A year off sugar and alcohol has left the author 34 kg lighter.
The average Australian and American consumes 40 teaspoons of sugar a day, adding up to 1.2 kilograms of sugar a week, which translates into 60 freaking kilos a year! This is all the more shocking when you realise the natural intake of our ancestors – the amount our body actually needs – was 1.3 teaspoons a day, about two kilograms a year.
So this is the first thing you need to get through your fat melon, Boomka: Stop the sugar, stop the hunger. Bingo! I grasped that simple fact, and the rest started to come good.
Over the last 20 years, sales of full-calorie soda in the United States have plummeted by more than 25 percent. Soda consumption, which rocketed from the 1960s through 1990s, is now experiencing a serious and sustained decline.
Sales are stagnating as a growing number of Americans say they are actively trying to avoid the drinks that have been a mainstay of American culture.
"For years, we've been brainwashed into thinking that fat causes heart attacks and raises cholesterol, and that sugar is harmless except as a source of empty calories. They are not empty calories. As it turns out, sugar calories are deadly calories. Sugar causes heart attacks, obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cancer and dementia, and is the leading cause of liver failure in America.
"The biggest culprit is sugar-sweetened beverages, including sodas, juices, sports drinks, teas and coffees. They are by far the single biggest source of sugar calories in our diet." -- Dr Mark Hyman.