I used to think sugar was fine? I knew it was bad for you, but I thought it was OK in moderation.
It was only until I spoke to a friend who had given up sugar and had seen the benefits on her health, that I decide to look into doing a sugar detox.
If you?re having trouble sticking to your diet, staying under your calories, or just getting motivated to lose weight then most likely the problem is sugar.
Anyone who knows me knows how much I used to love my candy, desserts and anything sweet. A true sugarholic!
So if I can do it, anyone can!
Added sugar is probably single worst ingredient in the modern diet.
No matter how hard I stuck to my diet or exercised I couldn?t seem to lose the weight.
The truth is for people who are not training in extremes or are VERY genetically gifted, sugar is public enemy #1.
And even those people would also GREATLY benefit from cutting it out.
There is not a single substance on planet earth that will drive you to more frustration or headaches with weight loss and being healthy than SUGAR.
So I have created this list of 10 reasons to stop eating sugar to help you detox.
1. Sugar is Addictive
So just how addictive is it?
A study on rats to examine how powerful certain addictions were. It turns out that with everything equal, rats PREFERRED more sugar over more cocaine.
Sugar is one of the most addictive substances on planet earth.
However most people won?t even admit or know that they addictive. Why?
Because sugar in food is often hidden. Which leads on to…
2. Sugar is Hidden
Go to your fridge and pick out 3 condiments that you love to eat.
I bet you that they are all FULL with sugar.
There?s a reason non-fat yogurt tastes sooooo good. It?s LOADED with sugar.
Companies know how addicting it is. This is why your favorite products contain hidden traces of it to keep you hooked to the products.
Sugar has also been given DOZENS of different names to help hide them in our foods.
They?ve got you eating it without even realizing it.
?Low Fat? / ?Reduced Fat? / ?Fat Free?
Anything that should have fat in it, but from which said fat has been removed almost always has sugar added ? usually in the form of high-
Fructose corn syrup. Why? Because fat tastes good.
Taking it out makes food taste less good. Manufacturers want you to want to eat their food products, so they add sugar to make it taste good again.
Ingredients ending in ?ose? = sugar.
There are a lot of them and they all have different chemical structures, but they all have one thing in common. They?re all fancy words for sugar.
Anything that?s 0g ?per serving? is probably a lie.
If something says that it has 0g of sugar *per serving (or with some funny symbol other than * next to it), beware! Check the serving size. Is it an unreasonably small amount?
If so, you?ll find sugar somewhere in the ingredients list. If one serving contains less than a certain amount of sugar, companies are allowed to round down to 0. It?s dastardly, but it?s legal.
Related: 20 Ways to beat the sugar cravings for good!
3. Sugar WILL Make you Fat
A popular study done in the 1970?s originally convinced us that consuming fat makes us fat.
Hence the low fat diets that were so popular in the in the 1980?s and 90’s.
Unfortunately, that study was based on correlation, and it was later PROVEN that sugar and over consumption are the main problems
Most sources of simple sugars are considered ?empty calories.? Unlike foods like fruits or vegetables, which provide tons of fiber, vitamins, and minerals, sugar doesn?t really add anything to the diet ? except for calories.
This means that instead of eating foods that promote satiety and keep you feeling full, you?re just eating to add extra calories to your diet. Not ideal.
And as you can imagine, this can lead to weight gain pretty easily.
One study even found that kids who drink the most sugar-sweetened beverages were 55 percent more likely to be overweight or obese compared to kids with the lowest intake.
4. Sugar Blocks Your Weight Loss Hormone
Leptin is the hormone in charge of regulating your body?s weight and energy.
When you have excess body weight, leptin it contacts the brain and says not to eat anymore.
This mechanism make us stop being hungry and eat less when there is plenty of fat in our fat cells, which is supposed to prevent us from becoming obese.
If the brain doesn’t see the leptin, it won’t know that the fat cells are full and there won’t be any signal to tell the brain that it needs to stop eating.
This is how leptin resistance makes us fat. The brain thinks that the body is starving and makes us eat more and burn less.
This is how excess sugar throws body fat regulation off, making the brain think that it needs to keep eating.
5. Sugar doesn?t make you feel full
Added sugar is not satiating and will cause you to continue to feel hungry and unsatisfied after eating it.
Compare this to something like protein, which is so satiating that it causes a decrease in calories.
There?s a reason you probably don?t feel super satisfied after indulging in a high-carb, high-sugar snack, and it has to do with your hormones.
Two main hormones are responsible for letting us know when we?re hungry and when we should stop eating.
Ghrelin, the hunger hormone, increases appetite and signals to us that it?s time to eat.
Leptin, the satiety hormone, does just the opposite by turning off hunger when we?ve had enough.
But when we eat lots of sugar this appetite control system doesn?t work the way it?s supposed to. Ghrelin isn?t suppressed and leptin isn?t stimulated.
The result? You can eat plenty of sugar but never feel full. This can lead to overeating and, inevitably weight gain.
It?s easy to understand why sugar is causing us to be fat.
6. It Can Cause Cancer
Sugar feeds all the cells in our body, including cancer cells, and there?s plenty of evidence suggesting that piling on the sugar could actually be causing certain types of cancer.
Research has found that excess sugar intake is linked to pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, and liver cancer.
For instance, cancer cells use sugar like a sports car uses gasoline ? it depends on it to burn faster, to grow, and to multiply rapidly.
In cancer cells, sugar accelerates cell division, in what is known as the Warburg effect, based on the Nobel Prize winning research by Otto Warburg in 1931 whereby he showed that cancer cells thrive in the absence of oxygen where this is more sugar present.
It?s pretty clear that sugar should definitely be limited in a cancer-prevention diet.
8. It Ages Your Skin
Advanced glycation end products ? also known as AGEs ? can cause skin to become dull and wrinkled fast.
AGEs are formed through a process when proteins and fats are exposed to the sugar in your bloodstream.
This causes damage to both collagen and elastin, accelerating the aging of your skin and causing it to lose its firmness and elasticity.
The more sugar in your diet, the more AGEs you?re accumulating ? and the faster your skin is aging.
9. It Drains Your Energy
Ever feel sluggish and tired after eating a sugary snack? You can thank all that added sugar for that.
Orexin cells, which are responsible for keeping us awake and energized, are suppressed when we eat lots of sugar.
When these cells aren?t working at their best, it can make us feel sleepy and drained, hence that post-food coma you might find yourself slipping into after a big, sugary meal.
10. It Rots Your Teeth
We?ve all been told by our parents or the dentist office about flossing more often and cutting back on the sugar to prevent cavities.
But did you know that sugar is actually the only cause of tooth decay? And given the increase in sugar consumption in recent years, it?s not all that surprising that approximately 92 percent of adults in the US have experienced tooth decay
Compare that to people living in Nigeria; with almost no sugar intake, only 2% of people in Nigeria have experienced tooth decay.
The best way to protect your teeth from the side effects of too much sugar is to eliminate it from your diet.
How Can You GIVE IT UP?
Well, no there is no miracle solution or magic potion to make the cravings go away.
But what you can do is eat the RIGHT foods that help lessen (and eventually beat) the cravings and get in the right mindset.
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