How to Quit Sugar

 

 

The standard modern diet is stuffed full of refined sugars, and most of us already know that too much sugar in our daily diet is bad for us. Also, sugar is an addiction, which is very hard to quit cold turkey. But, you can quit.

As a professional fitness coach, I’ve seen plenty of people over the years who try to quit sugar cold-turkey.

But because quitting sugar all-at-once feels like a crash diet, it rarely works.

My suggestion, and what I’ve seen many more people succeed at, is to reduce your sugar gradually — starting first with omitting the obvious refined sugars from your typical daily diet, such as table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.

Reducing Sugar in Your Daily Diet

If I could turn back the hands of time, I would definitely do my 20s and 30s different nutritionally — namely, I would eat far less sugar!

I can only imagine how much better my skin and body would look and feel today at age 47, if only I had eaten less sugar in my youth. Sugar is acidic and messes up your body’s PH.

The human body is better able to maintain its health and youthfulness when PH is properly balanced and slightly alkaline (55% to 80%). Also, sugar feeds the bad bacteria in the gut!

The good news is, as I entered my 40s I was finally able to begin seriously experimenting with ways to enjoy eating without so many sweets.

 
“…if you saw my driver’s license photo, you wouldn’t recognize me in it — I barely recognize myself! The photo was taken before I discovered freshly made green smoothies, back when I was, well, fatter. After making and drinking smoothies for a year, all of that weight came off, plus my face looks less puffy and more youthful. I eventually had to get new clothes, even my ‘skinny clothes’ were too chubby.

Of course, it wasn’t all smooth-sailing: in the beginning, I made some mistakes (pretty much the same mistakes everyone makes). For instance, when I first started, I put milk and banana into a blender and then added some powder I got from a can at the grocery store. Wrong! That is not a freshly made green smoothie! Also, at first, smoothies made me light-headed and wouldn’t sustain my energy, but Dane showed me on to use the right ingredients and the right ratios. It turns out, I needed to add more ‘clean fat,’ such as raw, sprouted seeds. Thanks to Dane, I feel better now than I ever have before. Freshly made green smoothies ROCK!”

                                              ~ David, Age 58, International Relocation Specialist
 

How I Was Able to Dramatically Reduce My Sugar Intake

Here is how I was able to dramatically and permanently reduce my own intake of daily sugar:

First, I started having freshly made green smoothies for breakfast (and sometimes, a different green smoothie for lunch, too). This removed almost all sugars from the daytime. Instead, I was getting the dark green vegetables and raw sprouted nuts and seeds from the smoothies, with only a tiny amount of fruit added. Removing almost all sugar from the daytime was easier and more enjoyable than I thought.

If you’re intrigued at how you might improve your own body by reducing your intake of refined sugar, I suggest 5 Best Smoothie Recipes — it’s an eBooklet and one of many life-enhancing items within the new Longevity Lifestyle Kit. You can purchase this eBooklet separately, or save money purchasing the complete Longevity Lifestyle Kit.
 
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“…I’ve always been a no-breakfast person.
But what I didn’t realize was that
skipping breakfast only made me lethargic and lazy all day long.
And I’d eat a whole lot more at lunch than I would have otherwise!
So, when I came across Dane’s smoothie recipes,
I decided to give them a shot.
Only one week in and I already feel much more energetic
than I have in the last ten years.
And I also tend to eat less lunch
which is great to control increasing weight.
I plan to start smoothies for lunch too.
Slim waistline, here I come!”

                            ~ Rabab Kahn, Editor / Bertelsmann Foundation

 
But, what to do about nighttime?

Since my 20s, I’ve always liked to have something a bit sweet at night because I’m a light sleeper and sweet food helps me be able to fall asleep. Also, because I exercise so much, the extra 350 calories of dessert prevent me from getting suddenly hungry right as I’m trying to fall asleep at night (skipping desserts always seemed to ensure a toss-and-turn night of poor sleep). However, having desserts that contained the ingredients of grain or flour plus granulated sugar were helping my body convert those calories to fat while I slept! Finally, in my 40s and in desperation, I asked my medical doctor, my nutritionist and my naturopath for help. With their advice, here’s what I decided to do:

#1   Eat dinner earlier each night so that I could then eat dessert earlier, and then not fall asleep on a completely full stomach. That helped a lot!

