Oh sugar! I don’t know you but your killing attitude murdered me 1000 times!!!! There are trillions of people who are being soft target of soft calorie each and everyday without knowing it. This article is all about to reveal their secrets. So what is soft calories? Soft calories supplies energy to your body and no sufficient other nutrients such as protein, dietary fibre, vitamins, minerals etc.
Foods like alcoholic beverages, beer, cake, candy, cookies, fruit-flavored beverages, gelatin, high fructose corn syrup, ice cream, margarine or shortening, other fats and oils, soft drinks, sweets, wine gives each other a tough competition in the world of soft calories. Now question is how this can be evil? Well, an uncontrolled intake of soft calories makes you fat, overweight, obese and morbid obese!Just as you go for saving your excess money in bank, your body also goes for saving your excess calories and that too in the form the fat in body. It is naturally a storage process and that is not bad as sometimes you need money as you don’t have it in your pocket and you need to withdraw from bank. So when your body requires energy and there is not much in blood they withdraw it from your body. But if it is an addiction! Your body produces alotof insulin to incorporate them into cell in the form of fat. Due to immediate storage again your sugar level goes down and your craving fuels your body up again. So there should a limit. How much? As per recommended dietary allowance an Indian [reference man (60kg) & woman (55kg)]can have a maximum of 20 gm of sugar or 4 teaspoon full of sugar each day. If you are advised for weight loss you should avoid soft calories. Now you should ask yourself how much you are eating? You must read about the food label and the nutritional value written on every sugary item you buy. Divide the quantity of sugar by five. Now you get actually how many teaspoon of sugar you are consuming. So now are you guilty of being addicted towards sugar and want a quick solution? Well the quick tips of avoiding soft calories might help you!
QUICK TIPS TO AVOID SOFT CALORIES
| AVOID | CHOICES |
|---|---|
| Alcoholic beverages | Iced Tea, Black Tea |
| Cookies | Oats/multigrain Biscuit |
| Alcoholic beverages | Iced Tea, Black Tea |
| Fruit juices | Lemon water with artificial sweetener |
| Ice cream shake | Cold coffee with skim milk and artificial sweetener |
| Fruit Salad with cream | Fruit salad with yogurt |
| Soft drinks | Iced Tea, Black Tea, Flavoured tea |
| Sweet | Scrambled Paneer with artificial sweetener |
Also remember the food is combination of nutrients like Carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals, fibre among which the first three has calorific value.
Be very choosy about the carbohydrate. A Carb steady diet to keep your blood sugar steady! Both the quality and quantity influences your blood glucose level. So no sugar and liberal brown rice will not bring a solution to you until you control the serving size.While choosing type, always go for complex carbohydrate-rich foods. Forget about alcoholic beverages, refined sugar and its products and choose complex carbohydrates. The simple carbohydrate joins together and forms a complex structure. Whole wheat, bran, whole grains, mature vegetables, fruits with skin, Oats, legumes, guar, barley are some of them which contain a variety of complex carbs. The fibre in them binds with ingested glucose molecules resulting in production of chelating compound which restricts glucose level to rise by slowing its absorption. They are also prebiotics which are food for good gut bacteria. They are also utilized as fat replacer so helps to regulate your cholesterol level. Fruit is a natural sugar source. Most of our patients ask about fruit. Which fruit is good or bad? Well the ICMR recommendation for fruit is 250gm per day. Now the available soft calories in fruit depend upon the amount of carbohydrate present in it. Here the glycaemic load concept enters above glycaemic index. Let us take a look at a list of some fruits which need to be taken in safe limit to keep blood glucose in steady level. But remember whole fruit & NO JUICES!
| FRUITS | SAFE LIMIT (GM) |
|---|---|
| Raisins | 25 |
| Dates | 25 |
| Dates fresh | 30 |
| Kiwi | 30 |
| Banana | 70 |
| Black currant | 90 |
| Custard apple | 90 |
| Mango ripe | 120 |
| Litchi | 150 |
| Pineapple | 150 |
| Grapes green | 160 |
| Sapota | 170 |
| Apricot | 170 |
| Jack fruit | 200 |