Customer Reviews

The New Sugar Busters! Cut Sugar to Trim Fat

5 star:		(39)
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1 star:		(4)

 

 

About a month ago, in an effort at preventitive medicine to lower my cholestorol and resulting high blood sugars, my GP sent me to a cardiovascular surgeon. Well as a person that rarely has gone to doctors I wasn't exactly excited what this guy told me, but, when I asked him to explain what kind of a diet or program I should follow he just said buy the book Sugar Busters and follow what it says .....

I have been on all kinds of diets before (who hasn't) and every time some Doctor tried to explain to concepts to me they generally lasted only short periods since the darn diets just didn't make any sense, and it just felt like pieces were missing in the overall puzzle of chemistry in they body related to proteins, carbohydrates, sugars, chloesterol, good bad etc etc.....

What a great surprise this book was to me. Not only does it tie all the pieces together and explain its' diet as the 'Sugarbusters way of eating is roughly 40 percent carbohydrates 30 percent protein and 30 percent fat, it is a balanced diet' that makes overall sense.....

The authors go to great detail to explain the functions of the pancreas, the purposes of insulin, glucanol and exactly what happens when you eat a high protein meal vs a high cargohydrate meal....

For example, the book explains that "The glycemic index (GI) is a measure of how much of a specific amount of ingested carbohydrate (usually 50 grams) will cause a persons blood sugar to rise and remain elevated over time relative to the effect on blood sugar of the same amount of pure glucose (which is assigned a GI of 100)... NOW HERE's THE SHOCKER FOR ME the book continues that to "compare the potatoes blood stimulating effect realtive to table sugar is that it would take 118 grams of sugar to have the same impact as one potato. That is 29 1/2 teaspoons of sugar ... WOW all that from one miserable white potato ....

From a historical perspective the book explains that sugar is not even mentioned in the bible and is a modern phenomena dating back only to 500 AD .... obviously the authors have the hots against processed sugars, flour, white potatoes, even white rice (surprising to me cause I thought that rice was a salvation for me .... WRONG) .... The authors also do something that I would have thought was ABSOLUTE BLASPHEMY and even HERECY in that they talk about the famous US goverment food pyramid, that even my dog knows by heart, and advise the reader the this pyramid was formed after many battles with the sugar lobby, the flour lobby, the potato lobby, meat people, egg people, milk people etc etc etc ... needless to say the resulting pyramid is more than suspect, for lack of using stronger words .......

Ok .. so you get the picture ... and as an added bonus this book contains som 100 pages of recepies from restaurants around the US that are in line with the Sugar Busters diet ....

This is one FABULOUS book that is well written, easy to understand, clear cut (don't really need a PhD in chemistry to understand it)and I feel is a definive answer to all those bits and pieces of diet information and stupid, misleading and politically correct food pyramids that I have been exposed to over my 'sugar eating' lifetime.....

I happened upon the original incarnation of this title in mid 1998, when looking for a healthful alternative to the fast-food lifestyle I'd been living in my early-mid 20s. At 6'2" and 190 pounds, I was not searching to lose weight. Rather I was concerned about what toll eating on-the-run had taken on my body. I had tried the typically recommended low-fat way of eating for several years while in college and knew it did not work for me; I'd had several odd health problems related to the sheer lack of fat in my diet. After reading a quick and (rare) dispassionate review of SugarBusters! (SB), I decided to give it a go.

Almost instantly, I noticed I had more energy and stamina, which was important, working and being in school both full-time. Add to this I was eating more - and more frequently - than I had been, possibly ever. The range of what I was eating was diverse and delicious.

What I was not prepared for was the weight loss. In less than 3 months, I had dropped 27 pounds and several inches off my waist, settling at 163 pounds and a 33" waistline. And though I weighed a full 20 pounds more than I did when running cross-country in high school, I had a far lower bodyfat percentage. Simply eating correctly (for me, I will admit) allowed me to possess the best health and physique of my life.

I stayed with the SB way for several years, but eventually allowed the saboteurs (bagels, white rice, pasta, sugars, potatoes, and other of what i call "crappy carbs") to gain entry again into my life. I suffered the consequences, adding pounds over the years. So why did I stop eating the SB way? Stupidity, in a nutshell.

In the interim, I'd tried variations on Atkins, seeking to eliminate most carbohydrate from my diet, regardless of the quality of that carbohydrate. I'd lose and I'd gain. For me, it was simply too difficult to restrict carbohydrate simply on the total level of consumption, treating all carbs the same.

