CAUSE AND EFFECT: Your urge for sugary things may mean you?re not eating enough protein

Have you ever wondered why you love sweets so much? Does chocolate run your life more than you?d like to admit? You are not alone in your love for sweet things. Most people who go to dieticians want counselling on how to improve their willpower or, they want to find out what low-calorie items they can binge on. Sugar, and ingredients that convert to sugar quickly in the body, raise insulin levels quickly too. Chronically elevated insulin leads to insulin resistance, obesity and, in many cases, diabetes.

If you think you don?t eat a lot of sugar, it?s time to take another look at labels on processed foods. You?ll probably be surprised. The ?real? health food is the kind that you prepare and cook yourself from fresh ingredients. For an energy-giving snack, you?re better off eating a piece of cheese and a fruit or a handful of raw nuts and seeds than a sugary, over-processed time-bomb in a pretty rustic wrapper.

The best way to cut down on sugar is by not adding sugar to any food that you cook. This is the easiest and most basic way immediately to reduce the amount of sugar you?re eating. Biggest targets: cereal, coffee and tea. And remember, there is no such thing as ?healthy sugar?. Brown sugar, raw sugar ? it?s all the same thing as far as your body is concerned.

Also, remember that your craving for sugar may mean you have other deficiencies in your body. Your urge to finish off every sugary thing in sight may mean you?re not eating enough calories or protein throughout the day. Feeling a binge coming on may be the result of giving your body less energy than it needs for survival or not balancing your calorie intake over breakfast, lunch and dinner. Stress may also play a part for some individuals, but we don?t get the sense that this is a significant factor for you.

If you feel that your sweet tooth is getting out of control, then you could try the following:

• Keep a food diary for at least three days. Monitor what and how much food you eat. Record what, if any, events trigger overeating or bingeing. Pretty soon you?ll have a clear picture of your nutritional style and habits. And don?t completely cut yourself off from sweet foods.

• Make an effort to reduce or eliminate processed carbohydrates. Most processed carbohydrates ? breads, most pastas and snacks ? are loaded with flour and other ingredients that convert to sugar in the body almost as fast as pure glucose. That sugar gets stored as triglycerides, which is a grand way of saying fat.

• Beware of artificial sweeteners. Unfortunately, these can increase cravings for sugar and carbohydrates. Some experts believe they also deplete the body?s stores of chromium, a nutrient crucial for blood-sugar metabolism.

• Get label-conscious. By law, a manufacturer has to list the ingredients on a product by weight. Whatever ingredient is listed first is the predominant ingredient in the product.

• Here are some of the many ?disguises? of sugar: honey, dextrose, fructose, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, sorbitol, fruit juice concentrate, galactose, lactose, polydextrose, mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol, maltodextrin and turbinado sugar.

Fruit juices can be bad for you

Who wants a cup of tea when you can have a restorative fruit smoothie instead? New figures show that Britain consumes 2.2 billion litres of juice drinks each year, the equivalent of 36 litres for every adult and child.

But are these drinks really good for your health? Dieticians are concerned that this new fashion could be fuelling the obesity epidemic. Fruit smoothies and juices contain high levels of simple sugars, which go straight to your waistline.

Nigel Denby, nutritionist and author of The Glycaemic Load Diet, believes that consumers have fallen for marketing hype. “The suggestion from the manufacturers is that these drinks are good for your health. In fact, even in the case of fresh juice, you need only one small glass a day to derive all the health benefits you need. The rest is simply extra calories.”

It is important to read the label, as juice drinks have a bewildering array of titles. Energy drinks should also be consumed in moderation. “These tend to be very high in sugar and are designed for people who are very active,” says Denby. “A marathon runner may be justified in gulping these down, but a commuter on a bus is overdosing on extra calories.”

©The Daily Telegraph

Are you an addict?

If you have been thinking whether sugar is your drug and if it might be time to kick the habit, complete the quiz and find out.

• Have you ever said, ‘Beginning next week, no chocolate’? Yes No

• Have you ever kept a stash of chocolate hidden away? Yes No

• Have you ever crawled through the morning with a headache that is relieved when you have something sweet? Yes No

• Have you ever chosen a restaurant based on the quality of their desserts, even though it’s an hour’s drive away? Yes No

Have you ever told yourself you were going to have just a bite of ice-cream and ended up eating the whole brick? YEs No

If you’ve answered yes to more than two, you are an addic