Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Building Muscle Mass Diet - Why You Should Avoid Sugar



According to findings recently released by the American Medical Association, the average American consumes an astounding 115 pounds of sugar per year. The kind of sugar that is found in most foods and drinks is manufactured sugar. Manufactured sugar contains virtually no vitamins or minerals and therefore in order to be metabolized the body must draw on the body's reserves of vitamins and minerals.

When the bodies natural reserves of vitamins and minerals are depleted, the natural metabolism of bad things like cholesterol and fatty acids are either impeded or slowed down. Eliminating sugar entirely from your diet is next to impossible and in fact eliminating sugar from your diet completely is actually unhealthy because your body needs some sugar to produce critical glycogen.

You can and should take in about 10% of your calories for the day in the form of sugar. On a 2,000 calorie a day diet you can consume about 50 grams of sugar per day which is about 1/3 of what the average American takes in. As much as possible though, you sugar intake should come from juices or things that are naturally flavored rather than from snacks and desserts.

Here are a few reasons why you should keep your sugar intake to a minimum:

1. Increased Sickness - In playing havoc with your body's physiology, excessive sugar can actually weaken the immune system. A weakened system inevitably leads to increased illness.

2. Robs Your Body Of Other Nutrients - To be properly metabolized by the body, sugar requires that your body rob its natural mineral reserves. This can easily lead to mineral and vitamin deficiencies.

3. Reduced Energy - In large amounts, sugar can give you a major energy boost. However, the energy boost doesn't last very long and usually leads to burn out. Burn out means that you will actually have less energy throughout the day than normal.

4. Cavities - Although unrelated to muscle building, cavities can be expensive and painful. Your dentist wasn't lying when they said sugar is horrible for your teeth. Sugar causes cavities by wearing out the enamel on your teeth.

Far and away the easiest way to reduce sugar in your diet is to simply start drinking diet soda's and sugar free energy drinks. 3 servings of the average soda contain nearly 70 grams of sugar while the average energy drink has more than 40 grams.

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