Then I remembered SB - and that a central tenet of the SB way is that "not all carbohydrate is created equal." There truly are "bad" carbs - those which cause wild spikes in serum insulin levels - and these must be avoided. However, better choices in carbohydrate consumption CAN be made... and should be for long-term success. This was the piece of the puzzle I was missing.

The book itself reads quite easily and is a subtle improvement on the original. The central message, the truth, itself is not very complex, which is I believe why some are disappointed with the level of sophistication of the book. If you're looking for the same relative message, with more scientific analysis, you might enjoy "Protein Power" or possibly "The Zone", although I believe the latter is rigid, unnecessarily so. One of the greatest strengths of the SB way is its flexibility. And if any way of eating is going to succeed in our world today, it's going to have to be flexible.

Oh - where am I today? I've dropped about 10 pounds in a month and am on my way back down... for good.

The Sugar Busters book was not only a rehash of the book before, it was a rehash of itself - if you actually take the time to read it straight through, you'll notice that half the content is the same material repeated over and over. And the print IS obnoxiously large.
However, if you are picking up Sugar Busters for the first time, this book is a great way to get the basic facts about the low-glycemic, right carbohydrate format of this diet, in a little more detail than the previous edition. The charts, recipes, and label information makes it easy to get started, and the lists of "acceptable" foods makes it easy to stick with it. The book is written in a simplistic, gimmicky format, but the diet makes sense - and it works.

The New Sugar Busters! is more than an expansion of the original book. The authors take what was, five years ago, a radical approcach to weight loss, and back it up with more thorough explanations of how and why a low glycemic diet is best for weight loss. The new book does nothing to change the basic approach to a low-sugar, correct carbohydrate lifestyle, but it does offer additional information based on the scientific evidence that now supports the basic premise of Sugar Busters!

I have been following Sugar Busters for 2 1/2 years and have lost over 50 lbs. I believe that the new edition makes a convincing argument for why Sugar Busters is not a low-carb diet and should not be lumped in with Atkins, Protein Power, and other low-carb diets. If you are looking for a nutritional plan to help bring in a healthier and leaner new year, then the New Sugar Busters may be just what you need!

I cannot understand why two previous reviewers have called Sugarbusters a low carb diet. It is not a low carb diet. I have tried low carb diets and could not stick with their restrictions. Then I found Sugarbusters and I have been more successful with it than any diet I've tried in the past twenty years, easily losing 50 pounds. It was great, I could eat more fat and I could have sugar-free ice cream, bread and nearly all kinds of fruit. Now where in Atkins diet can you have that?? Sugarbusters cuts out the sugar not the carbs. Carbs are not bad, sugar is.

When I asked my Doctor to put me on a diet to lose some weight, he immediatly said Sugarbusters. My father had recently been put on Atkins for high blood pressure and so I asked him about it. He said that Atkins is a great diet for those that need to lose a significant amount of weight quickly, but a non-sustainable diet overall. I had gone on Atkins to lend my dad emotional support, and having been on both diets, I can tell you that Sugarbusters is infintly easier. Not only is Atkins unhealthy over time( too many proteins can harm your liver which helps to break down fat in the first place), but Sugarbusters allows certain types of carbs like whole wheat breads so you aren't eating sandwich meat out of your hands. You can also eat fruit and veggies. In fact, the list of what you can't eat is quite small:
Procesed Enriched Flour
Corn
Potatos
Beets
White pasta
Any kind of procesed Sugar
I'v been on the diet for a week and have lost 6 pounds. Granted I'm a 24 year old man who exercises, but still, anyone can lose weight on this diet. The only bad thing about this diet is that there is no book or list in detail of what you should buy and eat. They tell you generally what you should look out for, but should do a better job teaching you how to read food labels and how many sugars a day you should allow yourself to eat.

The ideas in this book are on target. I have been following this diet for four weeks (about 80 percent of the time) and I am amazed at the remarkable changes that have taken place.

My blood pressure is down. My gnawing cravings are no more! I do not feel like falling asleep after lunch and I have lost 5 pounds. My skin is in better condition too.

Additionally, my eye sight has declined each year for the last 5 years. I was really struggling to see with my current prescription and could not wait for new lenses. About two weeks ago I noticed that I was not wearing my glasses as much and realized yesterday that I was reading a newspaper article, as I fixed my breakfast, without my glasses. I went to the eye doctor today and he advised that my eyes have not changed since last March. Perhaps this is a coincidence, but I really believe that it is the change in diet.

