Sugar and Weight

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Deciding to cut out sweet things in order to drop a few (or many) pounds is a very wise choice. Sugar is, after all, a source of empty calories. Cutting back on sugar to control weight seems like a no brainer, but there is even more to it than meets the eye.

Sugar contains the molecules glucose and fructose. Although glucose is essential for survival and is used by our whole metabolism, fructose is a different story. Fructose has very little use in the body, apart from in the liver where it is turned into fat. When we eat sugar we are, in effect and in a possibly overly simplified way, just adding to our fat reserves unless we burn the sugar off immediately.

The fructose part of sugar can also lead to leptin resistance. Leptin is a hormone which is released by our fat cells to tell the brain that we have enough reserves and can survive for a while without eating. Leptin tells the brain that we do not need to eat. When the brain is not getting these hormonal signals, it thinks we still need to eat to avoid the risk of starvation. It also makes us burn less calories so that we can store more fat. No matter how great our willpower is, it is very hard to overrule this metabolic survival circuit in our bodies. That is why simply cutting back on calories (while still consuming sugar) and moving more normally does not work.

The fructose part of sugar is also largely responsible for insulin resistance. When we are insulin resistant the levels of insulin in our bodies are raised. This causes more fat to be stored in our fat cells (in the long term it can lead to type II diabetes, among other things).

As an aside, while consuming foods which contain glucose (think complex carbohydrates) make us feel satisfied, consuming foods which are high in fructose are more than likely to leave us still feel hungry, or feeling hungry again very quickly.

So, if you are wanting to shed a few pounds, or increase your general health and well-being, you would do very well to reduce the amount of sugar you eat and avoid foods which list high fructose syrup or other forms of refined sugar as ingredients.

Please note that I have always referred to 'the fructose part of sugar' here. The fructose which occurs naturally in fruits does not react as radically on our bodies and fruits contain a lot of vitamins, fibers and other good things for your body - so you can still enjoy them in moderation.

This is a simplified version of a complex subject. If you would like more details on how sugar reacts in our bodies with relation to weight, there are a number of very good articles and studies available on the internet and in medical journals.

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