I have not posted on this topic
for some time and this is a good place to revisit the subject.
Excess use of sugar is presently
endemic and built into our processed food chain to such a degree it is
difficult to avoid or even combat. The
actual danger is equivalent to the danger of smoking. Too much for too long and your health will deteriorate
into the diabetic syndrome disease. Fortunately
most folks eventually get wise and curb its use at some point in their lives,
usually a way to combat encroaching obesity.
The best solution would be to
regulate it back out of the processed food chain to force consumers to make
choices. Even better, we could use both
glucose when energy is needed (much safer but not so sweet) in conjunction with
stevia to provide natural sweetening.
This is presently applied in five percent of Japanese soft drinks. My point here is that there is a top down
regimen that could hugely reduce this public health curse.
Alternatively, we could charge
off ten percent of the public health bill off onto the sugar industry to get
their attention.
In the meantime it is up to
you. So a little advice is helpful.
First, it must be understood that
sugar tolerance is an acquired taste.
Stopping cold turkey as suggested here has the benefit of both resetting
your taste buds and immediately forcing your metabolism to relearn how to use
alternative sources of energy. It is not
as radical as the Atkins diet, a version of which is almost mandatory if you
are diabetic, but it does become necessary to use proteins almost exclusively
fro snack food. There are issues there
also but the efforts of Herbalife to promote protein shakes have gone a long
way toward making the process easier.
It is possible to get through a
working day with a breakfast protein shake and possibly a lunch shake followed
by a full evening meal.
I would model one’s approach
along those lines. You will soon learn
that you will then find an occasional carbohydrate snack becomes quite
unwelcome because the aftereffects are noticible.
You will find that there is a lot
to learn in terms of sustaining your non sugar diet, but it is worth the effort
in improving health and strength.
Sugar Stokes Our Happy Place
Most of us have had childhoods chock full of sugar laden
"rewards."
Scarcely is a child's birthday party complete without the gaudy,
colorful, super-sweet theme cake that makes everybody psychotic immediately
after eating it. Every bakery I have ever been to with my children had the
obligatory sprinkle sugar cookie at the ready to give out to children to forge
a positive relationship. Teachers, grandparents, and yes, even parents, use
candy, ice cream and cookies to bribe or win children over. The promised
dessert is the rainbow at the end of a meal a child does not want to eat. Just
the smell of cotton candy and belgian waffles reminds us of happy times at a
street fair or amusement park when we were carefree kids getting sick on the
tilt-a-whirl but enjoying it all the same.
It is no wonder we have such a positive association with sweets. They
viscerally evoke memories of happiness and make us feel like good people.
Each taste of sugar harkens back to feelings of love, approval, security and
good times. We are Pavlovian creatures. Once the association between sugar and
approval is forged we are victims of its lure.
We crave it physically, for its salivary yumminess in the mouth and
momentary rush of energy in the bloodstream, and psychologically for all those
happy aforementioned associations.
Craving sugar is also biologically very natural. Carbohydrates (sugar
being a simple form of carbs) are broken down into glucose in the digestive
tract. It is the stuff that fuels our physical and mental activities. When we
are tired, sleep deprived and overworked -- as, sadly, such a large percentage
of our culture is -- we reach for sugar to provide us with a compensatory
pick-me-up. Our physiology associates sugar with the energetic boost which kicks
in quickly as the refined sugar surges into the bloodstream. Numerous studies
have shown that chronically sleep deprived individuals tend to a higher body
weight than folks who value their sleep. The sleep deprived population tries to
fight its fatigue with food, and the most efficient, and therefore attractive,
food for someone desperate for energy is something sweet and sugary. Besides,
refined sugar products surround us everywhere. When on the run, it is easier to
pick up a candy bar or soda from a vending machine than a banana from a
supermarket.
If you did manage to score a banana to enjoy as a snack you would
benefit in many ways. Fruits are complex carbohydrates, along with vegetables,
whole grains, potatoes and legumes. They are high in fiber, promote healthy
digestion, give you a satisfied feeling and keep blood sugar stable. On the
flip side, if you give in to eating some simple carbohydrates, such as candy,
cookies, cakes, sodas, fruit juices, white flour breads and pastas, and most
commercial packaged breakfast cereals, your body will experience a drastic
spike in blood-sugar levels causing mood swings, cravings, compulsive eating,
weight gain and eventually an impressive slew of chronic and degenerative
illnesses.