Hip, hip hooray for Sugar Busters! I want to follow this lifestyle for the rest of my life!

Update 5 months later -
I have now lost a total of 22 pounds and feel great. I have no cravings for junk food anymore. The longer you are on the diet, the easier it becomes.

This book focuses on the problems caused by excessive consumption of refined carbohydrates, especially sugar. A graph shows the steep increase in the western consumption of refined sugar in recent decades. There are other helpful graphs and data also included. The Pima Indians are cited. Their rate of diabetes increased by some 50% when they switched from the native fiber-rich corn to the modern refined fiber-free corn.

Unlike Atkins, the authors suggest that a large-scale reduction in carbohydrate intake is not necessary to cause weight loss, so long as the carbohydrates have a low glycemic impact. In my case, this was true. I lost 56 pounds on the Atkins diet without ever formally going into Atkin's Induction Phase (less than 20 grams of ANY type of metabolizeable carbohydrate intake per day). My addiction to sugary junk foods broke relatively easily. I found that, in my case, I could usually lose 1-3 pounds per week just by eliminating all refined carb products and cutting down on metabolizeable carb products to below about 40 grams per day. But the Atkins approach may be necessary for some people. Their metabolism may not switch from glycolysis to lipolysis without cutting back on metabolizeable carb products to below 20 grams daily, or even less. In addition, some people may not be able to break their cravings for sugary products without going into Induction for at least a while. Therefore, one can conclude that this Sugar Busters book may work for some people but not others. Atkins is clearly more detailed and systematic in his approach than this book.

After the initial weight loss, the Atkins approach and the Sugar Busters approach agree. Whatever carbohydrates consumed should be of the low-glycemic, high-fiber type. Emphasis should be placed on low-glycemic vegetables, nuts, and whole-grain products.

What I like most in this book is the emphasis on the starch and sugar excess in the American diet and the consequences for the health of the Americans. I totally agree with the authors of the book that the starch and sugar excess in the American diet is the main cause of the American obesity epidemic and related health deterioration and that high-fiber, low glycemic diets are efficient for weight control and weight maintenance.
The book contains a wealth of information and recipes that will make it much easier for an overweight person to trim her/his body mass index back to acceptable level with as bonus a better health!
After reading that book nobody will believe what was written Augustus 12, 2005 on top of the front page in the San Diego Union-Tribune that the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases is going to spend $23 million during seven years to learn more about Non Alcoholic Steato-Hepatitis (NASH). NASH is a recently discovered condition of progressive destruction of the liver cells by fat accumulation
The well documented San Diego Union-Tribune article also says that the condition is emerging rapidly on physicians' radar screens, that one out of ten adults has the condition, that it is found increasingly in children and that obesity and diabetes are predisposing factors. The San Diego Union-Tribune does not mention that the fat that amass in the liver of 30 to 75 million Americans and produces NASH in 6 million of them is the fat they make from the excess of starch and sugar in the American diet. The San Diego Union-Tribune does not mention it because none of the researchers cited in the article has made any allusion to it.
Before spending 23 million taxpayers' money on research the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases should order some copies of the book "The New Sugar Busters"!

I tried Sugar Busters because I have seen others lose weight on Atkins but I knew I couldn't stick with a plan that had so many restrictions. I heard that Sugar Busters was similiar to Atkins in a lot of ways but less restrictive. I have found it to be highly successful for me. At first, living without white potatoes, white rice, white bread, corn, and other forbidden foods was difficult. The first week I was hungry and shakey and having my doubts---but I lost 4 1/2 lbs! Week 2 I was feeling much better and actually feeling full after meals--and I lost 3 1/2 lbs. I have continued to lose between 3-4 lbs per week since then. My craving for sugar has significantly decreased, and I am eating more fruits and vegetables that I ever have. I feel like I'm eating healthier. Can I stick to this plan religiously for the rest of my life? Yes and No. I think occassionly I might have some of the forbidden foods but for the most part, I see the benefits of NOT eating the forbidden foods and will never go back to eating them in the same quantities I used to. I would highly recommend getting the book, Sugar Bust For Life: A Cookbook and Companion Guide by the Brennan's in addition to this book. I refer to it on a daily basis. It opened my eyes to what I CAN eat and includes some fantastic recipes and a Brand Name Guide of allowed foods. If you are serious about not only losing weight, but eating healthier, I highly recommend Sugar Busters.