JJ Virgin's Sugar Impact Diet Cookbook

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NOT ALL SUGAR IS CREATED EQUAL

Starting a new diet is a little like waking up on Christmas morning—all the promise and wonder is so exciting! Well, here it is, the Sugar Impact Diet, just waiting to be unwrapped. And its present to you is that it's going to change your life in just 2 weeks! Once you see how easy it is to drop high–Sugar Impact foods and the huge benefits it has for you in your life, you'll never look back. Fast fat loss awaits—most people lose 10 pounds in just 2 weeks—but so does a more youthful-looking, energetic you. You can kiss your cravings good-bye, along with the brain fog, achy joints, and other oppressive symptoms that have made you feel old, sick, and tired before your time. And best of all, in your new low–Sugar Impact life, you'll be arming yourself against—or even reversing—serious diseases connected to obesity and high blood sugar, like insulin resistance and diabetes.

BURN, BABY, BURN

The secret sauce of fast fat loss is this: the Sugar Impact Diet is going to take you from being a sugar burner, which is what you are now, to a fat burner. Sugar burners begin burning the fuel in their food as soon as it hits their mouth, and they have to keep shoveling more fuel in the furnace to keep it lit, so to speak. So your body currently depends on a steady supply of carbs for energy—because you're in a vicious cycle where you'll crash without them. Even worse, your metabolism never dips into your fat reserves for energy because it doesn't have to and chronically elevated blood sugar and insulin levels prevent fat burning. To lose weight, you've got to start burning fat and stop burning sugar—and lowering your Sugar Impact is the key.

You'll have all of the support you need on your journey to becoming a fat burner. Simple swaps, delicious recipes, and easy-to-follow meal plans will be your road map—follow them, and your extra pounds will be in your rearview mirror so fast you won't even know what hit you! You'll not only lose weight fast, ditch your cravings, and be bursting with energy, you'll have fun along the way!

NO MORE COUNTING CALORIES

Another thing that sets the Sugar Impact Diet apart is that there will be no counting calories. In fact, I forbid it. Let me hear you say it—yay! Just as all sugar is not created equal, a calorie is not a calorie. I want you to start looking at food as the information it is. Every time you choose something to eat, it has consequences, for better or worse. It's going to send your body a message, and the payoff is either that you're being nourished or you're not. As you might imagine, your body responds a little differently to a hot fudge sundae than it does to a lean, organic chicken breast. But why?

WHY SUGAR IS PUBLIC ENEMY #1

All foods raise blood sugar, but high–Sugar Impact carbohydrates and sugary foods make your blood sugar go way up. Your pancreas produces the hormone insulin to get glucose, one of the sugars you eat, out of your bloodstream and shuttle it to your cells to use for energy—glucose is our fuel. What your cells can't use, your liver and muscles can store in the form of glycogen to be used for energy later.

But insulin also makes it easier for your body to store fat. Ack! Plus, it can lead to much bigger problems like insulin resistance and diabetes.

In addition to glucose, one of the other most common sugars in our food is fructose, the primary sugar in fruit. Fructose is also found in less natural "foods" like sugary drinks and packaged snacks in the form of high-fructose corn syrup. Fructose is metabolized differently than other sugars. It doesn't create the spike in blood sugar and insulin like other sugars do. At first blush that sounds like a good thing, but that biological mechanism is a protective measure; fructose blows by it, so your body has no way of registering that it's eaten and that it's on its way to being full. To make matters worse, fructose goes directly to your liver, the only organ that can metabolize it. Your liver converts some fructose to glucose (which can then be used as glycogen or converted to fat) and the rest to triglycerides.

Your body breaks all the sugar you eat into glucose or fructose, no matter what the source of the sugar is. But glucose and fructose are metabolized very differently: glucose = fuel; fructose = fat. That's what I mean by Sugar Impact, and that's why I'm going to help you learn to key into how much of which is in the foods you choose.

Now, is fructose always the enemy? No. Remember, it's the primary sugar in fruit, and it's found in other natural, whole foods we eat like some vegetables. But in those cases, it's intertwined with fiber and nutrients. Fiber changes fructose's behavior for the better—it slows digestion in general, so fructose is slower in making its way to the liver, and it makes the fructose harder to access, so we burn some energy getting at it. When fiber and nutrients are absent, which they are in most sources of fructose in our diet—think candy, snack packs, energy drinks—fructose is like a guided missile with nothing to slow it down as it zeroes in on your liver. It's a fat "bombs away."

Most of us already know sugar in processed foods is bad for us, and we try to steer clear of that stuff as much as possible. So what's going on? Well, the truth is, most people don't know how much sugar they're eating. Once you take my Sneaky Sugar Inventory, I bet you're going to be pretty surprised to find out how much sugar is slipping into your diet, even if you consider yourself vigilant about it! It's in a lot of foods we'd never suspect, and some we even consider healthy. So if you're like many people I know, who watch what they eat and have already cut out sweets and the obvious culprits, it's okay to feel confused and frustrated about your expanding waistline and your health issues.

If you feel like you're doing everything right but you're still dealing with the frustration of…

… you're probably getting way more sugar in your diet than you want or need. We're going to lower your Sugar Impact and take aim at those sneaky sugars and those symptoms!

IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT

Powering your sugar-burning metabolism with fast-acting sugar and carbs hijacks your ability to keep your appetite in check. It's not your fault—you're no longer in control.

The good news is that you can take control right back—and fast. With the right food—and the right information—your hormones begin to function as they're supposed to and referee the amount of everything you eat. You get your weight, your health, and your life back.

