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addiction to sugary drinks or carbohydrate-rich pasta dishes.

STEP 2
    Weigh In on Your Sugar Intake
“ A bagel is a doughnut with the sin removed .”
— GEORGE ROSENBAUM, FOOD-INDUSTRY ANALYST
    The FDA has a long history of issuing governmental dietary recommendations, beginning all the way back in 1894, to help us know which foods we should eat and how we should structure our diets. The idea is to provide simple, useful information for individuals to employ in their everyday lives and food-intake decisions. Foods can be divided into three general categories to describe their contents: carbohydrates, fats, and protein. Most of us recall that, back in the 1990s, the FDA introduced the food pyramid, which emphasized that the majority of our food intake should come from carbohydrates, such as breads and pasta, with fats consumed very sparingly. Then in 2005, the FDA revised the food pyramid to reflect slightly less emphasis on whole grains and other carbohydrates (although these still dominated as the major food group). Italso recommended exercise and acknowledged that age, gender, and activity levels are all factors to be considered when determining healthy food-intake patterns.
    Today the guidelines have been completely revamped, and we no longer follow a pyramid model. Instead, we have the food plate model, 1 which suggests that half of our plate be filled with fruits and vegetables. Whole fruits and fruit juices are recommended. Grains (another type of carbohydrate) are recommended to comprise approximately one-quarter of our plate, and the same goes for protein. We are also advised to have a small portion of dairy products.
    The food plate guidelines also caution people to avoid “empty calories.” Empty calories are often found in foods that contain sugars and solid fats, which are added to foods to make them more appealing. These calories are considered “empty” because they offer few or no nutrients; they are just calories that need to be burned or they will turn into excess body weight. What’s the biggest culprit in terms of empty calories in our food today? Sodas, which are sweetened with sugars like sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup.
    What is interesting about empty calories is their appeal. These foods taste really, really good, and thus people want to eat lots of them. But they are not necessary for survival, so eating them excessively or in place of nutrient-rich foods does not make sense. This preference for foods that are highly palatable but lacking in nutritive value may form the foundation for what can develop into an addiction. If this is the case, trying to avoid eating them or attempting to eat them in moderation might be easier said than done.
    The bottom line is that governmental food guidelines have shifted over the years, in part to incorporate developments in nutrition research and perhaps after recognizing that too many sugars and other carbohydrates are not ideal for a healthy body weight. We say “sugar and other carbohydrates ” here because, technically, sugar is a general term used to describe what is really a carbohydrate. When most people refer to sugar, however, they are probably talking about table sugar—the white stuff you put in your coffee or use to whip up a batch of cookies—which is technically called sucrose . It’s important to understand the difference between foods (like complex carbohydrates) that break down into biochemical sugars and the more common table sugar (sucrose) because you’ll need to reduce or cut out both of these types of sugars in order to end your addiction. As we’ve said (and will cover in more detail in Step 4), both clinical testimony and scientific support suggests that some people who overeat sugars and other carbohydrates may have an addiction to them, and this addiction may explain why adhering to a low-carbohydrate diet and achieving a sustained weight loss can be such a challenge. So what is the connection between sugar, carbohydrates,