From Muffins to Gulab Jamun to Iced Café Latté, sugar is found in many foods and is almost impossible to ditch. Avoiding sugar in your daily life is one of the biggest challenges. But cutting down sugar leads to immense health benefits in case you are wondering what happens when you stop eating sugar. So what are the benefits of not eating sugar? Let’s find out!
What is sugar addiction?
Eating a diet high in processed sugar leads to ‘sugar addiction’. Unlike many behavioural disorder, sugar addiction is easy to spot. If you often find yourself pigging out on food and drinks laden with sugar in an attempt to fix your drained energy, if you have frequent sugar craving when you are stressed and if you have high appetite for carbs laden sandwiches and burgers, you are a victim of sugar addiction. And one of the benefits of not having sugar is getting away with your sugar addiction.
What is a sugar tax?
Sugar addiction is a problem which cuts across nations and is a global matter of concern. Therefore, many countries have levied tax surcharges on sugary drinks to discourage people from buying them. Countries like the UK, UAE, Portugal, Sri Lanka have even launched a special “sugar tax” on sweetened drinks to discourage its citizens from excessive sugar consumption in an attempt to curtail the growing obesity crisis by curbing consumption.
However, not all sugar is bad. Sugar is part of our overall nutrition only if consumed in moderation and from healthy & natural sources. Unfortunately, most of the sugar we consumed is processed, unhealthy, and artificial and is nothing but sweet poison killing us slowly in the process.
Let us now look at what happens when you stop eating sugar and what are the benefits of not eating sugar?
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What happens when you stop eating sugar? Benefits of not eating sugar?
Here are a few benefits of not eating sugar:
1. Improves your skin
Cutting Sugar from your diet improves your skin and its texture. Sugar deforms the protein that makes your skin look younger. No sugar means fewer wrinkles and less inflammation linked to aging. Giving up sugar leads to a glowing and young skin. If you decide to give up sugar from your diet, you may even give ‘expensive anti-ageing facials’ a miss and save money.
2. Protects from diabetes
Eating sugar and food high in carbs increases blood sugar and insulin levels and this may lead to diabetes over time. Cutting sugar and refraining from high carb consumption reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes.
3. Helps you shed extra fat and aids in weight loss
Sugar and carbs are high in calories and cutting sugar means reducing your overall calorie intake. Once you stop cutting sugar and carbs your body will start burning stored fat instead of carbohydrates. This will easily help you shed unwanted fat and lose weight specially the belly fat. It will significantly reduce the chances of obesity seeping in.
Cutting simple carbs and refined sugar also helps you keep the destructive sugar and food cravings at bay, helping you to stick to your diet.
Also Read: Fitness and Nutrition- Five tips to achieve long term, sustainable Fat Loss
4. Helps you balance your energy levels
Reducing sugar helps you balance your energy levels throughout the day. If you replace those bagels and burgers with healthier alternatives like slow digesting protein, healthy fat rich nuts, and complex carbs, it can help you stay more active and energetic throughout the day sans the energy crash.
5. Helps you have a peaceful sleep
A diet high in sugar increases cortisol levels in the body, which is a stress hormone and can disrupt sleep at the night. Sugar in your system pulls you out of sleep. Cutting sugar means, you will be able to sleep more peacefully at the night.
6. Helps control bloating
Taking control of your sugar cravings will help you keep off the bloating. Many of us have trouble in digesting sugars like fructose (found in fruits & processed foods) and lactose (found in dairy products). Cutting off sugar means no more lactose intolerance and no more bloating.
7. Helps improve your heart health
Consuming too much sugar leads to an increase in LDL (Low Density Lipoproteins) cholesterol which is a bad cholesterol. Cutting sugar means your risk of dying from heart disease will decrease by three times.
8. Help you have a good oral health
Cutting sugar can help you maintain oral health by preventing bad breath caused by cavities. Keep off the white poison and expose your pearly whites.
9. Helps lower migraines
If you suffer from migraines, lowering your sugar intake can help reduce their frequency.
10. Helps in mental clarity and focus
Eating less sugar means less chances of brain fog and more mental clarity. A diet high in added sugar hinders learning and memory as eating sugar overtime may damage communication among your brain’s cell. So, if you are looking for razor-sharp focus and excellent memory, abandoning the refined sugars and simple carbs is the way forward.
11. Helps improve sexual-drive
Once you stop eating sugar your sex drive will improve. Excessive amounts of sugar can turn off the gene that controls the levels of estrogen and testosterone in your body. These hormones are responsible for your sex drive.
12. Helps you strengthen muscles
Research have found a direct link between refined sugar & simple carbs and muscle loss related to age. This is related to sugars ability to inhibit the synthesis of protein into muscles. Ditching sugar will help you strengthen muscles.
Okay so we know the benefits of not eating sugar & what happens when we stop eating sugar for good, it is important to know that cutting sugar entirely from your diet also has some negative side effects.
Negative side effects of eliminating sugar from diet
Although there are several benefits of not eating sugar, there are also potential side effects if sugar is completely eliminated from your diet:
- You may experience sugar withdrawal symptoms
- Sugary foods release the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin. These feel-good hormones activate the body’s reward system. Activation of this system leads to intense feelings of satisfaction and happiness that can result in cravings and addiction.
- A diet too low in carbohydrates and sugars affects your energy levels.
- A diet without any sugar intake can result in low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia. As a result, you will feel sluggish and tired until your body adjusts.
