As Jonny reminded us a couple of weeks ago, despite its "all-natural" status, we still need to keep sugar at arm's length. Held up to its competitor, high fructose corn syrup, it might look like the lesser of two evils. But just because it's a "better" choice, doesn't make it a good choice. Sugar is still empty calories no matter how you look at it.

Sometimes, though, the food that sugar is wrapped in is not. For instance, Oreo cookies are a clear-cut food to avoid and eat only in moderation. But apples have sugar and are rich in fiber, vitamin and minerals too.

That's not the only surprising thing about sugar. Think you know everything there is to know about the sweet stuff? Take this sugar facts quiz from AOL Health and you might be surprised by what you learn about sugar, sugar substitutes and artificial sweeteners.

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Welcome to Walking the Walk, a feature that takes a deeper look at commonly shared diet and fitness advice. Every other week, I'll choose one piece of advice and practice it for seven days. Then I'll report back on what I discovered about making it work in real life and how it affected my own personal fitness -- and how it ultimately can affect your own efforts.

Common diet advice tells us that we should be able to have our cake (or cookies or brownies or ice cream) and our healthy weight, too ... as long as we remember that treats are treats and are to be only eaten occasionally.

This works for a lot of people. And then there are the rest of us, the ones who buy a bag of snack-sized candy bars, intending to eat just one now and then, and then manage to devour half the bag in one sitting.

With friends like sugar, who needs enemies?

In every single weight loss attempt I've ever made, sugar was the thing that eventually tripped me up. But this time around, it's different. I've had a great deal of success, and I'm doing everything I can to keep those diet derailers from stopping my "downward" progress.

Since my biggest diet derailer is sugar, it has to go. Not for good, but for the long haul. Until my new healthy eating habits are firmly in place, letting myself indulge in even a little treat here and there is playing with fire.

Join me on this week's Walking the Walk, where I learn to live without my favorite vice. No processed or added sugars, period. Buckle up, because it promises to be a wild ride.

Many Americans wonder how Europeans are able to stay so relatively thin (comparatively speaking, anyway) when they are known for sometimes eating less-than-healthy foods. To begin solving this mystery, it's first worth mentioning that many Europeans' diets are more healthy than you realize; foods such as fish, olive oil, red wine and many others are quite popular. The major difference, though, has more to do with portion size.

The 3 square meals a day dietary construct is fundamentally American, one that is seldom followed by other industrialized nations. In lieu of eating three large mega-meals, many Europeans will eat several small meals throughout the course of the day. This adjustment, by itself, can have a significant impact on metabolism, as can the size of the portions consumed. Think of it this way: Even if you're eating healthy foods, it's not wise to eat massive amounts of them in one sitting. For example, bananas are healthy, right? Right indeed. But, if you were to eat three bananas in a row, you've just consumed far too many calories, carbs and sugars. Now, apply this logic to foods that aren't particularly good for you, and you'll soon see why eating such large portions of food is a surefire way to pack on the pounds.

Apparently, the new diet trend follows this portion size approach, using specially-designed plates and bowls to ensure that portions are kept under control.

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When it comes to beauty products, synthetic ones will usually have quicker results than all-natural ones. But sometimes a girl (or boy!) just wants to use something from good old Mother nature, and with all the chemicals that go into everything these days, who can blame us?

Here's a skin care product for the hippie in all of us: Avocados. A certain sugar that is unique to avocados can boost collagen and improve the structure of the dermis. Make sure to save some for your salad too, though, because they're good for you both inside your body and outside of it.

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