Wait a second, what happened to the happy, feel-good part about sugar?
Well, in the body, as in this story, it doesn't last long...
Refined sugars are unnatural. All the valuable constituents of a whole
food, such as vitamins, minerals and fiber are processed out of it
leaving it in more of a chemical than a food form. This pure substance
basically slips through the digestive tract straight to the liver since there
is nothing for our digestive systems to "chew on." The liver is
overwhelmed and is not able to prevent a barrage of sugar from entering into
the blood stream which causes damage to the liver itself and all the cells of
the body. This incomplete sugar metabolism creates toxins and interferes with
cell respiration which leads to cell abnormalities and degenerative diseases. Frequent
sugar intake will cause the liver to swell. The excess sugar from the liver is
sent back into the bloodstream as fatty acids and is cleverly distributed
throughout less active parts of the body like the belly, thighs, breasts and
derriere. Coincidentally, 63.1% of American adults are either overweight
or obese.
Most of us know that sugar is not good for you but have little idea of
how much sugar they actually consume and how far reaching the harmful
consequences really are.
The typical American eats the equivalent of about 31 teaspoons of sugar
every day. This daily sugar intake totals almost 500 extra calories -- about
25% of the average person's caloric intake. This rate of sugar consumption adds
up to about 2 to 3 pounds of sugar each week or 135 pounds per person per year.
These sugar calories are often masked in breakfast cereals that claim
they are heart healthy or full of healthy fiber. They are found in innocent
looking iced tea and sports beverages and snuck into condiments, salad dressings,
crackers and commercial breads. A serving of McDonald's oatmeal, which is
touted as a healthy breakfast choice, contains more sugar than a Snickers bar!
It adds up even if one tries to avoid the obvious sugars in desserts and
sweets.
Now, lets take this 25% of an average person's caloric intake comprised
of refined sugars and consider that these calories are not just devoid of
nutrients but they actually leech vitamins and minerals from the muscles and
bones in order to be metabolized. Sugar consumption is what makes the vast
majority of Americans overweight and under-nourished. This one omnipresent,
"feel good" substance is making almost every American sick. Refined
sugar and simple carbohydrates are enormous contributors to, if not entirely
responsible for, all of these health conditions: heart disease, cancer, stroke,
diabetes, hormonal imbalances, depression, anxiety, tooth decay, premature
aging, migraines, allergies, osteoporosis, digestive disorders, suppressed
immunity, kidney damage, and hyperactivity -- especially in children.
The positive associations we have with sugar-laden holidays and special
events are a strong pull on our heart strings and our salivary glands. We may
never be able to over-ride them completely with the knowledge that sugar is
really bad for us. But there are steps that we can take and techniques to
empower our bodies and minds that can enable us to break the addiction and
arrive at happier and healthier boundaries in our relationship with sugar.
Ok, Go!
Giving up sugar is not difficult! It requires a resolute desire to do
so, a period of complete abstinence to break the addiction, learning what to
substitute for the times that one would normally eat something sugar sweetened
and then making a decision regarding any sort of reasonable sugar allowance.
There are two major motivators for people to change their diets. One is
inspiration and the other is suffering.
Through inspiration we have the desire to change to better ourselves
with the wisdom of knowing that thoughtful decision-making and discipline will
pay off down the road. Inspiration to create change reflects self love and self
respect and a willingness to rise above our base desires to achieve something
great for ourselves. Some people give up sugar for this lofty reason.
More often, people decide to give up sugar because they do not feel
good. Perhaps they are getting colds too often and are constantly struggling
with fatigue. Frequent and migraine headaches are debilitating enough to
encourage a change. The desire to have clear skin can even convince an image
conscious teen-ager to lay off the sodas and chocolate. More seriously the
scare of a pre-cancerous pap smear, a diagnosis of prediabetes, or a
debilitating digestive disorder will drive a patient to do whatever needs to be
done to turn his condition around.
