As one gets older some get larger and the author has certainly struggled with weight over the years. This  was down to laziness, disinterest, poor diet.

While on holiday in January 2019 just shy of age 60 I had a mild health event at weight 97.3 kg and resolved to lose a few kilos.

I resolved to start small by changing one thing in my diet – reducing the amount of sugar and increasing activity levels.

Removing sugar from a first world diet is not easy to do. Sugar seems to be added to everything. Stopping eating chocolate and sweets is straight forward but try finding breakfast cereals that have less than 10% sugar content.

Most Kellogs products probably should not be called food – maybe desserts? See below a list of Kellogs products compared to my previous favourite chocolate bar – a Nestle Chokito.

Avoid the following.

Kellogs Fruit Loops – 38.8% sugar

Nestle Chokito – 35% sugar

Kellogs Coco Pops – 32.4% sugar

Kellogs Sultana Bran – 28.9% sugar with a 4.5 health star rating – what a joke!

Kellogs Just Right – 22.9% sugar

Kellogs All Bran – 16.7% sugar

Recommended products – I would classify the following products with less than 10% sugar as foods. Of course you cannot beat straight oats. Choose a product with the lowest sugar concentration that is palatable to you. Of course

Kellogs Special K ‘Lower Sugar’ – 9.6% sugar (compare with normal Special K at 13.9%)

Carman’s Original Fruit Free Muesli – 8.0% sugar

Sanitarium Weet Bix Original – 3.3% sugar

Uncle Tobys Traditional Oats – 1% sugar

Uncle Tobys Vita Brits – 0.4% sugar

One of my other favourite breakfasts has always been pancakes. I have eaten the shake and bake style for years without ever reading the nutrition information on the label. I have always added some maple syrup which I know has a very high sugar content but had been completely unaware of the pancake mix itself.

Only recently I realised that for all of the top shelf shake and bake pancake mixes they contain a staggering amount of sugar with examples as follows:

Green’s Traditional Pancake Mix -Greens Blueberry & Butter Milk Pancake Shake – 16.7% sugar

Green’s Original Pancake Shake – 16.4% sugar

White Wings original Pancake Shake – 9.1% sugar

White Wings Buttermilk – 8.4% sugar

Coles Buttermilk Pancake No Added Sugar – 1.7% sugar. Equally surprising was that this product actually had fibre added and overall had significantly lower calories, salt and carbohydrates. This has now become our only pancake mix.  My daughter is not too keen on it but it tastes fine to me. I suppose I need to be careful not to add too much maple syrup. See nutrition information in image below.

For a camper shake and bake is a convenient food with great shelf life.