When you read about sugar, you will probably find a simple paragraph explaining it such as:
"When you eat excess sugar, the extra insulin in your bloodstream can affect your arteries all over your body. It causes their walls to get inflamed, grow thicker than normal and more stiff, this stresses your heart and damages it over time. This can lead to heart disease, like heart failure, heart attacks, and strokes."
In my Jaycottz Nutrition Principles guide -- free with your training and nutrition plan -- I discuss a more in-depth look at this super sweet ingredient.
But in short, will adding sugar directly make you fat? No.
However, does it play a large role in gaining weight? Yes.
Before sugar became demonized, it was down to our very misunderstood friend Saturated Fat. Now the finger of blame is cast on sugar. That's right, you cannot sugarcoat it any longer.
It will always come back to the basic principle of weight gain, eat more calories than you can burn and you will gain weight. These excess calories will be stored as excess energy and become adipose tissue, or as we commonly call it FAT.
Sugar is so easily consumed and is added into a lot of our diets without our knowledge, whether added by manufacturing/production or the food is naturally high in sugar. Foods with sugar are normally calorie dense, so you are adding up those calories faster than you may think. Read any nutrition label where it mentions carbs and how many of these are added sugars.
Read the label, just because it says 'No added sugar' does not mean there is no sugars within, its a catchy label designed to make you think its the healthier option, when in fact the manufacturer is only saying that they purposefully did not add in sugars manually.
The taste of sugar is very easy for us to over consume and the taste on our tongues make us want tom gorge on more, mixed into all those delicious milk chocolate treats, desserts, biscuits, cookies, crisps, fizzy drinks, jellies, you name it.
But remember, sugar is not the direct enemy, its the power of bad habits consuming it which you must make. Sugar is not some class 'A' drug, alike to something such as cocaine. Bad habits can be broken, and what we must try our best to do is limit the consumption of sugar and create a better bond with it in our lifestyles.
So in the end it will not be a bittersweet ending.
-Jay