The Crash

I am at my parents house for the holidays.

I have actually been doing pretty well with this and been eating fairly healthy and haven't gained anything in the five days which is great, my mom always has lots of fruits/veggies.... BUT my house also has lots of junk food and processed food and of course holiday treats. I have easily been avoiding all of the chips/ processed crap and limiting myself to a few treats a day (example, 2 holiday cookies, or some holiday candy etc) so...

I could not for the life of me understand why I feel like death! I have been lethargic, sleeping a ton, had headaches, felt bloated, and been craving carbs (ok some of this is the change of weather but still) I was freaking out that I was getting sick, but I don't feel "sick" so what gives? Like I really did not feel well AT ALL.

We all know that some exceptions need to be made with eating when you don't have access to your own fridge and pantry, this means making the healthiest choices we can with what we have. For me this meant scaling back from my usual label scouring and just trying to pick healthy choices and keep my calories down since my family's pantry is nothing like mine. so I was eating reasonably healthy right? no "junk" except the treats right? WRONG

Those of you familiar with my other blogs know that I DO NOT buy ANY AT ALL products with added sugar (no artificial either) except for dark chocolate. I do not avoid all sugar and love to eat "real" desserts when they are around but they are very sweet and rich to me now and I need very little. I usually avoid the mass amounts of sugar that the food industry sneaks into your food without you knowing, it is EVERYWHERE, and don't like things sweet that are not supposed to be sweet. I buy unsweetened versions of all these types of products or don't buy them. Most are available without sugar if you know where to look. My mom does not shop in the same way so I have been making due with what is here figuring that it would be fine.

Now I knew full well I was eating more sugar than usual, what I did not realize was just how terrible it would make me feel. It was a huge shock to my body!

Now I am well aware of this problem but realize many of you may never even have considered it and are unknowingly consuming mass amounts of added sugar! So I decided to give you a small starter list of such products. Some you may have expected and some might surprise you. Almost every single packaged food contains added sugar in some form.

-Spaghetti Sauce
-Non plain lowfat Yogurt (TONS of added sugar)
-Protein Bars (usually eat Lara Bars, sugar free)
-Kashi grain Crackers (and white flour which converts to sugar in the body!)
-Kashi Cereal
-Whole Wheat Bread
-BBQ Sauce
-Jelly
-Peanut Butter
-stir fry veggie sauce
-Dried Fruit (fruit is already sugar!)
-"Healthy" Salad Dressing



Moral of the Story: WATCH WHAT YOU EAT, the SAD (standard American diet) is full of sugar in many many forms. This increase correlates with the rise of obesity. All of these products can be found without sugar but sugar comes from corn now (think HFCS) which is subsidized and CHEAP, the products without sugar often cost more! The food industry loads all of the foods with sugar because it is cost effective and ADDICTIVE! Not only does it add calories to your food but it desensitizes your body so that things that should be sweet, like dessert, barely taste special to us anymore because we are used to all the sugar, this leads to addiction and over-consumption! Even after a week I find myself becoming desensitized and craving sugar in a way that I haven't since I changed my eating habits. This scares me because already these "symptoms" are going away and changing to cravings! But the fact it happened tells me that I was shocking my body. It was happy being sugar free!

Added SUGARS in processed foods can be found under the following names:

I personally do buy products that contain agave, honey, pure maple syrup, blackstrap molasses or any kind of natural fruit sweetener. (These are the sweeteners I feel to be the most natural and those that I consume although I do not use them in excess)


1. Agave Syrup
2. Amasake
3. Any name ending in “ose” or “ol” or “syrup”
4. Barbados Sugar
5. Barley Malt
6. Blackstrap Molasses
7. Black Sugar
8. Brown Sugar
9. Cane Juice
10. Cane Juice Crystals
11. Cane Sugar
12. Caramel
13. Caramel Coloring
14. Castor Sugar
15. Confectioner’s Sugar
16. Corn Sweetener
17. Corn Syrup
18. Corn Syrup Solids
19. Crystallized Cane Juice
20. D-mannose
21. Date Sugar
22. Demerara
23. Demerara Sugar
24. Dehydrated Cane Juice
25. Dehydrated Cane Juice Crystals
26. Dextran
27. Dextrin
28. Dextrine
29. Dextrose (glucose) – a simple sugar made of only one molecule
30. Disaccharides
31. Evaporated Cane Juice
32. Evaporated Cane Juice Sugar
33. Florida crystals (a trademarked name)
34. Free Flowing Brown Sugars
35. Fructose – a simple sugar refined from fruit
36. Fruit Juice Concentrate
37. Galactose
38. Galatactose
39. Glucose
40. Glucose Syrup
41. Golden Syrup
42. Grape Sugar
43. Grape Sweetener
44. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
45. Honey
46. Hydrolysed Starch
47. Hydrogenated Glucose Syrup
48. Hydrogenated Starch Hydrolysates (HSH)
49. Invert Sugar
50. Isomalt
51. Levulose
52. Lactitol
53. Lactose
54. Malt
55. Malt Extract
56. Malt Syrup
57. Maltodextrin
58. Maltose
59. Mannitol
60. Maple Syrup
61. Molasses
62. Monosaccharide
63. Muscovado
64. Organic Dehydrated Cane Juice
65. Panocha
66. Polysaccharide
67. Powdered Sugar
68. Raw Cane Crystals
69. Raw Honey
70. Raw Sugar -
71. Refiner’s Syrup
72. Ribose
73. Rice Extract
74. Rice Malt
75. Rice Syrup
76. Saccharide
77. Saccharose
78. Sorghum
79. Sorghum Syrup
80. Sorbitol
81. Sucanat
82. Succanat
83. Sucrose
84. Sugar
85. Sweetener
86. Syrup
87. Table Sugar
88. Treacle
89. Turbinado
90. Turbinado Sugar
91. Unbleached Crystallized Evaporated Cane Juice
92. Unbleached Evaporated Sugar Cane Juice Crystals
93. Unbleached Sugar Cane
94. Unrefined Cane Juice Crystals
95. Washed Cane Juice Crystals
96. White Grape Juice
97. Yellow Sugar
98. Xylitol OR Xylose