Consider this: A patient with Crone's disease will notice significant
improvement to his condition in 24 to 48 hours after completely abstaining from
sugar. Drinking one soda per day can make a person 10 pounds fatter in one
year. Imagine the potential weight loss for an overweight person that drinks 3
cans of soda per day! Going cold turkey on sugar is guaranteed to even out and
enhance a person's energy and mood, and enable more mental clarity. Eliminating
sugar will lower blood pressure for people with hypertension and normalize
blood pressure for people that have episodes of extreme hypotension because low
blood pressure and erratic sugar levels go hand in hand.
Quitting the sugar habit is powerful medicine!
Are those girl scout cookies in the cabinet drastically losing their
appeal?
Are you ready to quit? Here's how!
You need to go cold turkey for three weeks. Throw out all the sweets in
your house (or give them to your least favorite neighbor). This includes sodas,
ice cream, cookies, pastries, candy, chocolate, sweetened cereals, granola
bars, "nutrition" bars, many snack foods, etc. The only sweet things
you should have left are fruit, unsweetened dried fruit, and raw honey.
Natural sweeteners such as maple syrup, agave nectar, and brown rice
syrup, seem pretty innocent but are still unnaturally concentrated sources of
sugar when compared to the original food they are refined from. Brown
rice is sweet, but you would have to eat buckets-full to get the
amount of sugars that are in a tablespoon of brown rice syrup. Fruit juices
present the same problem. An orange is good for you but a glass of orange juice
(even freshly squeezed) contains the juice of about 6-8 oranges. That's too
much for your blood sugar. So, you'll have to get rid of the juices too.
Go out and buy some delicious, fresh, organic fruit, and a nice variety
of it. You will crave sugar for the first 2-5 days and eating a banana, some
berries or an awesome mango will give you a lot of satisfaction. Why organic?
Because it's better for the planet, is not produced with toxic chemicals, and
tastes much better! What is good for the planet is good for you.
Plan your meals and snacks with a regular intake of protein in mind.
There is nothing better than a nibble of protein to alleviate a sugar craving.
It is commonplace for vegetarians, and especially vegans, to have strong sugar
cravings due to a deficiency of protein. Eggs, small portions of meats or fish,
beans and nuts provide the body with satisfying slow burning fuel which
stabilize blood sugar and reduce sugar cravings.
If you are used to eating sweetened breakfast cereal in the morning you
will have to replace it with either a completely unsweetened variety or
something entirely different. Unsweetened cereals are hard to find and may
taste a lot like compressed sawdust or shards of hockey pucks. You may want to
get more for your money and opt for an egg and a piece of whole grain toast.
(Better to get that from a local bakery than a packaged variety from the
supermarket. Bread from the supermarket shelf is likely to contain sweeteners.)
When you are sitting with your friends or family at the table after
dinner and someone mentions dessert... be strong! Stick with your resolution
and learn to decline. After doing this a few times, it becomes easy. It's just
a habit. The hardest part for me is shunning the mini Kit-Kat bar that I've had
plopped down in front of me on my airline lunch tray. But I've learned to just
tuck it under my napkin and remind myself that the pleasure I may get from it
will only last about a minute.
Good job! You've stood tough, nibbling on nuts when you had to, and now
you have not eaten sugar for five days. At this point the strong craving is
really gone, and you have found nutritious and yummy foods to take the place of
desserts and other sugary snacks. You will likely feel a greater mental clarity
and sharpness. Bonus!
Some say that the standard amount of time it takes to entirely change a
pattern, addiction or habit is 21 days, other sources say 30-45 days. There are
no hard and fast rules. If you were drinking a liter of soda and a box of
cookies per day it will take much more mental and physical reprograming than
for someone that had one cookie after lunch each day. Both will crave the habit
for a longer time than the body will crave the sugar. I find that after
completely eliminating sugar (that means 100%) for 3 weeks, you will get up
from the dinner table and realize that your brain did not even consider dessert.
When you reach that benchmark in quitting the sugar habit it is best to
stick with it. Just one pastry with your coffee at Starbucks will find you
considering another the next time. Hopefully, if you cheat, you will get a
headache from the sugar as your body reminds you that it is not doing this
anymore.
Yet on the rare occasion...since a giant piece of carrot cake can pop
up in front of you on your birthday accompanied by an embarrassing group of
singing waiters, there is a grace in asking for more forks for your friends and
having some, and enjoying it.
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