Jeff Csatari - The 14-Day No Sugar Diet: Lose up to a pound a day--and sip your way to a flat belly!

This book proposes a program of diet and exercise recommendations for the reader to follow. However, you should consult a qualified medical professional (and, if you are pregnant, your ob/gyn) before starting this or any other diet or fitness program. Please seek your doctors advice before making any decisions that affect your health or extreme changes in your diet, particularly if you suffer from any medical condition or have any symptom that may require treatment. As with any diet or exercise program, if at any time you experience discomfort, stop immediately and consult your physician.

Mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities in this book does not imply endorsement by the author or publisher, nor does mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities imply that they endorse this book, its author, or the publisher.

Copyright 2018 by Galvanized Brands, LLC

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Simon & Schuster, New York.

ebook ISBN 978-1-940358-18-5

Design by Andy Turnbull

Why we all need to be concerned about added sugars in our diets.

The life-changing benefits of the 14-Day No Sugar Diet.

Get a head start in four simple steps.

To prevent high blood sugar, know the enemy and how it attacks.

How to use this plan to strip away 14 pounds and dramatically improve your health in just 14 days.

Half the battle is just being aware of what you put in your mouth.

Keep your kitchen filled with these powerful foods that help regulate blood sugar, stop cravings, and burn fat.

What to eat for the next 14 days to lose weight and feel great.

Quench your hunger with a quick and satisfying treat.

More than 40 ways to eat what you love while consuming less sugar.

The No Sugar Diet Exercise Plan.

A simple blood test changed my life. It may have even saved my life because the results revealed something about me that I didnt know and would never have guessed: I had a problem with sugar.

My doctor told me I had prediabetes. A prediabetes diagnosis meant my blood sugar level was higher than it should be but not yet high enough to be classified as type 2 diabetes. Prediabetes is one key condition in a cluster of health problems (including high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol, and a high triglyceride level) that some doctors refer to as metabolic syndrome. This cluster of health issues increases my risk of heart disease and stroke. The blood test showed that I could be on the express train headed for full-blown type 2 diabetes and could potentially need daily insulin injections if I didnt make some lifestyle changes to prevent it from getting worse.

This was all a huge shock to me. Actually, I left my doctors office shaking. See, as a health journalist for nearly two decades, Ive been well aware of prediabetes and the frightening things that can happen if it turns into type 2 diabetes and isnt managed properly. Having high levels of glucose (sugar) in your blood means your body isnt processing the sugar you get from foods properly to use as energy. Untreated, elevated blood sugar can damage your heart, brain, kidneys and eyes. Diabetes can lead to limb amputation, blindness, kidney and nerve damage, and Alzheimers disease. So, you can imagine why this news worried me. And why it surprised me. I had no idea I was getting too much sugar in my diet.

You might not either.

But thats exactly why diabetes should concern you, too. It can sneak up on you even when you think your health is fine. This book will show you where to find the sources of hidden sugars in your diet and how to reduce their negative impact on your health. The good news for all of us is that by taking control of our health with the simple steps outlined in this book we can drop pounds, lose belly fat (a key risk factor for diabetes) and keep our blood sugar under control all at the same time. And if you have prediabetes or even type 2 diabetes, you can reverse that diagnosis, doctors say, through simple changes to your eating habits and getting more physical activity every day. It worked for me and I know it can work for you, too.

Type 2 diabetes is a dangerous disease that is now reaching epidemic proportions in the United States and most of the world. From 1988 to 2014, the number of people with the disease has increased by 382 percent. Now, nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population, or 29 million people, have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association, and more than a quarter dont know they have it. Many, many more Americans are headed toward a type 2 diagnosis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says 86 percent of adult Americansthats more than a third of the populationare living with prediabetes . The CDC says 90 percent of them have no idea they are at risk.

How the heck did I become one of them? I write about nutrition and exercise every day. I believed my diet was much healthier than that of most people simply because Im exposed to nutrition information every day. Its my job to keep up with medical journals with names like Clinical Nutrition , Journal of Endocrinology and JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association . Im a runner. I lift weights pretty regularly. Im not obese. I rarely drink soda. I dont smoke. And because of all of the above, I never thought to have my blood sugar level tested. Ever.

Then, while doing research for a book about healthy aging, I went to Quest Diagnostics for a blood draw to test for various markers of health, including high blood sugar. The test that revealed my prediabetes is called the hemoglobin A1c blood test (HbA1c for short). Hemoglobin (Hb) is a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the bodys tissues. When a persons blood sugar becomes high, glucose (a type of sugar) attaches to the hemoglobin. The hemoglobin becomes glycosylated . Think of a jelly donut (the red blood cell) covered in powdered sugar (the glucose). The glucose stays attached for the life of the red blood cells, about 2 to 3 months. So a hemoglobin A1c blood test measures the amount of sugarcoated hemoglobin in the blood for the 2 to 3 months before the test. Thats what makes it so useful; it measures high blood sugar over time.

My HbA1c topped 5.8%, which put me in the prediabetes category, according to my doctor, Florence Comite, MD, an endocrinologist in New York City. Now, some doctors wouldnt be very alarmed at my score. Its on the low end of the prediabetes spectrum, but Dr. Comite is more aggressive than most. She practices whats called Precision Medicine, looking deep into ones whole physiology to prevent disease before it emerges. She knew that I had a family history of diabetes, so she wanted to make sure I nipped this in the bud. And subsequent blood tests suggested that my numbers were trending toward diabetes. If your HbA1c results are 6.5% or higher, you have type 2 diabetes. Now that I think about it, I should have been smarter about getting checked out sooner. My mom has had elevated high blood sugar over the years. And my grandfather was diabetic.

HbA1c is one of the most useful diagnostic tests and predictors of your potential longevity. Its like peering into a crystal ball to see your health future. How? Because the higher your numbers, the higher your chances for developing long-term health problems caused by consistently elevated blood sugar levels. Your blood sugar has a huge impact on your veins and tissues and can over time trigger a host of problems including obesity, heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, vision problems and numbness in your legs or feet. Thats scary stuff.

But that scary stuff doesnt happen overnight, or even next month, which, for some people, makes doing anything about their high blood sugar seem less urgent. But while kidney failure may not be in your near future, consider something that your high blood sugar could be doing to you right now: storing belly fat. The carbohydrates that you eat, especially those simple sugars like high fructose corn syrup and others that are added to processed foods to make them taste sweet, are not benign; they impact your body in significant ways.