By Karen Parr-Moody
Valentine’s Day is long gone, so we can now join the medical experts in beating up on sugar. The loudest voice among them is that of Dr. Robert Lustig, the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California’s School of Medicine in San Francisco.
Lustig doesn’t point his finger strictly at calories and weight gain; he says the overconsumption of sugar leads to a host of issues, from obesity to type-2 diabetes to heart disease to an increase in LDL cholesterol.
By “sugar,” Lustig means both sucrose (beet and cane sugar) along with high-fructose corn syrup. They are found not only in the sugar bowl, but in an array of processed foods, from cereal to peanut butter to marinara sauce. Lustig lists the problems and solutions in his book, “Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease.”
Americans eat too much sugar. According to a study in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, 71.4 percent of U.S. adults consume more than the daily recommendations. The American Heart Association recommends that women keep their daily sugar intake to six teaspoons, or 24 grams, and men keep their intake to nine teaspoons, or 36 grams.
Some Clarksvillians are heeding the no-sugar call. Mary Todd Lewis, a local hairstylist and salon owner, gave up sugar on Dec. 27, 2014.
“It has been life changing, but not as hard as I thought,” she says.
Lewis is 46 years old and says losing weight has become much harder with age.
“I was only about 15 pounds overweight, but I seemed to be putting it on quickly without changing my eating habits,” she says. “I had lost previously with a low-fat diet, but put it right back on.”
Lewis experienced low energy, which studies prove can be caused by the consumption of too much sugar.
“After two weeks, I had a sudden burst of energy that has stayed with me,” she says of kicking sugar. “After being on my feet for eight plus hours at work, I actually come home and I am productive instead of sitting on the couch.”
Lewis has also lost 12 pounds and hasn’t even begun to work out yet, because she didn’t want to do too much at once as she thought this would make her want to give up.
Clarksvillian Brian Lucke, 49, retired from the Army in 2007 and says his inattention to his diet started showing in how he looked, felt and could physically perform. In 2012, he became involved with CrossFit Solafide and experienced a “modest transformation” in exercise and nutrition.
Then Lucke gave up sugar as part of a Whole 30 challenge to gain control over his metabolism and overall health (www.whole30.com). He cut out table sugar added to food, but he says more important was cutting out the sugar found in so many processed foods.
Lucke says he lost 20 pounds and began to sleep well again, enjoy a more moderated mood and experience no daytime drowsiness. His athletic performance also improved and the inflammation in his knees and elsewhere has disappeared.
“I don’t consider it to be a diet,” Lucke says. “It’s a lifestyle change that I hope sticks for the rest of my life.”
Karen Richards is a Clarksville nutritionist who leads a workshop called “Sugar Blues,” which she held recently at The Trading Post in Sango. Her class schedule can be found at www.morphlives.com.
Richards’ specialty is “label education” – teaching people how to read labels to find hidden sugar. She points out that while many people avoid fat in their diet, labels show that fat-free products are laden with sugar to compensate for the loss in taste when fat is removed.
“Fat’s not that bad of a thing anyway,” Richards says. “When you eat good, healthy fat, your body knows how to break it down and knows what to do with it.”
Photos: Contributed
Karen Parr-Moody began a career as a New York journalist, working as a fashion reporter for Women’s Wear Daily, a beauty editor for Young Miss and a beauty and fashion writer for both In Style and People magazines. Regionally, she has been a writer at The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper and currently writes about arts and culture for Nashville Arts magazine each month.