A lot of you ask me what's the quickest, fastest, speediest way to lose weight. While I always say that there is no shortcut to losing weight and that you have to eat clean and exercise, I will tell you about one thing you can do to watch the weight fall off.

Here in this article, for the sake of easy understanding, every time I say 'weight', I mean fat. Our weight is made up of muscle, fat and water. The one you really don't want is fat.

The one thing you can do to make a big difference in the speed of your weight loss is to stop sugar completely. What a lot of people don't realize is that sugar makes you fat. Sugar is a refined carbohydrate. It's pure energy. When that energy is not used up, it gets stored in your body as fat, for future use. If you eat more sugar than you're burning off {and we usually don't do activities that expend the considerable amount of energy we get from eating something sugary}, you will put on weight.

This is something that many people don't realize. They don't equate sugar with fat. They think foods that make them fat are oily, buttery, cheesy and meaty. Lots of my fitness class students say they've changed their diets completely and they're eating healthy now, but they can't seem to shift the weight. They don't eat rice and bread and butter and ghee anymore. Then they'll inform me that they have a Red Bull every day. Boom. There's the problem. A whole can of sugar. No wonder they can't lose weight!

So if you really want to lose weight fast, try going on a sugar fast. Cut out sugar from your diet completely. That's not just stopping desserts and sodas, but you'd also be cutting out a lot of other foods from your diet. There is a lot of hidden sugar in many foods. Bread, pickles, sauces, ketchup, health bars, sports drinks, fruit juice, even some brand of chips, have sugar. And sugar is not just written as 'sugar' on ingredient labels. It goes by many names. Many food manufacturers use different forms of sugar or use another name and label themselves as 'healthy' or 'low-fat'. Also, most items that are low-fat have a ton of sugar to make up for the lack of taste. The mania with Pinkberry in Bahrain always amuses me. Lots of people eat only their frozen yoghurt thinking it's low in fat or has no fat at all when it actually has more sugar than other ice creams and sweet treats!

Sugar By Any Other Name Is Just As Harmful

Look for and avoid:

• High fructose corn syrup {HFCS}
• Anything that ends with -ose. Fructose, sucralose, dextrose, maltose, glucose, etc. 
• Barley malt
• Rice syrup
• Maltitol, sorbitol
• Agave nectar
• Brown sugar
• Cane sugar
• Jaggery
• Cane juice

Going sugarless also means avoiding all artificial sweeteners. No aspartame, saccharin and sucralose. You can eat natural sugars such as fruit, and use honey to sweeten your beverages. But avoid all refined sugar such as white sugar, brown sugar, as well as look for hidden sugar in packaged foods.

I have done this diet myself a few years back and I saw the weight fall off. I wasn't even fat. I was just my normal size and I became thinner. I didn't change my exercise routine. I was still exercising as much as I was before and there was no increase in my physical activity. Which means all the fat loss that happened was because of stopping sugar.

Going on a sugar fast has other benefits than just losing weight. Your metabolism will speed up, burning more calories. You'll see a big change in your energy levels. You'll find that you have more energy.  Your skin will look clearer and your hair will be healthier. Your mind will be more focused and calm. Sugar has such a massive negative impact on our health but we don't realize it. Only once you stop consuming it, you see the changes.

How long do you do it for?

You can do this for as long as you like, forever if you want. Or do it for a few months or a year. Or just until you've lost the weight you wanted to lose. Once I did it for a few months, I found that I lost the craving for very sweet foods. Even a little bit of sugar felt 'too sweet' and cloying. I ate only dark chocolate after that. Even now, the sugar I consume is very less. Only on occasion, I'll have something really sweet.

Alternatives

Now I know that giving up sugar completely is very, very difficult. We use sugar as a treat. As a celebration. Since we were children, we were given candy for good behaviour and as a reward. It's embedded in our subconscious that sweet things mean happiness and celebrations. Of course, this is because sugar gives you a rush and makes you feel happy for some time. But that's a very short-lived, fleeting happiness and you feel tired soon after as the energy goes unused.

So here's an alternative- allow your only sugary treat to be dark chocolate. Start the switch with a mild dark chocolate which is at least 50-55% dark. Then build up to 65%+ over time. Whenever the sugar craving hits, eat a piece of dark chocolate. If you don't like chocolate but really crave sugar, eat dried fruits like apricots or sweet fruit like dates. Have a piece of fruit when you need a sugar hit.

Another alternative is to cut out all sugar but when you're really, really tempted such as at a birthday party where there's a delectable piece of cake served to you, or someone offers you a luscious dessert which is one-of-a-kind and you don't want to miss out, have a spoonful. But not more than two. A few bites are better than a whole slice. Plus, you won't regret that you didn't even taste the dessert or feel guilty afterwards for consuming a whole load of calories.










To summarize, if you really want to make a change to your weight loss, stop sugar completely from your diet. Get to know hidden sugar and don't consume processed, packaged foods that are usually high in sugar. Switch to dark chocolate if you MUST have chocolate. If presented with a tempting dessert, have a bite. And thank me when you feel better and look better.

Give this a go and tell me about the changes in your body and health, or if you think this is too hard for you to do. Leave me a comment after the post. I'd love to know your thoughts.

Until next time,

xoxo