Sugar is a drug and one of the main villains of our time. It is ubiquitous and almost inevitable, and the consequences of its use, especially prolonged and increased use, are extremely dangerous. At the recent Sustainable Weight Loss Online Summit, the topic of sugar was raised many times. I would like to share with you my notes from the lecture “How to communicate with sugar” by nutritionist Yulia Bogdanova. At the end, I will add my opinion and share my experience of quitting sugar.
What is sugar and what is it eaten with
Sugar is a source of energy. By the way, fat too. Look at children, sugar level increases their vitality. This effect is seen in healthy people. If we eat sugar or carbohydrates, which (although they are digested in a different way) are also sugar, all sweet tastes raise blood sugar levels and sugar metabolism begins, which is also called carbohydrate metabolism. Sugar is food and energy source for the body.
How sugar is associated with weight
Blood sugar must remain in a very narrow range for the needs of the body. The hormone insulin allows the body to take sugar and stores the excess for later. For most of our evolution, we have lived with food shortages. We eat sugar, then we waste this energy. When you eat more than you need to, your insulin levels go up. He needs to be more active in order to deliver more sugar to the cells. And the liver, which cannot store excess sugar, has no choice; it turns everything into fat. Fat is also a source of energy.
How much sugar do we need a day to keep from gaining weight?
- We don't need sugar to survive. We can do without it. There is now even a carnivore diet that completely eliminates sugar. We do NOT need sugar. 4 grams of sugar a day is enough for us. But it depends on the state of health and existing problems.
- We are all very different, we metabolize sugar in different ways, but as for carbohydrates in cereals, root vegetables, fruits, then a normal reaction in children, for example. Ate and does not get sleepy, assimilates normally, this is a healthy carbohydrate metabolism.
- It is better not to use unhealthy foods that contain different syrups, maltose, dextrose. This is also sugar.
- Some doctors call sugar a toxic product.
- I don't look at food labels because I try to buy whole foods that don't require labels. But if there are doubts about the added sugar, it is better to refuse to buy such a product.
- In the United States, legislation is now being changed to stricter. The problem of sugar is becoming very urgent in our country, too, with a chronic excess of sugar and obesity.
What are the symptoms of excess sugar in the body?
- As I said at the beginning, sugar is a source of energy, and an alarming symptom is if we feel that we have an unstable energy. We ate sugar, 1-5 sweets with tea, half an hour passed - 2 hours and we quickly feel hunger or nervousness, anger or mood swings, a state of low energy, which means that something is wrong with carbohydrate metabolism. It means there was a jump in sugar. If you need sweet or starchy foods, if you have headaches from skipping food, these are all symptoms.
- And fat around the waist is also a symptom.
- If I ate at lunch and want to sleep in an hour - is this a symptom? Yes, this is a sign of hypoglycemia, a sign that you have overeating carbohydrates at lunchtime. Instead of vigor or short-term vigor, drowsiness appears.
What advice is there for such people? What to change in nutrition?
- We remove the excess sugar and burn the accumulated sugar. The extracted sugar is especially harmful, honey, syrups - all this should be removed.
- There are products that work very similarly, these are refined products, flour. A bun gives the same spike in blood sugar as regular sugar.
- To avoid hypoglycemic symptoms, it is best to use bone keto broth, something without carbohydrates and sugar. It saturates very well, it is a source of amino acids, it restores the intestinal mucosa. And the salty broth helps maintain electrolyte balance. This is a great snack.
- A snack can be nuts, seeds, coconut flakes. Coconut products are generally unique, try coconut oil with tea. Pasta, coke manna, eat and notice how without the participation of sugar everything has improved, both the normal mood and the level of energy are normal.
Why is sugar dangerous? Except weight
- Many studies show a link between sugar and heart disease. An excess of sugar in the blood causes microtrauma to the mucous membrane, proteins lose their function, and inflammatory processes begin.
- For a long time, cholesterol was considered the enemy, but he is like a firefighter who was caught in a fire and blamed for the fire. And the sugar was to blame.
- Fat in the liver is a dangerous signal.
- Our gut microflora eats the foods we eat, and sugar causes the overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria. Chronic candidiasis can be due to sugar.
- Even cancer is now linked to sugar. Tumor cells need sugar.
Sugar-free breakfast
For breakfast, to overcome the disturbance of carbohydrate metabolism, it is very important to avoid sugar, carbohydrates and even starch. A protein-fat breakfast is great. Protein provides hormonal saturation. Eggs, fish, meat were eaten and ate with fat, for example, with avocado. Then the body receives a signal of saturation, the hormone leptin is produced - a signal of prolonged saturation.
Many are confused about the types of sugar. There is glucose, fructose, what's the difference?
- Glucose is a simple sugar that is used by all cells of the body to produce energy at once. Fructose is found in fruits, berries, agave syrup. And the difference is that glucose is used immediately, and fructose must be processed first by the liver. We ate dinner, ate a cake, the liver got an excess and must do something about it. And with fructose, it is different, it goes directly to the liver so that it can process it. Excreted fructose is one of the causes of non-alcoholic fatty liver. This is a great burden on the liver.
- The highest risk group is children and adolescents who drink fruit juices and carbonated drinks. From early childhood, they are everywhere. Although children burn more.
- If there are already problems with carbohydrate metabolism, then it is better to limit fruits.
Agave syrup is more harmful than sugar, is it?
Yes, Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist, suggests that fructose should be recognized as a conditionally toxic product. But here we are talking about excess. If there are symptoms, then you need to rethink the relationship with sugar and fruits. If everything is fine and under control, then you shouldn't go crazy.
