Jennifer Dent says to cut added sugar to 25 grams a day and drink 3 liters of water daily for summer weight loss. She notes sugar has over 60 different names on labels and that cutting it recalibrates your taste buds to prefer vegetables. She offers free resources including a portion plan, sugar quiz, and quit sugar guide.
Chapters
First day of May. This is Jennifer Dent, your health and success coach. And do you realize that summer is just around the corner? We are finally having beautiful weather here in the Northeast. It was in the 80s this weekend. I put on some shorts. I was happy with what I saw, but then I realized that some of you may not be ready to start shedding the layers um, with your summer wardrobe. You're not ready to show those legs off, you're not ready to show off the tight shirts and show off your arms yet. But don't worry, it's just May, so you have a little bit of time. But I wanted to tell you one thing that you can do now that will help you get ready for summer season, and that is to drastically reduce your sugar intake. Now, most of us do not know how much sugar we're consuming on a daily basis. In fact, we have no idea how much sugar we're consuming on a daily basis, and most of us don't even know what is a good amount of sugar to consume, what is a not-so-good amount of sugar to consume. So the problem comes when we're just like, oh, you know, sugar's not great for us, but I have no idea how much I'm consuming. So instead of counting calories, which is oh so annoying and a waste of time, instead of counting points if you're on that program, and you know what program I'm speaking of, how about just tracking your sugar grams? Keeping your sugar grams under 25 grams a day for women. 25 grams of sugar a or grams of sugar a day or less for women, each and every day consistently, and you will see the weight just start to fall off. A lot of us are eating healthy and we're watching our weight, we're watching, you know, making sure we get our steps in, we're doing exercise, going to the gym, but we're not seeing the scale move. And why is that? Well, if there are no other major medical issues that are happening in your body, it could just be that you're consuming too much sugar and quite possibly not enough water. So start drinking a gallon of water a day, or up to a gallon. Um, I recommend 3 liters, which is 101 ounces a day, every day, and reducing your sugar. So that basically means that you need to start looking at the labels measuring your food if you're not already doing that, so you know exactly what a serving size is, not what you think it is or what it looks like, because most of the time we eyeball a serving of food and we are way off. I actually just created a guide for you, a really quick 2-page beautiful PDF called the Portion Plan. You can go to jenniferdent.com/portionplan to download your free copy. And that gives you some really quick tips on how to visually, um, see what a portion of food is no matter what you're eating. And it also tells you what a healthy plate looks like, so you can control your portions without having to actually pull out the measuring cups and pull out your scale and have a very healthy plate. Now, back to the sugar. So, 25 grams or less of sugar a day. So that means you need to start looking at your labels start understanding what you're eating, start understanding all the different names that food companies have used for sugar and their, and their ingredients. There's like over 60 different names that food companies have used, so you need to get yourself familiar with what that is. I've put together a quiz, a 2-minute quiz that you can take, and it will tell you exactly where you are on the sugar scale, as I call it, and it gives you a sugar score. So it will tell you, answer 10 questions, it'll take you less than 2 minutes. It will tell you if you need to check yourself, right? Check how much sugar you're eating and make some changes immediately. It will tell you if you're in the middle, if you're like, okay, you're teetering, you can either go downhill, down the rabbit hole, or you can go and make a really healthy lifestyle change. It will tell you if you're there, or it will tell you if like, look, you're eating way too much sugar, you need to stop. Right now and rethink everything that you're doing. But I don't just give you the score, I also give you the Quit Sugar Guide. It's a free PDF, I think it's like 15 pages or so, and it explains all of this great information that you need to know about how to stop or cut back, drastically cut back on your sugar. One, it tells us Why Sugar Is in Everything. So it gives a little bit of history for those of you who don't just take anything for face value. It tells us how sugar got into our food system because we did not have this sugar overload issue decades ago, like when our grandparents were living off the land. We didn't have this issue. This is a new generation issue. So it gives you a little bit of history about sugar. It also gives you some really detailed, specific information of how to look for sugar in the different types of foods you're eating, and then also how to calculate how much sugar you are consuming per day. So if you just do this one thing, one thing, and that is to keep your sugar grams under 25 grams a day consistently, and get your water up to— your water consumption up too, I promise you, you will lose weight. Um, the other great thing about cutting your sugar is that your your palate will change. Yes, your taste buds actually will change, and the foods that you maybe turn your nose up to, like broccoli or kale, those healthy foods that you really don't like, you will suddenly find a new taste for them because, one, real sugar will begin to be extremely too sweet for you, so you won't even enjoy eating a cookie anymore after you go through, say, a sugar detox, but two, you will be able to taste the natural sweetness and the natural deliciousness of healthier foods. And then you can become one of those people who enjoy a salad instead of a burger, um, when they go out to eat. So that is all I have for you today on this beautiful first day of May, coming from you from my home office in Philadelphia. But I want you to take advantage of these two things. One, I want you to go to jenniferdent.com/portionplan to download your free copy of my portion plan, which shows you exactly how to calculate what a correct size is, a correct food portion is, and how to create your plate so it is the healthiest that you can have. And then I also want you to go and take that 2-minute sugar quiz. Jenniferdent.com/sugar-free-quiz, and I'll put both of those links below so you can click them directly. So have a great rest of your Monday, and if you have any questions, leave them down below and tag me in them, and I will answer them. Bye-bye!
