Fed Up with Sugar Addiction

This past Friday night I went to see the documentary Fed Up with my Paleo friends. It wasn't very well advertised, but in the Paleo world, we tend to stay abreast of these types of movies, books, or news articles. Basically this movie called into question the validity of the diet and exercise dogma that we've learned: eat less + exercise more = weight loss. It makes logical sense, right? If calorie expenditure is greater than calorie consumption, then you're in a calorie deficit and you should lose weight. However, that doesn't always seem to work for us, does it? Fed Up proposes that all calories are not created equal. In particular, the documentary highlights sugar consumption, and the way that the food industries have fought against any reports or guidelines that try to restrict sugar consumption. The way your body reacts to processed sugar is not the same as how it reacts to natural sugar. There's more details that I could give about the movie, but why don't you go see it for yourself? I'll tell you my reaction to it though...

I think the biggest emotion that the documentary evoked was anger. Anger at the way the world works. Anger at the way food industries advertise to children. And anger at the vast slew of so-called "healthy" foods that doesn't seem to help people be healthy. I mean, how do you make low-fat or no-fat foods taste good when you remove the fat? Sugar... salt. We watch our sodium intake, don't we? Why shouldn't we watch our sugar intake? And have you noticed that nutrition labels never give your a percentage of recommended daily intake for sugar? Most everything else on the label shows a percentage... why not sugar?

I also felt extremely sad... to the point that I cried. No joke. There were silent tears rolling down my face while I watched stories of multiple young children who were struggling with weight. Children that tried the whole exercise more and watch your calories route, and sadly had no luck. One boy weighed over 200 pounds and had to have bariatric surgery (weight loss surgery) at age 14. 14! Those stories were very tough to watch, because I know that those children aren't the only ones suffering with obesity in the United States, or in the world. Adults and children alike are facing issues with weight, ranging from heart disease to diabetes.

Overall, I wanted to come home and throw out every single sugary food that could be found in my house and force everyone I know to watch the documentary. While I didn't force anyone to watch the movie, I am choosing to participate in the Fed Up challenge, which consists of giving up all added or processed sugars for 10 days. Considering I've done the 21 Day Sugar Detox, 10 days should be easy. Though it's concerning how many chocolate cravings I've had lately, so we'll see what happens for the next week and a half.

Want some more information? Check out this infographic. It's scary the amount of sugar we consume...