How to overcome sugar addiction? How to avoid withdrawal symptoms?
- What is the difficulty of refusal? Because we rely on sugar as our only source of energy. The body sees that we have a source of energy. There are two of them, sugar and fat. But if you give us both, then the body will first of all burn sugar. It is easier. We constantly want to enjoy sugar, this is a physiological addiction. Sugar acts on our neurotransmitters, our reward system. It is a source of pleasure. Therefore, it is difficult to refuse, but you need to tune in to a certain process and decide for yourself that this is for a long time. That this will not be a solution for two weeks of detox, but for a long time.
- And a replacement is needed, the most effective replacement will be fat. Why do we need it? We want to teach the body to get energy from fat. Sugar is a fire, where you always need to throw wood, and fat is a central heating battery, which was turned on and kept warm for a long time.
- This is a gradual process. Today you removed sugar from coffee and added an egg for breakfast. Headaches can happen and that's normal. Giving up sugar is like giving up drugs. The body is rebuilding, it needs to start producing other enzymes.
- Prepare in advance snacks, nuts, bone broth in a thermos, an egg, something to taste. Later, the desire for snacks will disappear.An even mood and an even level of energy will come. Some experts say it takes up to 6 weeks for the body to switch from sugar to fat. Clarity in the head comes from the fact that the brain begins to receive its energy from fat.
Foods to help you quit sugar
- Eggs, nuts, avocado, coconut oil.
- At the first stage, you can make armored coffee. Ghee, butter, if you tolerate normally, add to coffee or tea. Try drinking butter tea for breakfast, half a tablespoon of coconut, for example. Salt can be added, we really need sodium. For saturation, you can add collagen powder, it will help to restore the mucous membrane. You can try this drink.
- Caviar is a good source of fat. Seed crackers can be made if it is difficult without bread.
Can I have nut milk and nuts?
There is little fat in the milk. But it is also important not to go overboard with nuts. Many overeat nuts and, if overweight, they interfere with weight loss. They stimulate appetite.
The top three tips for relieving sugar cravings
- It is important to clean up and replace with fat. Do this gradually.
- Tune in that this is a lengthy process.
- Don't blame yourself for the breakdowns. It's really hard. Stress also raises blood sugar levels. The stress hormone, cortisol, increases it. It is not enough for us just to give up the extracted sugar in order to restore carbohydrate metabolism. Lack of sleep, chronic infections, fatigue, and excess fitness are also sources of stress for the body. It is necessary to restore these areas of life in order to give up sugar. Otherwise, they will always upset our balance.
Julia Bogdanova is a nutritionist (Bauman College, California), founder of www.yulyabogdanova.com, a resource about managing health through diet, thinking and lifestyle. Julia works with clients individually, leads the group program “Healthy body in a healthy body”. Expert "Yoga Journal", "Organic Woman", "LookBio", lecture hall "City-Garden" and Tushino Children's Hospital.
What to read about quitting sugar
Honestly, the books I read on this topic helped me a lot. I would like to recommend a couple of books if you have a desire to get rid of sugar.
Gary Taubes in his book Why We Get Fat explains very well what is bad and bad about sugar and carbohydrates. And Mark Hyman's book On a Sweet Leash contains instructions and a sugar-free menu. I have not tried to eat on it, but it is there that sugar is replaced by healthy fats and, it seems to me, this is exactly what Julia is talking about and can work well.
How I gave up sugar, personal experience
A couple of years ago, every morning I started with coffee and ice cream. It is funny and sad to remember this. Now I finish my tea with ghee after a full breakfast with eggs and avocado. When it dawned on me that sugar is a drug, that I didn’t need it at all, that it was a toxin, and this thought firmly stuck in my head, it became much easier to give up sweets. I've always loved ice cream, but now I can make it myself. The sugar-free ice cream recipe here will help you. I loved chocolate very much, but now I understand that I loved sugar in chocolate, and pure chocolate tastes completely different. I talked about keto chocolate at the link.
At first, I repeated the mantra about “I'm so sweet,” every time I wanted to kiss the ice cream again. Then I got carried away by reading, fitness and keto diet, then the craving for sweets passed somehow imperceptibly. This helped me switch. For the rest of my life I remembered the thought that if I am attracted to sweets, it means that I need to eat fatty ones or it’s just time to eat. By the way, when she got off the sugar needle herself, she began to notice what Yulia is talking about, the sugar effect in people's behavior, and to understand that this sugar really changes behavior a lot, like alcohol. And now, even if I try something sweet, it seems to me that every sweetness has the same taste, the taste of sugar, and there is no magic in desserts, they are all the same. Ate one - count it all. And why try them further? Recently on an "all inclusive" vacation, I had a great 10 days, ignoring desserts without much agony. No, and I didn't want to try. She ate other delicious foods, enjoyed an abundance of delicious cheeses and nuts.
Yes, at home I always have Swerve erythritol sweetener and stevia in different forms. Once every 3-4 weeks I add it somewhere. I didn't have any particular withdrawal from sugar, it was difficult to give up the abundance of carbohydrates in general. I talked about this already in the article about my personal keto experience.
I found an interesting video on how to overcome the craving for sweets from Dr. Dilyara Lebedeva. It is short, only 9 minutes, but Dilyara has a lot of interesting things to tell, including about the connection between sugar and candidiasis.
By the way, Dilyara has free video lessons about blood sugar. And soon a training course will start on how to bring sugar back to normal.
