The Sugar Busters Diet
Overview
Reduce the sugar in your diet and you'll lose weight. The authors also claim you will lower your cholesterol, increase your energy and even help treat diabetes.
Suggested Foods
You are encouraged to eat lean beef, fish and poultry. Vegetables like asparagus, beans, celery, lentils and peas. You can even eat fruits such as apples, cherries, grapefruits, lemons and pears.
Strictly off-limit foods are baked beans, carrots, corn, white bread, pasta, rice and beer. Plus you should avoid products that contain refined sugar, corn syrup, honey or molasses.
How it Works
According to the authors sugar is the cause of obesity. It increases the level of insulin in the body and increases the likelihood of food being stored as fat.
By reducing sugar and eating a high-protein, low-carbohydrate meal you will see a significant increase in the glucagon levels. The authors claim high levels of glucagons allow your body to get it's energy from stored fat reserves and you lose weight.
Not exactly. The menus provided by Sugar Busters average 1,200 calories. That's 800 calories less than the average set by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). That makes Sugar Busters a simple reduced calorie diet. Cut the calories and you lose weight.
Pros and Cons
The authors of Sugar Busters claim you can avert diabetes on their diet. According to experts such as Maureen L. Storey, PhD, associate director of the Center for Food and Nutrition Policy at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. "That is a myth".
Experts also dismisses the authors weight-loss claims about sugar spiking insulin and causing obesity. The simple medical fact is you must burn off more calories than you eat to lose weight.
Another serious flaw in the Sugar Busters diet is how the authors perpetuate the myth that your body can tell the difference between sugars that naturally occur in food products (such as fruits) and sugars that are added to manufactured products. Your body can't. It doesn't matter if it's white refined sugar, brown sugar, natural sugar, honey, molasses or fruit juices. The chemical structure of sugar doesn't change and your body processes them all exactly the same.
The Bottom Line
Sugar Busters is a reduced calorie diet. Cut your calories and you lose weight. It's claims to control certain types of diabetes-related problems is a concern because current medical studies do not back that up. This diet is low in calcium and does not provide enough calories for training athletes. Because of the numerous flaws, we cannot recommend the Sugar Busters diet.
As with any diet what these books suggest should NEVER be attempted without the supervision of a Medical Doctor or licensed Nutritionist.
General Reference Links
American Heart Association
http://www.americanheart.org
Center for Science in the Public Interest
http://www.cspinet.org/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/
National Institutes of Health
http://www.nih.gov/
United States Department of Agriculture
http://www.usda.gov