess can be converted to fat.

Moreover, sweets, chocolates, ice-cream, pastries, cookies, cakes or desserts, are all sugar combined with ghee, cocoa butter, cream, starch and saturated fat. This is surely the most dangerous combination. You will put on weight overnight!

Finally, 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 mithai and lose fat properly and healthily from your body. A diabetic has the freedom to completely give up sugar or use sweeteners in coffee, tea, etc. However, many sweeteners on long term use can have harmful side effects, so try and avoid these.

Give up sweets completely, but go ahead and use sugar. I lost 25 kg by giving up all sweets for one year but used sugar in the milk that I drink everyday.

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