FREE YOURSELF FROM THE SUGAR TRAP

The nice, easy taper and transition from high–Sugar Impact foods to a diet filled with low–Sugar Impact foods will flip your sugar-burning, fat-storing metabolism on its head. The Sugar Impact diet is about to make you a fat burner, which is exactly what you want to lose weight fast and keep it off. When good fats and clean, lean protein become the focus of your diet, you'll trade the roller coaster ride of crashes and quick pick-me-ups for a steady stream of high energy all day long.

When you burn fat, you drop weight fast. And when you're low SI, your other systems, like the hormones in charge of your appetite, are all aligned in lockstep working to keep you losing weight and feeling great. Before you know it, your energy is back, your joint pain is gone, your gastrointestinal distress is in check, and bonus: you'll even burn fat when you sleep!

Here are the obstacles this book will help you understand and overcome if they rear up during your Sugar Impact Diet journey.

Obstacle #1: Cravings

Cravings can be intense and overwhelming, and staving them off is going to be a key part of winning the battle against high-impact sugar. I have a link to Sugar Attack Survival Strategies in the resources section of my website—http://sugarimpact.com/resources—specifically designed to get you through any rough spots, but wouldn't it be better not to experience them at all? Well, that's the goal.

First, you have to figure out where they're coming from. They can be rooted in your genes or your lifestyle (the way you eat), or both. Knowing the source of your cravings is the only way to break their grip.

The other major cause of cravings comes from eating a low-fat diet. No, that was not a typo. Remember, low fat means high sugar, and usually from high-impact sugars. They give you a quick shot of energy, but they set in motion a cycle of cravings for the very foods that create cravings. And your system takes a serious beating when you feed the beast of cravings. Your hormones and blood sugar are spiking and cratering in response to whatever you've eaten, but if you aren't aware that you're eating that much sugar, it can feel like punching in the dark. Labels don't aim to help you figure it out; sometimes sugar isn't even listed as sugar on the ingredients list. Barley malt sounds pretty innocent, doesn't it?

The important thing is—and don't lose sight of this—the recipes in this book take care of that for you! They're all lower Sugar Impact, which means they're designed to combat cravings by including the ideal balance of fats, carbs, and protein to keep you full and energized all day long.

Obstacle #2: Addiction

Some of you will flat-out say you're addicted to sugar. And there's real evidence that could be exactly what's going on. We know we're wired to eat sweet, so when it's available everywhere all the time, it stands to reason that you could find yourself in a bit of an internal scrap fighting the urge to indulge. The chemicals at war inside you are the very same ones that light up in response to other addictions. As Dr. Pamela Peeke, author of The Hunger Fix, explained it to me, "Animal studies have shown that refined sugar is more addictive than cocaine, heroin, or morphine. An animal will choose an Oreo over morphine. Why? This cookie has the perfect combination of sugar and fat to hijack the brain's reward center."

If you're hooked on sugar, you no doubt experience withdrawal when you don't have it. That also means you probably binge when you finally get your hands on it. I have support for that! I'm going to help you cope with any withdrawal symptoms that pop up with my Sugar Withdrawal Strategies (go to http://sugarimpact.com/resources) so you don't experience the defeat of giving in, or the guilt that goes with it.

It's not about "willpower." You're supposed to crave sugar when your blood sugar gets low. The key is to not let that happen—and the Sugar Impact Diet is going to get you out of the high-low blood sugar spin cycle. Once you even out your blood sugar, the rest of you will follow suit.

Obstacle #3: Let's Not Forget Stress

Okay, we've all eaten poorly when we're under stress—myself included. Yes, food is information for your body, but we have a more complicated relationship with food sometimes: it can also be a comfort when we're stressed out or upset.

Why is it, though, that we can only find comfort in chocolate? Or macaroni and cheese? Why doesn't anyone ever want Brussels sprouts to self-soothe? Well, for one, stress suppresses the happy hormone serotonin, which is also one of the feel-good neurotransmitters released when you eat sugar. Sweets are just a shortcut to bringing it back, stat.

Knowing what you know now about blood sugar spikes and crashes, it will come as no surprise that stress eating is just a short-term fix that actually leaves us worse off than before. Not to mention that it's a crutch that causes weight gain, fatigue, brain fog, self-esteem issues… should I go on?

So whether you're dealing with cravings, the pull of addiction, or stress eating, high–Sugar Impact foods—and the metabolic havoc they wreak—have had their hooks in you for too long. Going low SI will loosen sugar's grip on you and set your system free.

LET THE HEALING BEGIN

Of the many ways the Sugar Impact Diet takes care of you and ensures your success, the one you'll probably appreciate most (next to 150 high-taste, lower-SI recipes!) is that it doesn't take sugar from you cold turkey. You've been there, done that. You know where that gets you. Amped-up cravings and withdrawal symptoms are a prescription for failure, but when you taper and transition, success is all but guaranteed.

You'll move at your own pace from high-SI to medium-SI to low-SI foods. I'll be there every step of the way to help you ease off the high-SI foods that are hurting you. I also have strategies and Supportive Supplements on the resources section of my website http://sugarimpact.com to help you fight any and all symptoms that make a surprise appearance, so you have smooth sailing on your way to becoming an Impact Player.

One of the things you'll experience as you heal is that you'll retrain your taste buds to be more sensitive to sweetness. The more you're able to subtly tune in to nature's bounty, like the sweetness in berries, the less you'll need of it and the more processed sweets will seem like overkill. Bye-bye cravings!

TASTE IS ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE