5 tips to wean yourself off added sugar

By Andrea Kane, CNN

Editor’s note: The podcast Chasing Life With Dr. Sanjay Gupta explores the medical science behind some of life’s mysteries big and small. You can listen to episodes here.  

(CNN) — Halloween is creeping closer. And with it come thoughts about costumes, pumpkins, ghastly decorations and — of course — candy.

Who doesn’t love an excuse to pop fun-size chocolate bars, candy corn, lollipops and other goodies into their mouth all day long? But let’s face it; it’s not healthy to eat that way all the time since almost all these treats are laden with added sugar.

As Americans, our excess sugar consumption unfortunately is not confined to one candy-centered holiday a year. Consuming added sugar has become a part of life, woven into almost every meal.

Americans 2 years and older consume on average 17 teaspoons of added sugar a day, according to the most recent government data available. It’s almost three times the upper limit of what organizations such as the American Heart Association recommend for women — 6 teaspoons — and almost twice that for men — 9 teaspoons. (Others, such as the US Department of Agriculture and the World Health Organization, have slightly different recommendations.)

Research continues to pile up that eating too much added sugar can lead to a plethora of health problems, such as weight gain, type 2 diabetes, heart and liver disease, cancer and even depression.

This love affair with sugar is not entirely our fault; the system is rigged against us, according to one expert.

“If you’re one of the unfortunate people that really struggles with craving and compulsion around sugar, you’re stuck in a food environment that is constantly feeding you cues: Eat sugar, eat sugar,” Dr. Laura Schmidt told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently on his podcast Chasing Life.

You can listen to the podcast’s full episode here.

Schmidt is a sociologist and a professor of health policy in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She’s also the lead investigator at SugarScience, a clearinghouse for scientific evidence about sugar and its impact on health under the auspices of UC San Francisco.

Schmidt said she doesn’t think people should vilify sugar but they do need to reduce how much they eat.

“There’s a problem in the way that we talk about food and nutrition, which is that we focus on single ingredients or single nutrients,” she said. “From a health standpoint, that’s not what matters. What matters is the whole diet; what matters is having all of the macronutrients in a relatively good balance.”

However, Schmidt added that Americans are “way over the limit” on sugar. “And we really need to be thinking about ways to dial that particular ingredient down,” she said.

But as many know, it’s not always easy to cut back on sugar because it lurks in so many foods, from the obvious (sodas, cakes and candy) to the more subtle (breakfast cereals, bread, yogurt and tomato sauce). By some estimates, added sweeteners are in 74% of packaged foods sold in supermarkets.

The reason why added sugar wound up in so many of food items is pretty straightforward, Schmidt said.

“The food companies have three ingredients that they can use to make food more palatable — some people say hyper-palatable, so extremely attractive to consumers — and that’s sugar, fat and salt,” she said. “And, pretty much, they vary the combination of sugar, fat and salt in most of our ultraprocessed foods. And often they’re put in there because the industrial food production process kind of makes stuff taste bad.”

Breaking up with sugar can be hard to do. Schmidt has five tips to tame your intake.

Stop slurping your sugar

Avoid liquid sugar, Schmidt said.

“Focus on reducing or cutting out sugar-sweetened beverages, such as sodas, sports drinks, energy drinks, fake juice pouches,” she said via email. “These are by far the largest source of added sugars in the American diet, especially for children, and have no nutritional value.”

Schmidt noted that liquid sugar can easily become a habit that leaves you consuming large amounts without really noticing.

Get rid of temptation at work

Reduce sugar cues in your work environment.

“Encourage your employer or work unit to join others that have stopped selling sugary drinks in vending machines and cafeterias at work,” Schmidt said, adding that these can be replaced with the “many delicious non-sugar alternatives.”

“Clinical trials show that when employers stop selling sugary beverages, regular soda drinkers lose, on average, a half inch in their waist circumference within 10 months,” Schmidt said, adding that SugarScience provides free materials to help workplaces reduce the availability of those beverages.

And while you’re at it, maybe take the long way around the candy bowl in the common area, so you don’t hear it calling your name.

Practice out of sight, out of mind around the house

Don’t forget to clean up your home food environment, too.

“Agree as a household not to have sugary junk foods and beverages around — have them when you go out instead, but not as staples at home,” Schmidt recommended. “Studies show that sugar reduction is best done in groups, not alone. So, make a reasonable plan together for what you will and won’t have lying around in the kitchen.”

Even if eliminating sugary junk food and soda at home is not enough to stop you from thinking about them, doing so will give you time to resist your impulse to indulge.

Calm your cravings

Have a plan for dealing with the psychological stress of sugar withdrawal.

“Sugar cravings are very real. And there are easily learned, evidence-based strategies for coping with them,” Schmidt said. “They rely on cultivating the simple art of experiencing the craving in a relaxed state without acting on it — called ‘surfing the urge.’” 

There are free “surfing the urge” guided meditations online. Schmidt also points to self-led audio resources that SugarScience uses to help soda drinkers quit who are participating in a 16-site, National Institutes of Health-funded randomized clinical trial.

Put sugary foods in their rightful place

Save sugary foods for desserts; don’t allow them to creep into every part of your diet.

“Adult women should confine themselves to less than 6 teaspoons of added sugar daily, 9 teaspoons for men, 4 teaspoons for children, and no added sugars for children under 2,”  Schmidt said via email.

One way to control the intake of added sugars, Schmidt said, is to make desserts and treats yourself. “This means enjoy the sugar that you do eat by baking together and savoring together, making the (added) sugar that you do eat part of celebrating life,” she said.

Sticking as closely as possible to these guidelines means scrutinizing food labels. Look for the line that shows you the “added sugar” content in a food to tally up the grams of excess sugar you consume in a day.

We hope these five tips help you reset your sugar consumption. Listen to the podcast’s full episode here. And join us next week on Chasing Life when we explore the art of compromise.

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CNN Audio’s Grace Walker contributed to this report.