Munching on a “healthy” muffin or drinking a “skinny” latte while reading this article? Might want to reconsider that breakfast choice if you’re trying to shed a few pounds. Celebrity nutritionist JJ Virgin, author of the New York Times bestseller The Virgin Diet, is back with JJ Virgin’s Sugar Impact Diet (Grand Central, Nov.), a new program that targets the single biggest needle mover when it comes to that often immovable number on your scale: sugar. That means not simply cutting out or cutting back on sugar; it means learning how to cut out the right kind of sugar. “What people still don’t get,” says Virgin, a board certified nutrition specialist whose A-list clients include Nicole Eggert, Gene Simmons, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, and “Superman Returns” star Brandon Routh, “is that honey and agave are still sugar and all that sugar ends up in the same place. If you can’t store it in your muscles for energy, it’s stored as fat. So a high sugar diet is really a high fat diet. Another challenge for anyone trying to lose weight is that we’re eating hidden sugar in things like pizza and salad dressing. It’s important to learn how to read a label, as there are over 50 words that can be substituted for sugar—fruit juice concentrate, dried fruit—whenever it says syrup or glazed, it’s all sugar.”
Complete with recipes, grocery lists, meal plans and survival strategies if you’re having a sugar attack, JJ Virgin’s Sugar Impact Diet introduces readers to the concept of sugar impact: how different sugars react differently in your body. High sugar impact foods cause weight gain, nasty energy crashes, and inflammation, while low sugar impact foods give you energy and promote fat burning. The book reveals the seven most damaging sugars (grains, roots, “packaged fruits,” no-fat and low-fat dairy and diet foods, sugary drinks, dressings and condiments, and sweeteners) and explains how simple food swaps (trade low-fat milk, which is loaded with sugar, for whole-fat milk, and sorbets for ricotta cheese) can help you lose up to 10 pounds in two weeks without feeling deprived.
You can meet Virgin today, noon–1 p.m., when she’ll be signing in the Grand Central Publishing booth (2819). And if you arrive a bit thirsty, GCP is doing an in-booth promotion with HINT— a purified water plus a splash of natural flavor. Sugar-free, of course.
