The Sugar Challenge

I have previously written about my health journey because I am frequently asked what I did to drop so much weight. A big part of that journey was getting rid of sugar. Some people hear that and say, “Nope,” and stop listening. I sometimes feel those people aren’t really that serious about wanting to improve their health and/or lose weight. Giving up sugar is not an easy task, but it is certainly a life-changing one.

Before I get into my personal experience, allow me to take a little time defining what I consider to be sugar. Clearly scoops of sugar itself are in my definition, but I want to take time to talk about the things that people don’t think of as being sugary. Sodas (or if you are from the south… Coke) are loaded with sugar. Actually worse than that, they are made with syrup which is an even higher concentration of sugar. If you think you are doing right by drinking diet drinks, think again. They may not have sugar, but they have something worse, artificial sweeteners. You are better off drinking the real deal, but stay away from all of it. Most fruit and fruit juices are loaded with sugar, albeit natural. Sugar is sugar! Your body doesn’t know whether it’s sugar from fruit juice or a bowl of ice cream. Most processed foods are loaded with sugar. If the words fat free are on the package, stay away! Usually the sugar content is higher in those foods. Foods that are high in carbohydrates are also going to cause your blood sugar to spike. Carbohydrates convert to and are stored as sugar in your body.

Sugar is very addictive! When I first gave up sugar, I couldn’t believe the amount of withdrawal I went through. I felt run down, I continuously thought about bad foods like candy bars and cakes, and for the first few days I had physical pain and headaches that no amount of Ibuprofen would take away. After about 1-2 weeks the cravings began to subside, but it was up to a month that I stopped thinking about it and had more self-control over it. I have seen mixed research that says sugar is addictive, and others that say it is not. Just based on what I went through, I call bull on the research that says it isn’t addictive! Addiction to anything causes your brain to release endorphins and dopamine for taking part in that thing to which you are addicted. Eventually you get rewards (dopamine) released in your brain just for thinking about that thing, so the cycle continues until you break the habit and in time even stop thinking about it. There are some people who have an almost euphoric release when they eat sweets. This explains why.

When I gave up sugar the benefits were almost immediate. Once I went through the detox for a few days, I started feeling better. I didn’t realize how achy and sore I felt all over my body until it stopped. I was getting frequent, mild headaches before that and they stopped. My face was blotchy and pink, and I had Rosacea before giving up sugar, and that cleared up within a week or two. I had Eczema in my scalp area that caused flaking that looked like bad dandruff. That cleared up as well! All of these things literally happened within the first 1-2 weeks.

A diet high in sugar and carbs caused me to feel hungry all the time. The reason is, high amounts of sugar caused me to crave more sugar and never feel full. So, every few hours I felt like I was super hungry. When I cut out the sugar, the hormones released in my brain that tell me I am not hungry, but satisfied, started to normalize. I was able to eat less and not feel hungry all the time. I once asked a Dietician what I could do to stop craving sweets and the answer seemed ridiculous to me at the time. She told me to stop eating sweets and the cravings would stop. As ridiculous as that sounds, I found it to be 100% true.

Based on what I have experienced and some very compelling documentaries and research on the subject, I believe most auto-immune diseases and many illnesses are tied to high sugar and carbohydrate consumption. I believe that a diet high in sugar and carbohydrates is as bad as a diet high in salt, if not worse. It is my opinion that sugar can cause high blood pressure, high heart rate, and make you retain water as much as does salt. I have had a normal heart rate and blood pressure for years. We are talking 120/80 and 72 beats per minute. That is not bad, it is considered normal. However, when I gave up sugar my blood pressure actually went down to 110/70, which is still in the normal range. For some people, their normal may be a little low or a little high, but I noticed that my blood pressure went down a little and the swelling in my body went down a lot. My heart rate is now around 60, which I will also attribute to walking/running most days of the week.

If you look at labels you can see how much sugar is in each food you consume. If you look into the details of the ingredients, you may see words like sucrose, fructose, high fructose corny syrup, dextrose, glucose, lactose, maltose, and the list goes continues. The main point is the look at how many grams of sugar and how many grams of carbohydrates. It doesn’t matter what the source of sugar, it all gets converted to fat in your body. So whether you are using organic sugar cane, or molasses, or corn syrup, doesn’t matter. Your body just converts it to stored fat. The same applies to carbohydrates. Whether you are eating bread from the store or making delicious homemade bread, they are both still high in carbs, so gorging yourself on bread is not going to help you even if you are eating something organic or gluten-free. The carbs are converting to sugar and then fat. That being said, I don’t eat things that are zero carbs and sugar, just low.  For example, I eat a protein granola bar for breakfast and it has 7g of sugar. I try not to go too far above that when choosing foods.

If I fall off the wagon and start eating sugar again I feel like I have a food hangover the next day. I feel physically tired and sore and just feel blah. (Blah is a very technical term for feeling icky!)  If I go more than a few days on it, I get pain in my low back, knees, and ankles and the skin condition in my scalp starts to return. It all went away quickly, and you can bet that it will return quickly. It’s just easier to stay on the wagon.

By now you may be thinking to yourself, “Well… if I don’t eat bread or things with high carbs and sugar, what can I eat?” There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is, you will have to deny yourself many foods. The good news is, once you detox from all the bad foods, you will be more satisfied with the good foods. You will no longer live to eat, but you will eat to live. I try to eat a lot of vegetables and I add proteins and healthy fats. I will occasionally have a fruit here and there, but not more than one a day, and definitely not things high in sugar like pineapple and grapes. I also avoid potatoes. They are high in carbohydrates, and they also are an inflammatory food. I try to eat a salad for lunch every day. It gets old, but believe it or not, you get used to it. I use spinach in my salad because it is high in vitamins and minerals and is so good for me. If I eat bread, I try to make it only once in a one day period and also try not to do that every day.

I say all of this to offer up a challenge. I am calling it the sugar challenge. There are tons of ridiculous challenges online, why not a healthy one? If you are ready to make some changes in your health, I challenge you to cut sugar for one week. You will most likely feel pretty great after just a few days, but a week should be a good round number with which to start. Make a note of what you noticed during that time. The results will shock and please you! Try to weigh yourself before you start and after a week, weigh again. You should even have some weight loss associated. My second challenge is to keep going once you have finished the week challenge. If your results are like mine, I know you will be very happy you did it! I would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment and tell me how you did. Remember sugar is an addiction. Until you are ready to stop the addiction, you will never break the habit! Are you ready to do what it takes? If I can do it, I know you can too!