How Natural Sugar Will Help Improve Your Metabolism
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The Key to a fitter you Our bodies need energy to function, and that includes when you’re sitting doing ‘nothing’. You still need to breathe, and keeping your body temperature at the right level also takes energy. How fast you burn this fat depends upon your personal metabolism (when you’re resting this is called the basal metabolic rate, or BMR). The faster your metabolism, the faster you’ll burn fat. And the faster you’ll get into shape. How to improve your metabolism There are lots of things you can do to help your metabolism speed up. This includes exercise, of course, getting the right amount of sleep, and benefitting from a good diet. Super low fat diets can actually destroy your metabolism causing your body to go into starvation mode. When you begin eating again, your body turns the calories directly to fat – that’s why so many keen dieters find they put weight on quickly when they come off the latest fad diet. The danger of added sugar Before you drink that can of soft drink, or eat that delicious looking cake, remember that it contains a ton of added sugar. That sugar goes straight into your system, and immediately to your liver which converts it to fat. It’s this fat that travels around your body in your blood. It clogs arteries, causing high blood pressure, and leading to heart disease. Your body fights this massive injection of sugar by increasing the amount of insulin it produces. Soon, though, your body begins to ignore this insulin. Thinking it needs to work harder to fight the problem, your pancreas produces more insulin. The effect is a further increase in blood pressure, decreasing levels of good cholesterol, and high triglycerides. You’ll probably also have a fatty liver. This is metabolic syndrome. If the heart attack doesn’t get you first, the diabetes will when your pancreas gives up. In fact, added sugar can be so bad that the University of California has called for it to be controlled in a similar fashion to alcohol. Eat natural sugars to increase your metabolism Added sugars are all around us, in practically everything we eat: peanut butter, marmalade, cooking sauces, and even yoghurt. The list is endless. According to the UK’s NHS, men should eat only 70g of sugar a day, while women should restrict this to 50g. That’s the equivalent of about 13 teaspoons of sugar a day. In America, the average daily intake of sugar is 42.5 teaspoons, according to a study by the DHHS. If you want to increase your metabolism and at the same time decrease your waistline, we recommend you avoid added sugars. Your body needs energy to function, but what it doesn’t need is fat. Change your diet to include plenty of fruit – watermelon, pineapple, strawberries, and apples and more. These will provide the sugar you need for your body to function, and they also contain plenty of fibre. This fibre helps your body absorb the natural sugar slowly. And this helps your metabolism, as well as making you feel full – so you eat less! Avoid foods with added sugar As well as eating foods with natural sugars, you should avoid food and drink that contain added sugars. The best way to do this is to cook and bake at home, ensuring that you add natural sweeteners like Stevia and Xylitol to your food and drink. If you want a little treat, then avoid sugary sweets and drinks, and instead go for Lime Refresher, Ti Tonic or add some SweetLeaf Liquid Stevia into some water. Cutting out added sugar, using Naturally Sweet Products when baking, and making sure you eat fresh fruit and vegetables containing natural sugars will help increase your metabolism – and that is going to help you get fit and stay fit.
