Win The War On Sugar

In this exclusive excerpt from his new book, Zero Sugar Diet, Men’s Fitness editorial director David Zinczenko unlocks the secret to achieving the perfect healthy diet: mastering the daily balancing act between sugar and fiber. With this detailed and delicious plan, you’ll gain muscle, lose weight, and feel great—for life.

- David Zinczenko

ONE

MY STRUGGLE WITH SUGAR

IF YOU ASKED THE 25-YEAR-OLD ME TO PREDICT WHAT my 40's would look like, I would have used just one word to describe them: fat.

Fat was my inevitable destiny. I’d grown up as a lonely latchkey kid with a serious sugar addiction; my best friends were the Three Musketeers, and all I knew of the world outside my suburban Pennsylvania neighborhood was French vanilla, English toffee, and Dutch chocolate. When my 200 pounds went into the Navy Reserves after college, I could see the disgust on the faces of the basic-training instructors: Who sent us this leaky old tugboat? And how the heck are we supposed to turn it into a battleship?

The Navy did whip me into shape—morning revelry of burpees and sprints for months on end will do that to you—but when I entered the workforce soon after, the weight began to pile back on. So I started exercising like a fiend, completing the New York City Marathon twice and turning the company gym into an extension of my office. But in a lot of ways, I was just trying to outrun the devil. My father had struggled with severe obesity for most of his own adulthood— he’d be dead from a weight-related stroke by the time he was 52—and there was no reason to believe that destiny wasn’t awaiting me, too. No matter how hard I exercised, nothing could overcome my own desires for sweet, instantly gratifying confections.