Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup
Here is yet another of my Top 100 weight loss tips which I have now added to the series as article number 40.
In this article, I'll look at what high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is, how it's used and why you should avoid consuming it (and products containing it) if you're trying to get in shape.
Why You Should Avoid Food Containing High Fructose Corn Syrup
There are many food additives and ingredients that you need to watch out for while you're going through the process of losing weight. And one of them to avoid is high fructose corn syrup.
The first reason is that its really not good for you or your health in any case. This is a very sweet sugar substitute ingredient that the food industry adds to foods to sweeten them.
They use this ingredient instead of regular sugar because it's a lot cheaper, especially when they buy it in bulk. The negative health side to you is that, like regular refined sugar, it causes a rush of sugars in your bloodstream which are rapidly followed by a huge insulin response. The result is a fast rise in energy, but unless you are using it right then by doing really strenuous or stamina exercise, your muscles won't use it.
Weight Gain
What happens initially is that the liver which is responsible for breaking down sugars into usable glucose, triggers a spike in insulin production to deal with the surge in blood sugar. When this happens often, the result can lead to insulin resistence (a pre-cursor to tyoe 2 diabetes) and also nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
What's more, fructose bypasses many of the body's satiating signals, potentially promoting weight gain (source: Science.gov). It also becomes converted to triglycerides which are those fatty substances that get carried around the blood similar to bad HDL cholesterol and end up being stored in fat cells. In other words, you eat foods containing this additive and you're going to gain fat and gain weight!
The second reason is that by avoiding foods that contain high fructose corn starch, you'll be eliminate many of those "bad foods" that are there to tempt you while causing you to gain weight outright. There are loads of foods that you will find on the supermarket shelves that contain this ingredient, so be on your guard and read the labels on them.
Eating Out
Also you need to be aware that this additive can be found in the sweet desserts that you get at restaurants, cafes and other eateries where there is no label of ingredients to read. If you're not planning on racing out of the restaurant after a big meal and running a half marathon, and I'm pretty sure most people won't, then you either avoid the desserts altogether or have them in the full knowledge that you will have just busted your healthy diet.
And you're going to have to pay penance by working harder afterwards to redress the balance.
When you're trying to lose a few pounds or even a lot of pounds, you really have to become quite strict with yourself and be more selective in what foods you eat. You do this by making sure that you read the labels on food before you buy anything.
That way, you can avoid this nasty ingredient along with all the other stuff that the food industry likes to add to processed foods for reasons best known only to themselves.
100 Weight Loss Tips number 39 follows in the next post!
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Posted on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 in Top 100 Weight Loss Tips | 2 Comments
2 thoughts on "Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup"
Bruce says:
I heard that Australian researchers say they may have found plenty of good reasons why we should be packing our diets with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. It stands to reason that if we eat more fruit we need less sugary sweet stuff, so less need for all that high fructose content garbage that fill the supermarket shelves!
Mario says:
i easily Loss Weight by just avoiding a high carb and foods high in saturated fats. exercise is also very important in losing weight that is why i did cardio.