White sugar and flour are high-calorie foods with little nutritional value. Cutting these items out of your diet is an easy way to drastically cut down on the number of calories you consume. Eating the same amount of food, but substituting whole grains for white bread and fruit for cookies, will automatically lead to weight loss as well as a more nutrient dense diet. It takes dedication to cut sugar and white flour from your diet, however, because it is present in many processed and commercially available products that you probably rely on every day.
Step 1
Cut out obvious flour and sugar. This includes white bread, sugar you add to tea, cereal and other food items, and foods that you know contain sugar and flour, such as soft drinks and packaged cakes and cookies.
Step 2
Read product labels. White flour and sugar go by many names. Look at the label on processed foods to determine if a food is truly white flour- and sugar-free. Other names for sugar include sucrose, fructose, corn syrup, cane sugar and syrup. Other names for white flour are bleached all-purpose flour, bread flour and enriched flour.
Step 3
Substitute foods that you can eat for the ones that are missing. Whole grains and whole-wheat flour make a nutritious change from white flour. Sugar substitutes are more challenging. Although artificial sweeteners are calorie-free, there is evidence that they can slow weight loss. Natural sweeteners, like honey, aren't processed, but are also high in calories. For best results, use natural sweeteners, but less of them.
Tips and Warnings
- Give your taste buds time to become accustomed to whole grains and foods that are less sweet. Stick with the program for a few weeks and you will notice the changes in your cravings.
References
- "Get the Sugar Out: 501 Simple Ways to Cut the Sugar Out of Any Diet"; Ann Louise Gittleman, PhD, CNS; 1996
- "Dr. Gott's No Flour, No Sugar Diet"; Peter H. Gott, et al; 2006
- Harvard School of Public Health: How to Spot Sugar on Food Labels
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