Edith Lovett to discuss sugar in our diet at Monday’s POP Meeting

Edith Lovett to discuss sugar in our diet at Monday’s POP Meeting

This week at Pounds off Pulaski we will be learning the importance of decreasing the amount of sugar we consume daily in our diets.  Edith Lovett, the Family and Consumer Sciences Agent from the Pulaski County Extension Office, will be the presenter.   Mrs. Lovett is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and has worked as an FCS Agent for the past 18 years.  She also has a weekly healthy column each Sunday in The Commonwealth Journal.  

 Did you know that the average American eats more than 150 pounds of sugar per year, according to the United States Department of Agriculture?  In 2008 the average intake daily of sugar was 19 teaspoons.  According to the American Heart Association the maximum amount of added sugars a man should eat each day is 9 teaspoons, and women 6 teaspoons. 

Added sugar is the single worst ingredient in the modern diet.  How often do we hear “we need to consume less salt,” but we do not talk much about consuming less sugar.  While reducing your intake of added sugars can definitely help you lose weight, the true benefits of eating less sugar go way beyond the scale.  We will be looking at foods we need to avoid that contains lots of sugar, and sampling foods that have no sugar.

Pounds Off Pulaski meetings are held each Monday evening with weigh-ins at 5:00 p.m. and the program following at 6:00 p.m. in the Conference Centers on the basement level of the East Tower at Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital.  These meetings are designed to provide support, information, and helpful tools to help participants keep on track so they can reach their personal goals. 

To help make the challenge more fun, incentive prizes are provided by POP Community Partners to participants when they reach certain goals.  Participants can earn points by:  attending weekly weigh-ins at the hospital; attending the weekly informational meeting; completing exercise trackers; watching the weekly program and completing bonus point opportunities on the blog and participating in the Journey to Fitness race series.

“We encourage participants to bring their filled exercise tracker cards certified by our fitness partners to the Monday night meeting so they can be included in their incentive point count,” said Susan Ramsey Wilson,  LCRH director of marketing and community relations.

For more information, visit www.PoundsOffPulaski.blogspot.com.