- You need sugar for your brain and other muscles to work properly. Once you cut sugar entirely, your brain will have a hard time focusing on tasks.
- You may also experience muscle aches and pains.
It is important to know that sugar is a part of our overall nutrition and eating sugar in from of complex carbs and natural sources can help you maintain a healthy lifestyle only if taken in moderation.
How to avoid sugar?
Now that you have all the information about what happens when you stop eating sugar for good, it is time to pledge to quit sugar and here are our tips on how to quit sugar?
1. Ditch Artificial Sweeteners
Artificial sweeteners are unhealthy and detrimental to health in the long term. However, it is easy to use artificial sweeteners in place of sugar in an attempt to give up sugar from your diet. But a word of caution is that once you give up sugar, brain may crave for sweet things initially and artificial sweeteners will increase these cravings. The better idea is to give up sugar altogether and not replace it with any artificial sweetener.
Once you stop eating sugar, overtime your taste buds will change and you will find natural sugars in fruits and vegetables more delicious.
2. Read the food labels which can be misleading
Carefully read the food labels which often can be misleading, and figure out foods and products with no or minimal added sugars. A large part of you daily sugar intake comes from hidden sources in packaged and processed foods. In the garb of health, you are adding a lot of sugar to your daily diet unknowingly.
Companies are marketing their products by calling sugar by different names like fructose, sucrose, glucose, maltose dextrose or corn syrup. Such products are high in sugar and are the real devils. Products which are usually high in sugar are processed cereals, canned juices, iced teas, granola bars, protein bars, energy bars, peanut butter, breads, flavored yogurts, cookies, biscuits (even high fiber ones), cornflakes, muesli, dips, sauces, jams, jellies and so on. This list is never ending. So, be careful of misleading labels and choose wisely as per your health needs.
3. Cook at home
The best way to keep sugar off your diet is to prepare your own food at home and control the sugar you add in your food. Eating outside food always comes with hidden sugar and preparing meals at home will help you stick to your diet.
Everyone loves sugar and sugary food. It is natural for you to crave sugar more often than not. When you actually crave for sugar stick to homemade sweets and desserts. For examples, fresh fruit juices, homemade smoothie, coconut laddu, homemade almond halwa, pan cakes with banana or even fresh fruits served with yogurt etc. This way you can adjust the sugar as per your taste, or use healthier alternatives to sugar like jaggery or stevia or organic palm sugar. Some quick snacks to satisfy your sugar cravings can be dates, raisins, or even dark chocolates with 70% or higher cocoa content. You can also stick to Indian super foods and make your own low-calorie ragi laddu, oats muffins, besan halwa or jaggery kheer and much more. Cooking at home is the key!
4. Say no to soda and carbonated drinks
Carbonated drinks and drinks with soda often contain high amount of sugar to enhance the taste. Diet variants of carbonated drinks contains artificial sweeteners which also are harmful in long run. Substitute it with coconut water or fresh fruit juice.
5. Eat Natural sugars
White sugar is most toxic for your body. If your sugar carvings are beyond control you can always feel free to consume natural sugar coming from fruits and vegetables which are more delicious, satisfying and healthy. Seasonal fruits like mangoes, grapes, plums, strawberries, apples etc. are healthy, have anti-inflammatory properties, high in antioxidants, and do not affect your blood sugar levels. They also high in fiber and this is an added benefit.
6. Declutter your kitchen
The process of quitting sugar starts at your kitchen. Look in your fridge and pantry for cookies, chocolates, sweets, protein bars and packet food high in saturated fat, refined sugar and simple carbs. Get rid of them and stack healthier options instead.
Also Read: The 10 Fundamental Rules of Health and Fitness to Stay Fit & Active Forever
Is brown sugar healthier than white sugar?
A lot has been written and discussed about white sugar and its adverse side effects. This negative publicity has given its darker alternative of brown sugar look so much better in comparison.
Both brown and white sugar are similar in terms of nutrition and calorie content. Brown sugar is less processed than white and is rawer in nature. Brown sugar has roughly 0.25 less calories per gram as compared to white sugar and contains slightly more minerals than white sugar owing to less processing. Brown sugar is more flavorful and moister, as it contains molasses but doesn’t now offer any major nutritional benefit over its white cousin.
Final verdict: Do not fall for marketing gimmicks. The true benefits of cutting sugar can only be reaped by cutting sugar as a whole (be it white or brown). If you are adding brown sugar to your dish, you are adding the same number of calories. The answer lies in moderation. Consume both white or brown sugar in less quantity as per your health goal.
Types of Sugar which are better alternatives to White Sugar?
If you are still looking out for some healthier alternative to traditional white sugar you may consider trying these:
- Raw and unrefined sugar
- Organic Sulphur less white sugar
- Demerara Sugar
- Organic brown sugar
- Palm sugar
How much sugar is recommended per adult?
The recommended amount of sugar per adult per day is 9 teaspoons or 36 grams for men and 6 teaspoons or 25 grams for women as per American Heart Association (AHA) Guidelines.
What are leading sources of added sugars?
Beverages are a leading source of added sugar and total 47% of all added sugars. The breakup of beverages is as below:
- Soft Drinks= 25%
- Fruit Drinks= 11%
- Tea/Coffee= 7%
- Energy Drinks= 3%
Snacks and Sweets are the next big contributor of added sugar and totals to 31%
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