My Drug Of Choice Is Sugar: How Sugar Is Killing You, Slowly And What To Do About It
When I consume large quantities of sugar I’m puffy, bloated, grumpy AF, and down right miserable. Why? Because simply put, sugar is poison. It’s not new information that sugar is extremely toxic to your body. We all know this. But there is dissonance between what we know in our minds and our cultural, emotional, addictive, social, and habitual selves. These components are not to be pushed aside without regard as they are extremely important influences on us. Still, we must find ways to merge the thinking mind with the emotional mind to change our habits.
Sugar is everywhere yet it is not an essential nutrient for life. It is very hard avoid added sugars unless you strictly eat at home and cook all your meals. We do not need sugar for any reason in our bodies other than that it tastes delicious. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 38 grams daily for men, 25grams daily for women and 12-25 grams for kids. Ummmmm, no. That’s too much. For reference, there are about 9 teaspoons in one 12 oz can of soda, that’s about 38 grams. 38 grams of something you don’t even need. 38 grams most of which will be turned into fat to store for later.
Sugar is an additive to enhance flavor and/or to preserve/extend shelf life. It’s in sauces, dips, breads, all processed and prepackaged foods, sweets and beverages. This is one of the reasons that label reading is a must. You’ll find sugar is very bizarre places. It may be labeled as: sugar, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), corn syrup, rice syrup, fructose, glucose, dextrose, maltodextrin to name a few.
Here’s some of the ways sugar can screw up your health:
Sugar lights up the brain similarly to the way drugs such as heroin do. It fires up the reward center in the brain giving you a “high” or a feeling of goodness. Long term, this makes it more difficult to learn and retain information.
As stated above the revving of the reward system signals you to eat more so you can continue to get that good feeling. Leading to excessive caloric intake.
Too much sugar prematurely ages your skin by disrupting the body’s ability to make/repair collagen and elastin.
Excess sugar is stored as fat. Because the body prefers to use glucose (sugar) as it’s primary source of energy the liver is really good at metabolizing it. However, too much sugar is converted into fat so that it can be stored as a future energy source should you suddenly start to be in a glucose deficit (like in actual starvation). This is the primary thinking for how ketogenic diets work to reduce belly fat.
Sugar is highly oxidative. This means that it creates free-radical molecules which damage cells, tissues, and organs. Oxidation is linked to every chronic disease we see today. And no, you can’t just take antioxidants to counter this effect.
Too much sugar creates dramatic spikes and dips of your blood sugar and increases insulin resistance. Long-term this leads to diabetes. Trust me, you do not want diabetes. It comes with a host of serious health risks and issues.
High sugar intake (due to the oxidative damage most likely) puts you at risk of cardiovascular disease and other chronic illnesses.
Sugar is extremely addictive. As pointed out in the first bullet, sugar is kin to heroin. Just don’t with heroin and just keep sugar at minimum.
Tied to sugar’s addiction is that we often use food to manage our feelings. Bad day? Sugar will fix it. Just kidding, it won’t. But try telling your brain that.
Too much sugar consumption has recently had me feeling bloated, depressed, flabby, grumpy and full of rage. I mean, what’s a girl to do in social isolation/quarantine but eat and bake sweets? After denying that was my issue I knew I had to get it together. I can handle the occasional treat or sugar in my meal. But I am physically destroyed (pain, discomfort, mood changes, swollen joints) if I over do it and it’s a very careful balance. I had to stop with the sugar. As with all addictive behaviors and bad habits, stopping this daily ingestion of sweets was not a pretty site. But it lasts only a couple days and I lived through it… again.
**Note: this is largely in reference to added sugar. Whole fruits and veggies do have sugar in them but they are also combined with fiber, vitamins and minerals. The benefit out weighs the negative effects of the sugar. Plus, combined with fiber, vitamins and minerals the sugar is absorbed at a slower rate making it less of an issue.
Here are some tips to stop or lower your consumption of sugar:
Cold turkey. I totally do NOT recommend this unless you like cold sweats, headaches, and the shakes. However, this is how I roll because I like to have it over with. Because sugar is a drug, because it lights up the brain’s reward center when you stop it cold turkey you WILL feel it, you WILL need it, you WILL be mad about not having it. You may get headaches, chills, cold sweating, hot flashes, etc. It’s entirely gross but won’t kill you, won’t last more than 3 days, and you will be ok.
Taper your dosage. Even sounds like a drug when we talk about “going off” sugar. Slowly start to limit your daily intake. Drop one sugar-laden thing a day. Maybe it’s switching that overpriced coffee with 4 pumps of syrup for a regular latte, maybe it’s ditching the 3pm cookie/chocolate/treat, maybe it’s making a sauce for your dinner without sweeteners in it, whatever it is, one less per day over a weeks time will help you get a grip on the amount of added sugar in your daily life.
Replace a sweet treat with protein/healthy fat. Sometimes our blood sugar does drop and we need some fuel to re-energize. Reach for protein, fiber and healthy fats instead of sweet foods. It will energize you longer and fire your brain more appropriately.
Fast 16 hours per day. I recommend this over night. An example schedule: stop eating at 7pm break your fast with a meal of fiber, healthy fat, and protein at 11am the next day. You may need to ease into this as well. There are one million benefits to fasting.
Is your sweet tooth extra strong? Try berries. I like frozen blueberries and frozen raspberries to curb sweet cravings.
If you must add sweet to your cooking, reach for a whole fruit such as apples. The fiber in the apple helps to slow the uptake of the naturally occurring fructose (sugar) in the fruit. Your body knows what to do with a whole fruit; it knows how to use it. Your body does not know what to do with white sugar, it’s too much and thus just gets stored as fat.
Note: if you are like me and you have a strong sweet tooth I will not lie to you and tell you that your cravings will eventually go away. They won’t. But your habits will change and your skills for what do with a craving will change and the cravings will become less frequent. This way when it does hit, you will have the cognitive ability to pause and say to yourself, “I’m ok, I know what I need, I know how to care for my body. A sugary treat will not serve me”.
Eliminating excess sugar from your diet is an excellent way to support your body right now, today. Doing so will help you reverse aging, reverse chronic illness, improve your mood, help you sleep better, help you feel better. You can do it without the help of a physician. You can do it without telling anyone or by telling everyone. Either way, you can do it, I know you can.