Let’s play a game…

I bet I can guess the first word that pops into your head when you see the next 3 phrases.

Ready? Go!

“Never eat _____ if you want to lose weight.”

“_____ causes inflammation in your body.”

“_____ is more addictive than cocaine.”

I’m willing to bet my dog, Atlas, that “sugar” was the word that popped into your head…

Was I right!?

Once again, the internet has created fear around another polarizing health topic.

There’s always a bit of truth to this fear but they also leave out a lot.

So I’ll come right out and say it…

Sugar can negatively impact your health.

But not all sugar is bad. And I even recommend women I work with eat sugar because it has its own benefits we’ll talk about in a bit.

If you’re feeling unsure of what to do now let’s make sense of sugar for you.

Those online talking about sugar often lump it into one category.

But not all sugar is the same. That’s why I like to break sugar into two categories.

Processed sugar and natural sugar.

Processed sugar is anything created by humans and sold in a package.

Candy, cookies, ice cream, soda, fruit snacks, cereal. (Sorry if I woke up your sweet tooth 😆)

While the sugar (often high fructose corn syrup) is not healthy on its own, these foods also come with food additives, preservatives, dyes, and other not-so-healthy things to “engineer” the flavor so you’re left wanting more.

This is where I agree with anyone saying sugar is not healthy for you. The problem is they don’t make this distinction.

And by saying sugar is bad, they make you think natural sugars are bad, too.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The simplest way to define natural sugar is anything created by nature. Fruit, honey, maple syrup. Even sugar in dairy.

This might be controversial but…

I’ve done this for 10 years and I’ve yet to see someone become unhealthy because they’ve eaten too much fruit.

Not only that, there are A LOT of benefits from eating natural sugars.

Fruit is loaded with antioxidants and fiber (more on fiber in a bit).

Honey, especially raw, is anti-microbial and is great for your immune system.

And maple syrup has high levels of hard-to-get minerals like manganese and zinc.

I’ve worked with women who came to me eating 1,200 calories, felt stuck, exhausted, and couldn’t sleep only to have them eat more sugar (natural, of course).

Within a few weeks, their energy came back, they slept through the night, and felt less stressed.

Because this is how natural sugar benefits your body.

Even with natural sugar, I get you might have concerns with diabetes and raising your blood sugar too high.

If you’ve heard of the glycemic index before, this is where a lot of that fear comes from. The glycemic index is a way to measure the impact a certain food has on your blood sugar.

And anything with sugar will raise your blood sugar…if eaten alone. And that’s where glycemic index misses the mark.

It doesn’t take into account how much you eat of a given food. And what you’re eating that food with.

If ate a tablespoon of honey in its own…yes, that will raise your blood sugar. But who’s doing that??

When you include it in a smoothie with protein from Greek yogurt and a little bit of fat from your milk, the blood sugar impact is significantly reduced. Even Negligible.

Same thing goes for fruit. Nature designed fruit in such an amazing way that you can have a delicious bowl of juicy, red watermelon and have no blood sugar impact because of the amount of water and fiber in it.

And that leads me to my topic…fiber.

Fiber’s a popular topic right now for its health benefits of keeping you regular, improving your gut health, and helping maintain healthy blood sugar levels.

But like sugar, fiber often gets thrown into one category when there are different types.

The two main types of fiber are soluble and insoluble fiber.

The easiest example of soluble fiber is Metamucil. Have you used it or seen it before? It works by dissolving into water and forming a gel-like “broom” that slowly moves through your gut, lowering blood sugar and “cleaning up” things that aren’t supposed to be there like excess LDL cholesterol and excess, unused estrogen.

The best real food sources of soluble fiber are oats, lentils, flax and chia seeds, apples, and pears.

Insoluble fiber, on the other hand, doesn’t dissolve helping to keep you regular and add bulk to your 💩. This can be really helpful if you tend to have watery or runny #2’s. Sorry if that’s TMI but poop’s an important indicator of your health - especially for women going through and after menopause!

We’ll have whole newsletter in this at some point 🤣

Anyways, insoluble fiber also helps you feel fuller after eating and can lower inflammation. The best foods to eat to get insoluble fiber are carrots (leave the skin on!) cauliflower, broccoli, and brussel sprouts.

“How much fiber should I eat?”

I’ve seen a lot of recommendations for 25-30 grams or more per day. While I think this could be a good goal, it can be quite a jump if you’re only eating 10 grams today. Not only that, it will cause some serious stomach distress (that’s code, if you know what I’m saying 😉).

That’s why I recommend eating 2-4 servings (1 piece = 1 serving) of fruit and 3-5 servings (1 cup = 1 serving) of veggies each day and that will pretty much cover your fiber needs…without having to track.

Last but not least, we can’t talk about sugar without covering cravings.

For the sake of respecting your time and attention span, I’m going to share a link to a previous article I wrote all about cravings. [click here to read it]

I never want to talk a lot like I did here and not leave you with something you can use.

So here’s what to take from this and use today:

That’s the 411 on sugar. Helping give you a realistic view of what sugar is, without the fear.

And without me having to give up Atlas, too ◡̈

Your friend and coach,

Ben Miknis