Are You Still Wasting Time Counting Spaghetti Calories?
If you are worried that those spaghetti calories on your plate are going to make you gain weight you are focusing on the wrong thing.
It’s not your fault.
For decades we’ve been told that when it comes to weight gain or weight loss the only thing you have to worry about is how many calories you eat.
Giving your food value by how many calories it has is outdated information and is the reason why millions of us struggle to lose weight.
If you are the type of person that is hardcore into counting those calories you may also be asking how many calories are in the spaghetti sauce you’ll be adding to that spaghetti.
This is where the method of counting your calories to determine how healthy you are eating turns into a disaster.
While You Are Counting the Calories in Your Spaghetti The Sauce is Secretly Killing You
Yes, you read that right.
1 cup serving of spaghetti has about 220 calories.
How many calories should you eat in a day, according to weight loss experts?
According to Healthline,
The average, moderately active woman between the ages of 26–50 needs to eat about 2,000 calories per day to maintain her weight and 1,500 calories per day to lose 1 pound (0.45 kg) of weight per week.
So according to this “expert” advice that is available on the internet, in countless books and TV shows this plate of spaghetti has a tiny 220 calories and should be completely safe to eat.
If you are like most people though you are going to want some spaghetti sauce on your pasta right?
The Spaghetti Sauce Has a Secret Ingredient That is Making You Fat!
Did you know that some leading spaghetti sauces also contain sugar? Anybody that’s made spaghetti sauce from scratch knows you need to add a little bit of sugar to the tomatoes to cut down on the acidity.
But the amount of sugar being added to some popular spaghetti sauces is beyond a little bit.
One leading brand has 12 grams of sugar per serving. And to make it easy to measure how much sugar that is all you have to remember is that 4 grams of sugar = 1 teaspoonful.
That means that some leading brands of spaghetti sauce have up to 3 teaspoons of pure sugar in every serving.
There’s plenty of information available that tells you the only thing you need to do to be healthy is count calories. But the new and updated science is painting a way different picture.
We now know that sugar is the culprit behind weight gain and metabolic diseases that are killing us faster than ever before.
Spaghetti Calories Are Not Your Enemy – Spaghetti Sauce Sugar Is What You Want to Watch Out For!
We’ve been told for a long time that all calories are equal and all carbs are bad for us.
Neither of these things are 100% true.
If you ate 1500 calories a day of ice cream and soda you will gain weight and you will become unhealthy and will be way more likely to develop metabolic diseases like insulin resistance, diabetes or fatty liver.
The serving of spaghetti you are going to eat is not going to be nearly as bad for your health as you’ve been led to believe.
But The Spaghetti Sauce You Add to it Has Almost Half The Daily Recommended Sugar Intake You Should Consume
The World Health Organization recommends adults eat no more than 25 grams of sugar per day. If you remember our handy conversion from above, that is about 6 teaspoons.
One serving of a popular brand of spaghetti sauce contains half of that sugar!
Are you starting to see the problem with the food we are told to eat and how we are told to “count” our food, in terms of health, nutrition and weight gain or weight loss?
You Should Not Eat More Than 25 Grams (4 Teaspoons) of Sugar Daily
New age weight loss and metabolic experts agree with the WHO on sugar intake. It is recommended you have no more than 25 grams of sugar per day.
This is about 6 teaspoons.
If you’re like me you may need a reference point to see just how much sugar you should be eating vs what you are likely eating in today’s popular foods.
- 1 Soda has 39 grams of added sugar (almost 10 teaspoons)
- 1 TBSP of ketchup has 3.7 grams of added sugar (1 teaspoon)
- 1 Yoplait Light Yogurt has 10 grams of added sugar (2.5 teaspoons)
- Kraft Singles (fat free) has 1 gram of added sugar per slice
Not All Carbs Are Bad For You – Why You Don’t Need to Worry So Much About “Carbs”
If you can stick to a low carb diet you should quickly notice that you feel a bit better. Carbs can make you feel a bit bloated and extra full sometimes.
But not all carbs are equal and not all of them are bad. According to leading experts, it’s not that carbs are bad for you, it’s that some carbs are very bad for you and some are perfectly safe to eat in moderation.
population studies suggest that the total amount of carbohydrate as a percentage of dietary energy is less important than the carbohydrate type for risk of chronic disease
Source
What this means in simple language is that some carbs are longer acting and release their sugars over time instead of all at once.
This slow release of sugars helps to keep your blood sugar in check and helps prevent spiking that you’ll get if you eat a bowl of ice cream and soda.
Pure liquid sugar instantly affects your insulin levels in a negative way!
The bottom line is this.
You do not need to worry so much about spaghetti calories, spaghetti sauce calories, past calories or any other calorie.
Your body doesn’t even know what a calorie is. Calories are not in food…calories are a unit of measure.
50+ years ago some “scientists” decided to measure food by calories, and humans have gotten fatter ever since.
The sooner you forget about calories and focus on what’s important, the faster you will realize you can easily control your weight and your health.
Count How Much Sugar You Eat Daily Instead of Calories and You’ll Never Struggle With Weight Again
Sugar is delicious and sugar is addictive.
If you can limit your daily intake of sugar to 25 grams (6 teaspoons) or less you will see amazing health benefits that you never knew possible.
And all of this without having to spend hours in the gym.
- No more weighing your food
- No more counting calories
- No more wondering why you can not lose weight
But quitting sugar is difficult for all of us. Our human brain loves rewards and sugar is the ultimate reward. To get a grip on your health you have to get a grip on how much sugar you consume.
