Calling all ‘fitness Instagrammers’ who hold a love for uploading weekly shots of Acai bowls and juices. I have some news for you, and it’s not pretty.
MORE: Body-Toning Protein Shake Recipe
When it comes to weight loss and fitness, it’s important to know that sugar is a big factor affecting your progress. While it’s hard to avoid natural sugars present in fruits and milk, you can educate yourself about the many products that contain hidden sugars.
To put things into perspective, according to Dietitians Associations Australia on average, an adults daily intake of sugar should be 90 grams to meet nutritional needs. This doesn’t factor in whether you’re pregnant, breastfeeding, trying to lose weight, size or activeness.
A useful website that incorporates all those factors is dietitian.com. Enter as much information as you can to ensure you receive an accurate result of what your daily nutritional intake should be.
After entering all my details, in order for me to maintain my weight I should be taking in no more than 64 grams of sugar. So if I were looking to lose weight, I would need to cut down more.
Now here’s the real shock. Check out the sugar levels in these common food items.
Juice
Everyone loves a refreshing juice. Whether it’s apple, orange, pineapple or a bit of a mix, I can guarantee it’s packed with sugar.
Take Golden Circle’s 350ml Apple Juice for example.
It contains 30.4 grams of sugar.
This little bottle – that can usually be consumed within minutes – is almost half my daily intake of sugar. It contains close to the same amount of sugar in a can of Coke.
Acai Bowl
Acai is known as an antioxidant super food from the Amazon, South America – it’s absolutely delicious when frozen and made into a puree. Top that with fruits, Granola muesli or honey and voila! Heaven on Earth.
Amazonia, is a common product used and distributed by many cafe’s and restaurants in Australia. According to their nutritional information for the frozen puree sachets, they contain 13 grams of sugar per 100ml. Two of these sachets are commonly used in Acai bowls. That’s 26 grams of sugar.
Add in your fruits and Granola and you’re looking close to roughly 40 grams of sugar.
Have that with an apple juice for breakfast and I’m well over my daily sugar intake. It’s not even lunch time yet!
MORE: Fitness Fibs vs Fitness Facts
Ice Coffee
Ice coffee is always a smooth cool drink that many Australian’s love. If you’re one to depend on the wake-me-up drink everyday – you might want to consider cutting the habit down.
Ice Break’s 500ml Ice Coffee weighs in at a whopping 47.6 grams of sugar.
MyFitnessPal is a great website that’s also available in an app on the Apple Store. It allows you to search through thousands of food items, showing you all nutritional information.
It’s an easy way for you to keep track of the hidden sugars in the foods you love.
Images via HeinzFoodService, Health.com, WholeHeartedEats, Coles
