obesity

Obesity is at an all-time high in the United States. Part of the reason why so many people are overweight and obese is that we tend to overeat, even when we aren’t hungry. In the last blog, we told you about grehlin, which is a hunger stimulating hormone.

Another hormone that regulates food intake is leptin, which tells your brain when you have had enough to eat.. For more than 50,000 years, humans relied on leptin to send signals to the brain to regulate what we ate. If the brain isn’t able to accurately read the messages that leptin sends it, you continue to feel hungry.

Eating too much sugar hinders our brain’s ability to read l¬¬eptin messages. Excess sugar calories are stored as fat, which releases leptin. The chronic elevation in leptin levels eventually leads to leptin resistance. As a result, the brain continues to send you hunger signals, even when you have had enough food.

Additionally, eating sugar triggers the production of your brain’s natural opioids, a key initiator of addiction. Essentially your brain becomes addicted to the sugar-induced opioid release. The abnormally high stimulation of your brain’s pleasure receptors by a sugar-rich diet generates excessive reward signals and overrides normal self-control mechanisms.

Limiting sugar intake is the one of the most effective way to stop overeating.

According to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 32 million more Americans will become obese by 2030, increasing obesity rates to 42% of the U.S. population. 

Sugar is a leading contributing to the climbing rate of obesity. It’s hard to avoid sugar, even in seemingly healthy foods. In fact, the following so-called health foods have more sugar than a candy bar.

• Yogurt: Yogurt naturally has about 12 grams of sugar per six ounces, but many people choose artificially sweetened brands. An eight-ounce container of vanilla can have 31 grams of sugar, and a six-ounce container of flavored yogurt can have 32 grams. Greek yogurt, though, has less sugar.
• Tomato sauce: A cup of tomato sauce can have more than 20 grams of sugar, not to mention the sugars in the pasta that you eat it with.
• Granola bars: Sugar is often one of the top ingredients in granola bars. Depending on the brand and size of the bar, a serving may have anywhere from 11 to 22 grams of sugar.
• Fat-free salad dressing: When manufacturers remove fat from the salad dressing, they often add sugar as a replacement.
• Muffins: Bran muffins are often considered healthier foods when compared to obvious offenders like donuts. In reality, muffins have become so super-sized that they easily pack more than 30 grams of sugar. 
• Canned fruit: Fruit is high in natural sugars, but canned fruit are often packed in sugar-laden syrup. Even in light syrup, a one-cup serving of canned peaches can have 32 grams of sugar. 
• Smoothies: Sugar is naturally found in yogurt, milk and fruit, but commercially prepared smoothies often contained added sugars. Jamba Juice smoothies can contain about 38 grams of sugar, depending on the ingredients and the size. 
• Cereal: More than 40 popular cereals contain more than 11 grams of sugar per serving – that’s more than three Chips Ahoy! cookies. 

Learn more here.