A few weeks without sugar will change your life forever. Don’t believe us? Check out the 10 reasons sugar compromises your health!
Have you ever been wowed by a bowl of plain, uncooked, soaked whole oats? It’s hard to imagine regular oatmeal would taste like anything other than cardboard, but our taste buds are incredibly receptive to the flavors in plain, whole foods once we wean them off added sugars.
Though it may seem unappetizing, when you cut back on added sugars, everything you eat will taste BETTER. An apple will be an intense explosion of flavor, a cup of brown rice will be savory delight, a slice of cucumber a sublime refreshment, and if you can eat clean long enough, foods with added sugars will start to taste wrong, and the overpowering cravings for junk food you once experienced will become cravings for fresh, wholesome nourishment.
Significantly reducing added sugars from your diet will not only allow you to taste food again, but your health with benefit greatly. The average American consumes 19.5 teaspoons (82 grams) of sugar a day, far exceeding the recommendations from the American Heart Association (AHA): less than 6 teaspoons (25 grams) for women, less than 9 teaspoons (38 grams) for men, and less than 3-6 teaspoons (12–25 grams) for children depending on their age and caloric needs
Excess consumption of sugar may be due to the fact that 80% of food items found in grocery stores are spiked with added sugar. Too much of the sweet stuff negatively affects your body in major ways. Here are a few facts to keep in mind when battling the first few days of sugar withdrawal:
Excess Sugar:
1. Compromises your Immunity
Consuming over 75 grams of simple sugars has been found to suppress the body’s immune response, specifically impairing the ability of white blood cells by 40–-50 percent!
2. Belittles your Brain
Sugar is highly addictive, affecting the neural pathways much the same way drugs do. Overconsumption of sugar builds your resistance to insulin, negatively impacting brain cell function, which can hinder learning and memory. Both insulin resistance and blood glucose levels increase your risk of developing dementia. Sugar can also increase the risk of depression by 58%
3. Ages Skin
Once in your bloodstream sugar attaches to proteins that eventually damage the protein fiber in collagen and elastin -which ultimately results in saggy skin and wrinkles, causing premature aging.
4. Harms Heart
By causing an insulin spike, excess sugar consumption will inflame the lining of arteries, increasing the risk of stroke or heart attack.
5. Kills Kidneys
High blood sugar can damage the blood vessels in your kidneys. Too much sugar can also lead to diabetes, one of the main causes of kidney failure.
6. Creaky Joints
Eating too much sugar puts inflammatory cytokines in your bloodstream, which can worsen arthritis.
7. Exponential Weight gain
Nourishing foods stimulate insulin, which ultimately leave you feeling satiated. Sugar fails to signal those hormones, leaving you feeling hungry even when you’ve had enough calories, which causes you to overeat.
Over time excess sugar can substantially inhibit the function of both hormones, leading to metabolic dysfunction- a condition know to cause weight gain, abdominal obesity, increased LDL cholesterol, elevated blood sugar, elevated triglycerides and high blood pressure.
8. Nutritional Deficiencies
A study found that people who get over 18% of their calories from sugar have the lowest levels of essential nutrients like folate, calcium, iron, Vitamin A, and Vitamin C.
9. Fatty Organs
Sugar triggers your liver to build up fat stores around itself, a precursor to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
10. Decays Teeth
The bacteria that causes tooth decay thrive on sugar.
Check out Part 2 on how to ditch the sugar in your life!
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Sources:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/26/11/1180.abstract
http://www.foodaddictionsummit.org/docs/johnson-347ajcn%20review.pdf
https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/02/13591/quantity-sugar-food-supply-linked-diabetes-rates
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9853537
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/4/827S.long
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/26/11/1180.abstract
