Greetings! Ready for another lesson on how I lost 100 pounds and diabetes without gastric bypass? Today's weight loss wisdom to read labels. To lose weight, I had to track calories and nutrition data. But I was also on the lookout for hidden enemies, like HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) and added sugar. Added and even artificial sugar are great pals with obesity and diabetes.
If further proof of how important reading labels is to lose weight, watch "My 600-lb Life. The reality TV show "My 600-lb Life" shows patients' lifestyles before gastric bypass. It's not hard to connect the dots from eating habits, obesity and finally bariatric surgery. But, happily, we also see dramatic weight loss from changed habits on the gastric bypass diet. Dr. Now's 1200 calorie diet requires overweight folks to count but also read.
Overweight people like myself, have a bad habit of ignoring the nutrition data on foods. In fact, product labeling developed partly to curb obesity and diabetes. Restaurants have begun posting nutrition data. One big step toward weight loss is to stop mindlessly eating and start reading. "My 600-lb Life" follow-up episodes show successes taking charge of their eating.
Part of how I lost 100 pounds was to read ALL the nutrition data: the RDA (recommended daily amount) part but also the ingredients. I'm counting calories, protein, carbs, sodium, sugar and fat content. I'm also sourcing where those things come from. Is is transfat, saturated fat, MUFA or PUFA? Where does the sugar come from? How much is added sugar? Is it high fructose corn syrup? I must not be alone because I've noticed that having to list what's actually in products has made manufacturer's more responsive to what people are trying to avoid. Now products are advertising "no transfat" and "no HFCS."
And added sugar and HFCS are EVERYWHERE! Used to be transfat was the one to watch for. Thankfully that's less common now. But even I, a long-timer label reader, get surprised by lurking HFCS and sugar. Today, I noticed, for the first time, that stewed tomatoes have 6 grams of sugar, 3 grams of which is added sugar!
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