This has been a controversial topic in recent times. Here at Her Master Plan my clients main goals are often related to weight loss and anti-ageing. The effects of sugar on the body dramatically hinder these goals, and that is why I often suggest they avoid sugar.

I never suggest my clients make changes without giving them the education to back it up. Here is what I tell clients when I suggest they get rid of the white stuff.

Reason 1: Sugars impact on insulin.

Eating sugar dramatically raises insulin levels. Simplified, insulin is the main hormone responsible for depositing fat in fat cells. Increased insulin means increased fat storage. If you are continuously eating sugar you will maintain consistently high levels of insulin and in turn will continue to store more fat.

Hunger is the signal our body gives us to tell us we need more energy. When we eat refined sugars to provide this energy, the amount of insulin released makes our body think it’s getting a truckload of food. When this food doesn’t arrive the body is left unsatisfied and hungry again soon after. This is why we get that craving for ‘something else’, and it is the reason we often experience foggy brains and sugar cravings a couple of hours after a meal.

If that wasn’t bad enough, insulin also shuts down our fat burning capacity and keeps it slow for some time. And it does this while promoting fat storage – what a double whammy.

Reason 2: Fructose.

Sugar is made up of half glucose half fructose.

Ghrelin (your hunger hormone) is not impacted by fructose i.e. the brain does not recognise fructose as food/energy. Therefore you could eat fructose until you pop, without feeling full. The clever food industry sales people latched on to this and started adding fructose to a lot of unsuspecting foods to ensure people need to purchase more of it. Ironically, fructose is mostly added to low fat and diet foods.

Unlike anything else we put in to our body, our body does not use fructose straight away as energy; instead it’s converted directly to fat.

And perhaps worst of all, fructose is the component in sugar that assists in the deposit of visceral fat. Visceral fat is the fat that builds around our organs and in turn causes a plethora of health issues.

If all that hasn’t given you good enough reason to finally kick the sweet stuff to the curb, let me appeal to your vanity here: sugar accelerates ageing. Imagine this – when we add a sugar coating to food, the food browns more quickly (imagine a glaze on BBQ meat). When we put sugar in to our bodies this accelerated browning occurs in our body too, causing cellular ageing. This is known as the maillard reaction.