A Guide to Cutting Sugar

While reducing and maintaining a healthy weight is a stimulus for wanting to cut back on your sugar intake, it shouldn’t be your only motivation. Eliminating refined sugar from your diet presents a wide range of other important benefits that are worth considering. Excessive consumption of sugar is associated with a wide range of conditions including liver disease, heart disease, obesity, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure. What’s more, sugar has been found to trick the brain into wanting more food by stimulating the release of hunger hormones, which causes people to eat even more leading to a vicious cycle of addiction. 

Here are a few compelling reasons why you should definitely cut out the sweet stuff and give Keto snacks a try:

It Helps You to Attain a Healthy Weight

Excessive weight gain is one of the most prevalent complications associated with high sugar intake. The problem with having an unhealthy weight is that it puts you at increased risk of a whole array of problems including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and so on. Eating a sugar-free diet helps to regulate your body’s metabolism and reduce your cravings for empty-calorie foods since leptin levels are kept consistent. Leptin is the hormone that regulates hunger. This way, you only eat when you are actually hungry and not because a spike in the hunger hormones has convinced you that you need to eat. 

It Boosts Your Energy

Yes, while sugar is known to provide more energy, cutting it out actually helps your body to remain more alert, and there is a scientific explanation behind this. When you eat sugar, it increases your blood sugar level and gives your brain a boost of energy. However, you should keep in mind that it also stimulates the release of insulin and tryptophan, which induce sleepiness. This explains why after experiencing the “sugar rush” and subsequent crash, your body asks for more to keep going. Eliminating refined sugar from your diet allows your body and brain to stick to a more natural rhythm, sourcing fuel from the wholesome nutrients present in other foods, and gain the benefits of sleep and exercise. 

Improved Skin Health

There is actually some truth to the claim that sugar causes pimples. Since sugar increases the levels of insulin in the body, it can cause inflammation, which, in turn, can lead to blotchy skin. Sugar also triggers the increased production of skin oils, which can clog the pores and cause pimples. Sugar is also known to cause skin dehydration leading to dark circles and wrinkles that make you look older than you actually are. While cutting out sugar isn’t the key to great skin, it will certainly help. 

It Helps to Reduce Hunger and Cravings

Eliminating sugar from your diet makes it easier to control strong cravings for other foods like hamburgers, chips, pizza, and other fat-dense and calorie-filled foods. So, how exactly does this work? High sugar content in your diet stimulates ghrelin, one of the three hunger hormones in your body, leading to an increase in appetite. Thus, by cutting back on your sugar intake, your body is less inclined to eat. And within a short period of time, your cravings for the sweet stuff will be less. 

Helps to Maintain Good Dental Health

You probably already know that sugar tends to accelerate tooth decay and cause gum disease. It is often advised that you brush your teeth after eating sugary food. And while brushing your teeth regularly can help you to avoid dental problems linked to eating sugar, the best way to address this is to avoid sugar completely. 

It Can Help You to Avoid Colds

It is a well-known fact that colder seasons influence how viruses transmit. However, did you know there is a correlation between the influx of sugary treats during the holidays and illnesses? Eating sugar has been found to weaken the immune system and cause inflammation. Your immune system can be compared to a gatekeeper, protecting your body against invasive germs. But once the gate is compromised, viruses enter more freely. 

It Allows for a Healthier Diet

Perhaps you’ve noticed that the sweet coffee drink or donut you had for breakfast filled you up so much that there is no room for a piece of fruit or other nutritious foods. When you cut off these sugary foods from your diet, you are left with a lot more room for nutrient-rich foods like whole grains, nuts, proteins, and vegetables.

It Can Help to Prevent Chronic Diseases

Though the occasional treat is fine, excessive consumption of sugar on a regular basis puts you at an increased risk of developing conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers. Thus, cutting back on sugar can help to reduce your risk. 

Improves Mental Clarity

Sugar not only stimulates the areas of the brain that increases your cravings, but it can also lead to irritability, aggression, and sluggishness and reduce focus and concentration and the relaxation response. Sugar is also believed to block memory receptors, which can cause you to be more forgetful. It can also worsen the symptoms of depression and dementia.