What happens when you eat processed foods and added sugar?

While it takes mad discipline to avoid processed foods and added sugar, it’s nearly impossible to avoid them completely. While we want to consume these in moderation, knowing and understanding how these impact fat loss can be beneficial when working to lose weigh

Processed foods significantly contribute to the rise in obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes. 

What is processed food?

To make it simple, these are generally foods that come in bags, boxes or packages (generally can sit in your pantry for weeks/months at a time, the opposite of whole foods (foods that come from the ground, a plant or a face), that are altered from their original state.  These foods are altered from their natural state, and generally have other ingredients (that you can't pronounce) added to them to increase their shelf life and make them more palatable.

Some foods are more processed than others.  For example, frozen fruit, vegetables and canned veggies are minimally processed.  The most heavily processed are crackers, chips, frozen pizza, microwave dinners, etc. Think: Cheez-ITS, Oreos, Cheetos, Chex Mix, Kraft Mac 'n Cheese, Lean Cuisine, Lean Pockets, etc. 

When we eat highly processed foods (specifically those higher in carbs), our body increases insulin secretion and suppresses glucagon secretion. In layman's terms, this tells our fat cells to store more calories, and it leaves fewer calories available to fuel our muscles and other metabolically active tissues. 

Then, our brain thinks we aren't getting enough energy (calories), so we become more hungry.  What's even worse, is that our metabolism may slow down in its attempt to conserve fuel (calories).  You may have heard the term empty calories - these are the calories from highly processed food.

What does this mean?  It means we are STILL hungry (even though we consumed calories), and our fat cells are storing more calories, leading to gaining excess fat.

To put it in perspective - let's say you have a handful of Doritos.  This generally leads to more Doritos, which leads to half the bag of family size Doritos being gone.  (We’ve all been there) This is over 1,000 calories, making it very challenging to stay within in calorie deficit if you’re trying to lose weight. 

Once you stop eating them - your body starts storing those calories as fat (empty calories), and you're still hungry!  Make sense?  This isn't to shame you, or say you can't have Doritos.  We simply want you to understand what happens when you eat them, and why portion control and tracking your food is so important. 

Nutrition Labels, Ingredients

Shifting gears, we want to point out a couple of important things on the nutrition label you see on your packaged foods.  One of our clients was telling us about a new box of protein bars she bought, and she sent us the nutrition label (Side note: this is AWESOME she saw all the protein in them, however we need to examine more than just the protein content).  While the protein bar did have a very solid amount of protein, it also had 9 grams of added sugar. Below is an example of a nutrition label for reference:

Underneath the carbohydrate section of the label, you will see the total grams of sugar, and included added sugar.  Natural sugar is present in a lot of foods (fruit, vegetables, milk, cheese and some grains).  Added sugar is added by the food manufacturers to make it taste better.  Common culprits?  Ice cream, cookies, candy, pop, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, yummy blended drinks and boba/bubble teas from coffee shops, yogurt, bread and salad dressing.  

We want to avoid added sugar whenever we can.  Why?

• added sugars are 'empty calories' and provide NO nutritional value - research has shown it leads to weight gain and other health problems

• added sugars have shown to cause people to overeat throughout the day (remember what I said above about processed food not filling you up?!)

• added sugars increase the triglycerides in your body - lower triglycerides help lower your cholesterol and reduce your risk of heart disease

• added sugars can increase the amount of bacteria that grow in your mouth that cause tooth decay

• added sugar is linked to diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, liver disease and other serious illness

Aim to limit added sugar to 25g per day - in fact, there's a pretty influential TikTok nutritionist that says if she could give one piece of advice for people to follow, it would be to limit your daily added sugar intake to less than 25 grams.  If you only chose to do ONE thing for your health, limit your daily intake of added sugar to 25g/day.  Fact: a can of pop has 39 grams (9 teaspoons) of sugar.  

Another place on the food label you can check is the ingredient list.  Here are common ingredients that = added sugar:

• corn syrup

• high-fructose corn syrup

• raw sugar

• cane sugar

• evaporated cane juice

• dextrose

• agave nectar

• brown sugar

• cane crystals

• crystalline fructose

• lactose

• invert sugar

• maltose

• sucrose

• brown rice syrup

• coconut palm sugar

• barley malt syrup

Confused yet? You’re not alone. This is why losing weight is TOUGH and dozens of people have seen results after hiring a nutrition coach - we’d love to talk to you about your goals! Fad diets do NOT work - learning how to eat balanced meals you ENJOY, without the extreme restrictions, DOES.