My in-laws visited this past weekend. My FIL has arthritis in many areas of his body. He is constantly looking for a new pill or therapy to ease the pain that arthritis brings. He currently is exploring platelet therapy; a therapy I investigated over a year ago when it was much less available in this area. The science looked promising, but if one thing is true about new therapies is that while it may work wonders for one person, it may be ineffective for another. So that's what I told him. But I have since discovered a therapy that works for 90% of arthritis sufferers and is totally FREE. The big secret? Stop eating so much sugar. It drops a person's weight which relieves the overall stress on a person's joints, thus relieving the arthritis pain.
As a western society we have ramped up how many foods contain processed sugar by astronomical amounts in the last 30 years. Even in foods that are supposedly healthy, the fats have been replaced with shocking amounts of sugar. I looked last night at a bottle of teriyaki sauce I was going to use on a stir fry and found it contained 56 grams of sugar per 1/4 cup. That's almost 2 chocolate bars! No wonder people who think they are eating in a healthier way don't lose weight.
So, I've made it my personal mission to not only increase my protein intake but also to cut the amount of sugar from the standard 40+ tsp (200 grams) a day down to 6 tsp (30 grams) a day. It isn't as simple as simply cutting out candy. I have to look at any food product that is not sold in its original/natural form. In almost every case, you can pretty much guarantee sugar has somehow worked its way into the ingredients list.
Today (at least up until now which only includes breakfast and lunch), for example, I've had a protein shake (my standard breakfast) which contains 0.5 grams of sugar, chicken broth which contains 1.07 grams of sugar and a half serving of peanuts at 1.5 grams of sugar. This is me taking a proactive approach to reducing the amount of sugar I eat. Usually I eat a salad for lunch, which is tricky depending on the type of salad dressing I use, but it is certainly much less sugar than if I ate a sandwich or plate of French fries. If I were to tally up what many people eat for breakfast, such as a bowl of cereal and a glass of juice they would already have consumed over 80 grams of sugar. It's shocking.
When I think of my FIL and his nightly habit of a stack of white bread (4 -6 pieces) with molasses gobbed on top I know exactly why he has trouble losing weight and his arthritis flares up constantly. It's interesting that most people would rather take pills with a host of side effects rather than simply pay attention to the sugar content in our food.
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