Over 50, aiming for a healthy 100? Here is the number #1 thing you must change

There are hundreds of things you can do to have healthier eating habits but there is one single thing that will have the biggest effect: reducing your sugar intake. You might say I’m not having a lot of chocolate or sweets, this is not relevant for me.
Are you sure?

We eat a lot of sugar!

The average American consumes 126g of sugar per day (31.5 teaspoons), and the recommendation of the World Health Organization for optimal health is a maximum of 25g per day (6 teaspoons).
https://www.who.int/news/item/04-03-2015-who-calls-on-countries-to-reduce-sugars-intake-among-adults-and-children This means we’re eating 5x as much as is good for our body. If you took all the sugar that is consumed in the US in a day to build a tower of sugar cubes, it would reach half the distance to the moon.

How is this possible? The main reason is that 70% of all processed foods contain added sugar and it’s hard to recognize. Even food that looks healthy and is labeled as “healthy low fat” or “all natural sweeteners” can contain a lot of added sugar or artificial sweeteners. A recent study found that nearly 60% of an American’s daily calories come from ultra processed foods, and less than 1% from vegetables. https://time.com/4252515/calories-processed-food/

Learn to be a detective

The food industry has invented new types of sugar or new names, so it can be quite challenging to spot sugar in packaged food. The best strategy to detect added sugar is to learn how to read the ingredients lists of packaged food. Start looking at the ingredient lists of breakfast cereal, yogurts, salad dressings, tomato sauces, ham, bread, and you will be surprised. In the nutrition facts label, you will find the amount of sugar per serving and per 100g. 4g of sugar is a teaspoon, with this in mind you can do your calculations (a maximum of 6 teaspoons per day is ideal).

The effects of eating too much sugar

Excess sugar can lead to a long list of health issues, including

• Effects on sleep, mood, energy levels, memory, ability to learn
• In children: affecting brain development and possible cause of ADHD
• Dental health: Sugar promotes the growth of certain bacteria in the mouth, which in turn produce acid and attack tooth enamel.
• Intestinal flora is damaged, bad bacteria are taking over, causing leaky gut syndrome
• Fatty liver disease
• Diabetes
• Heart and circulatory diseases
• Obesity
• Fertility problems
• Inflammatory processes (acne, asthma)
• Dementia and Alzheimer’s
• Cancer (esp. Pancreas)

Many of these health issues are referred to as “lifestyle diseases” and we have been led to believe that at some point when you are getting older, you will inevitably get one of those. We are here to tell you that this is not true, and by making some changes in your lifestyle, you lay the foundation for a long healthy life.

When we are looking better after ourselves, we are also leading by example for the following generations. It is expected that one out of three children growing up today in the US will have diabetes at some point in their lives, and the food industry spends 10 bn USD per year on marketing for sugary food targeted to children. Wouldn’t it be great if we could inspire our own families by keeping our health and vitality as we grow older?

Why we are craving sweets

The craving for sweet foods is in our genes. When our ancestors saw a tree with ripe fruit or found some honey, they would eat as much as they could, as it might take a long time before they would find more fruit or honey. We are still programmed the same way, the issue is that sugar is no longer something that is available occasionally, there is sugar everywhere and always available.

Most of us have been taught from a very young age that sugar equals love. When we fell from the bike as a child and hurt our knee, someone would give us a chocolate cookie. When we went to birthday party, there would be lots of sweets and cakes to celebrate. Even at the doctor’s or the pharmacy, you would get sweets when you were well behaved.

This is deeply wired in our brain but it’s possible to observe and undo those old patterns. As an adult, after a long stressful day at work and when we feel overwhelmed with everything, and we need some love, most of us are still craving “comfort food” or sweets.

What happens when we eat sugar

When we eat sugar, our blood sugar spikes and we get an energy boost as the body is creating energy from glucose. When the blood sugar goes down, we are craving more and if we don’t get more sugar, we are low in energy or even “hangry”. This is not only true for sweets and chocolate, also for all simple carbohydrates which the body can break down to glucose and easily burn as a fuel source (like pasta or white rice).

Many types of added sugar in processed food are based on fructose which cannot be used as a direct fuel source by our body. It is converted to fat in the liver and stored, especially when it’s concentrated and in liquid form like in sugary soft drinks or fruit juice.

Artificial or low-calorie-sweeteners trigger very similar processes in the body, the only difference is that they don’t have calories and we don’t have enough studies to understand the long-term-effect of these sweeteners on our health.

Why fruit is the best source of natural sugar

When you eat fruit, you are also eating fructose but it comes with a lot of fiber that slows down the absorption of fructose by your metabolism. The body can convert some of it into a fuel source and we are not experiencing any blood sugar spikes.

Eating fruit in the morning on an empty stomach is the best way to give your body natural sugar plus a lot of healthy phytochemicals and nutrients. You will also notice that you have less cravings for sweets during the day.

The fructose content in fruit varies a lot from low-sugar fruits like berries, kiwi, grapefruit to fruits with a higher sugar content like mango, pineapple and banana. Eating a variety of different types of fruit is important and taking a break from high-sugar fruits from time to time as well.

Contrary to what we are used to, eating fruit as a dessert is not a good idea. Fruit is designed to pass through our digestive system quickly and when eaten after other food, it cannot be digested quickly and can even start to ferment.

How to create a healthy relationship with sugar

The solution to all of this is to start with small steps and the first step is to create more awareness about what sugar means for us and how much we are having. It’s not about demonizing all sweets or never having a piece of cake but to enjoy it consciously and take back control of your sugar intake.

• Learn to observe your unconscious patterns and identify when you eat sugar as a replacement for love or comfort
• Learn to identify hidden sugar in processed foods
• Eat real, unprocessed food whenever you can
• Remove all soft drinks and fruit juices from your diet (incl. those with artificial sweeteners)
• Start your day with low sugar fruit on an empty stomach
• Find new recipes for sweet treats using natural fruit, coconut sugar or honey as sweeteners
• Have anything you like with sugar occasionally and consciously – and enjoy it!

Nicole Rademacher is our rocket50 nutrition & wellbeing expert, specializing in how people 50+ can stay healthy and fit for the rest of their lives. She is a certified WILDFIT coach and lives in Mallorca, Spain

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