Sugar and highly processed carbs deteriorate every single organ. From your brain to the toe. They facilitate inflammation and insulin resistance, the two important factors associated with most modern diseases.
There is nothing bad with the carbohydrates. We have been enjoying carbs for years until we started processing them to highly-processed carbs and refined sugar.
Cutting sugar and processed carbs will restore your well-being and fill your life with energy and vitality. It is hard in the first two weeks, but you won’t regret the decision.
These 10 things will immediately begin to happen as you ditch sugar and refined carbs from your diet:
1. Stable blood sugar levels
5 out of 10 people are living with a condition that leads to type 2 diabetes when left unattended. That condition is called insulin resistance, meaning your body cells become insensitive to the insulin hormone, so they can’t utilize the glucose (sugar) in your blood.
If you are pre-diabetic or already have type 2 diabetes, reducing sugar and refined carbs will increase insulin sensitivity. You will control your blood sugar levels with ease. Eventually, you may get out of medications.
2. Reducing a risk to modern diseases
Sugar and highly processed carbohydrates are the most important factors in developing modern lifestyle diseases. Insulin resistance has been implicated in a number of lifestyle diseases, including obesity and overweight, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, end stage kidney disease, and certain types of cancer.
Sugar and refined carbs play a big role in facilitating inflammation. Quitting sugar and highly processed foods will keep these diseases at bay. You will curb inflammation and reduce the symptoms of inflammation and allergies.
3. Losing weight becomes easier
Getting a slim body starts with your food choices. In fact, it has more to do with your diet than with body exercises. You will lose weight easier when you replace sugar, sweetened drinks, and highly processed foods with other healthier options.
You need your insulin levels to go low in order to burn fat. Diets free of sugar and refined carbs have the bonus of relatively low levels of the fat storage hormone insulin.
4. Maintaining steady energy levels
A carbohydrate-rich plate is the reason you feel dizzy, weak, and drained in the morning despite taking the so-called heavy breakfast. Persistent insulin spikes after taking sugar and breakfast cereals lead to an energy crush. You may be regularly feeling fatigued and dizzy unless you binge on sweet cupcakes.
Cutting sugar and refined carbs changes the story. You will start bursting with stable energy levels throughout the days with needing extra energy boosters.
5. Better gut health
Sugar feeds bad gut bacteria and candida, leading to their overgrowth. The ultra-processed foods containing higher amounts of sugar and seed oils inflame your gut lining a condition leading to intestinal leakage.
This imbalance affects your gut and skin health, sleep, and mental well-being. Highly processed carbs lack fiber, which is important for good digestion. A diet low in sugar and highly processed carbohydrates promotes a better gut and relieves bloating and indigestion.
6. Improved oral hygiene
Your teeth will thank you. Diets from native tribes around the world are free from sugar. Tooth decay and gum diseases are unknown to them. They don’t even use fluorinated toothpaste. Sugar, in all its different forms, is the most important factor in tooth decay and poor oral hygiene. Tooth decay and gum diseases become a thing of the past as you quit sugar.
7. Stable mood, mental acuity and clarity
If you want to improve your creative capabilities, one of the best ideas to start with is to quit sugar and refined carbs. Sugar and highly processed foods are as addictive as cocaine. They destroy your brain cells. Diet does affect mood, but the opposite is also true. You often eat unhealthier meals when you’re feeling stressed, anxious, or sad, especially ultra-processed foods that are heavy in sugar, seed oils, and chemical additives.
Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are engineered to be highly palatable, consumed in large amounts, and addictive. They’re linked to poorer mental health—depression, anxiety, and cognitive decline. Mental acuity, clarity, and tranquility will improve as you throw sugary foods out of your life.
8. Slow aging process
While aging is a natural component of getting older, sugar speeds up the process. To keep things simple, each strand of DNA has a little cap at the end called a telomere that shields the DNA from damage. Those telomeres shrink with each reading and duplication of our DNA.
Sugar accelerates the telomere shortening that occurs naturally in our bodies, which speeds up the aging process. Sugar also facilitates aging by creation of Advanced Glycation End-products (AGEs). You will age gracefully much like the finest of wines when you make a total shift in your dietary habits.
9. Decreased hunger and cravings
Consuming sugary and processed foods causes a rapid spike in blood sugar levels. In response, the body releases insulin to bring those levels down, often leading to a crash. This crash triggers feelings of fatigue and hunger, prompting the desire for another quick energy fix. Sugar activates the brain’s reward system, releasing dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward.
Over time, the brain may become desensitized to normal levels of dopamine, requiring more sugar to achieve the same pleasurable response. This cycle leads to intense hunger and cravings. To disrupt the cycle, you will need to replace refined sugar and carbs with other healthier options listed below.
How does quitting sugar and ultra-processed carbohydrates feels like?
Sugar is as addictive as cocaine. Put this in mind. During the first two weeks of quitting sugar, you may experience withdrawal symptoms including headaches, increasing feelings of hunger and cravings, sweating, and tiredness. The good news is that these feelings won’t kill you. You will instantly get better.
Remember, “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old but on building the new” Socrates.
Try these hacks to build new habits as you cut sugar and processed foods;
- Train your mind that the goal is not to quit sugar; the goal is to transform your physical and mental well-being. Change your identity.
- Breaking a bad habit involves four laws, according to James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits: make it invisible, make it unattractive, make it difficult, and make it unsatisfying.
- But sweet, sugary foods are visibly appealing, easy to reach, and give instant satisfaction. As we have quoted Socrates, don’t focus your energy on fighting the old bad habits; focus on building the new ones.
- Here are the hacks: Build your new habits around prioritizing nutrient-dense foods such as grass-fed meat, eggs, fish, leafy vegetables, sweet potatoes, green bananas, arrowroots, avocados, millet, etc. These foods are satisfactory, make you feel full, and reduce hunger and cravings.
- Throw out sugar and processed foods from your kitchen and refrigerator. That is how you make these foods unattractive, invisible, and difficult to reach. Replace your kitchen cupboards with the listed foods. Every time you don’t eat sugary foods, instead you pick whole foods. Think of it as a scorecard to a healthy life. This change in mindset is rewarding.
- Next time, when tempted to eat sugar, drink water or eat veggies. The temptation will fade away.
- You may not be perfect. And perfectness is not the goal. Use the 80/20 rule. 80% of your diet in a week should come from whole and nutrient-dense foods; the remaining 20% provides room for other options. This rule eases your guilt and gives you consistency. You can occasionally buy a piece of cake at your daughter’s birthday party.
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Medical Writer | Offering top-notch writing services in the medical, scientific, and academic realms | I share practical insights on weight loss, fasting, nutrition, sleep, productivity and longevity.
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