#2   Instead of having cookies or cake for dessert, I bought a super-powerful blender and made myself a special creamy frozen dessert made from a chunk or two of frozen banana, organic fruit (like peach, blueberries and raspberries), vanilla, cinnamon, a tiny bit of macadamia nut butter, a whisper of coconut flour, a touch of quality whey protein or hemp protein, and ice. Holy cow! It tasted fantastic, had fewer calories, and didn’t seem to convert to fat on my body while I slept. I woke up in the morning with a flatter stomach and over the course of a year and half lost ten pounds of fat.

 

More Tips for Scaling Back Sugar

First, here are some basic ideas for reducing your daily intake of sugar.

• ▸ cut down on sodas, bottled sports drinks, and canned energy drinks
• ▸ eat balanced meals that focus on fresh vegetables and include modest portions of fats, proteins
• ▸ if you’re in the mood for something sweet enjoy a piece of fresh fruit rather than a piece of candy

I think the most overlooked piece of advice for quitting sugar (or, having far less of it) is: it’s harder in the beginning, and gets much easier the longer you do it. If you know that going in — then when you start to have cravings the first few days of trying it, you’ll be able to stick with it, knowing that the force of the cravings will mellow with time.

Some people will try to tell you that all sugar is the same to your body, whether it’s the high-fructose corn syrup in a candy bar or the naturally occurring sugars in a plum. All I can say is: listen to what your own body tells you. For example, my body feels unmistakably different from eating highly refined corn sugar than it does from having a bit of honey or agave nectar or fruit.

I encourage you to pick up the Longevity Lifestyle Kit and experience the positive results it will have on your daily life. All five items in the kit are designed to work synchronistically.

Each items serve a specific purpose, and combined they become super powerful. Enjoy the value and savings of getting all 5 items together!

The kit includes a e-Book, an e-Guide, an e-Booklet, an e-List, and an e-Workbook. The anchor of the kit is The Numinous Journey, an eBook that utilizes principles of Success Psychology and is strategically crafted to facilitate an inner process, that will help make your exciting new lifestyle habits “stick!”

• ➊ How to Create a Strategy for Living a Fascinating Post-40 Life: The Numinous Journey
• ➋ A Unique Social Experiment: 28 Best Friends
• ➌ How to Get Seriously Organized Using Checklists: The Dane Technique
• ➍ Using Your Blender to Get Lean and Strong: 5 Best Smoothie Recipes
• ➎ Ingredients Guide for Freshly Made Green Smoothies: The Shopping List

 

 

The Dangers of Unstable Glucose and Sugar Spikes

Glucose is our bodies primary fuel at the cellular level.  After we eat, the level of glucose in our blood stream goes up a bit and then gradually descends as it is absorbed by our cells. But the wrong kind of diet can cause dramatic spikes in our blood glucose levels. Over time these spikes can contribute to a wide range of illnesses, the most obvious of which is, of course, type-2 diabetes.

For people with diabetes, monitoring and controlling blood sugar becomes essential to their health, but studies by the International Diabetics Federation have shown that, even for non-diabetics, sharp spikes in blood sugar after eating a meal can increase your risk for:

• retina damage
• thickening of arteries
• increased inflammation
• decreased blood flow
• cancer

The Benefits of Low Sugar Intake

Maintaining low/stable glucose levels can do more than just protect you from disease, it can actually rewire your body’s metabolism to rely less on glucose and more on fats and proteins as energy sources — this increases your body’s overall efficiency, lowers cholesterol, and makes it easier to achieve a healthy weight.

New research has shown that low sugar intake can also encourage the favorable expression of our “longevity genes.”

Many people practice calorie restriction in an attempt to maintain low/stable blood glucose levels.

Continuing studies have shown that the benefits of calorie restriction observed in animals during lab testing are likely to produce similar results in humans (though the length of the human life span makes it difficult to gather definitive information).

Still, for many of us, a dietary regime based on calorie restriction may be a little too intense. That doesn’t mean that we can’t benefit from reducing those foods in our diet that contribute to to sharp rises in our blood glucose levels.

I encourage you learn more about controlling blood glucose levels, including target ranges. As always, before you make any significant changes to your diet or lifestyle, consult your anti-aging medical doctor, nutritionist, and naturopath.

Are you a sweet-tooth person, or a salty-snack person? Let me know in the comments section below. I encourage you to share any tips you have for reducing snack cravings that have worked well for you!