What happens when you quit sugar? (2023) [video]
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You do have to be careful about your grocery selections. One of my favorite boogeymen is the product called peanut spread which comes in a jar just like peanut butter and looks just like it, but it's loaded with added sugar. Of course, some brands of peanut butter are, too, but this is a thing with the high end products that you'd think wouldn't do that.
But, my advice is just stop adding sugar to recipes and stop eating stuff that is obviously sugar laden (muffins, cookies, etc). Over time, you become somewhat sensitized to foods that have it where you don't expect it. Check labels when in doubt, but basically, don't sweat the small stuff and absolutely don't refuse a small piece of your niece's birthday cake - it won't kill you.
A lot of tomato based sauces are just very sweet. If you're worried about the sugar intake eat less of it.
Please don't give it much weight.
Also, they indicate that a water fast is when you have no water. It's when you have only water. Which also isn't a good indication of what happens if you just cut added dietary sugars.
I dropped keto after some time, but my sugar consumption never went back up to pre-keto levels. Checking nutrition labels for sugar content is just second nature at this point. If craving dessert, I usually make something like Greek yogurt with blueberries. If baking, most recipes end up tasting way too sweet now so I generally cut the sugar by at least half the amount listed.
I do sometimes have a larger "dose": For example, if I'm at a new restaurant and want to try a unique dessert. Or my boyfriend's mom drops off some delicious pastry she made.
But that leads me to the skin part of the video, which really resonated. Every time I do have a day or two of eating more sugar than usual, it shows up very quickly in my skin - I break out like crazy within days.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22961-candida...
Taking candibactin AR and BR I’ve found my sugar cravings disappear the next day.
I'd suggest simply observing the sugar in various foods that you eat without judgement, and without a specific plan to cut them out. Just observe. Then if you think you're consuming too much overall, get rid of the easiest, highest-sugar ones first and see how it goes.
What happens is nothing. I've never had a cavity, but that was true when I was a kid and still ate sugar. Seems to be genetics. Out of myself and three sisters, only one of us has ever had a cavity and it was only once. I'm not fat, but again, neither are any of my sisters. I'm very lean but that still required lifting to build muscle and intentional calorie restriction to lose fat. It didn't happen magically based on food choices. I suppose I'm less likely than most to get diabetes, but again, no one in my my family has diabetes, and as far as I'm aware, they all eat sugar. I'm the only one who has been religious about making my own food from scratch and never adding any kind of sweeteners.
If anything has actually happened, it's not outwardly noticeable. I still get sick. Still get injured. Even still get some occasional minor acne.
From looking over this video's transcripts, it appears they're fixating on cravings and ketosis. That seems to be something that happens if you eat no carbohydrates at all. Simply dropping sugar will not put you into ketosis. Whether it leads to any kind of more specific cravings will depend on how much you were eating before and what you replace it with, if anything.
Soups and braises are the most optimal in that regard.
I recommend short ribs braised in red wine (I like Barollo but you can just as easily use a three buck chuck). Works great on mashed potatoes and by changing up the wine you can change up the flavors. Thai curries are also great and easy to make.
It's actually pretty easy if you accept that the total number of items at the grocery store / restaurants has dramatically shrunk, and you stick to mostly whole foods (food category, not the corporation). Your staples start to become less processed crap and more animal products, vegetables, dairy, nuts/legumes, and more cooking at home.
It's a big transition that most people are unprepared for, but not actually terribly difficult as a single person with no SO/kids.
Sugar is pretty easy to avoid. Stop doing your shopping in the twinky aisle.
Simple carbohydrates in general? That's more difficult.
For reference, I say this as someome who's cooking skills consist of knowing how to use a microwave, knowing how to boil water, and knowing how to cook a frozen pizza, I'm not some kind of culinary wizard.
In Sweden we drink it all the time especially kids.
(11g means 11g/cup, right? That sounds like normal milk...)
1. Replace all sugary drinks (soda, starbucks drinks, etc.) with non-sugar alternative (water, plain coffee, etc.)
2. Make whole fruit your dessert and/or snacks, replacing ice cream and candy and stuff
3. Cook several times per week with recipes that don't call for adding sugar
Which savory recipes call for sugar? The only time I can remember using sugar is for speeding up onion caramelization and bbq sauce.
There's a rather surprising result in nutrition science that ice cream consumption seems to be associated with better cardiovascular health. No other dessert has the same pattern and it's unclear why this is seen.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ice-cre...
Hint: stay away from the interior of the grocery store where all the shiny bags are. You want the stuff around the edges - fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, rice, beans
What I like about this is it takes 5 minutes to make the dough the night before and then 2 hours after I wake up I can have fresh hot bread with just about 10 minutes of active time (fold dough, rest, make boule, rest, put in oven, wait, remove lid, wait, done).
Boxed dried pasta also isn't inherently unhealthy.
Clearly GP's rule is a little extreme :)
It's 30% the recommended salt in a single teaspoon. That's like a big pinch of kosher salt. So really, it's like 3-5% per serving because I get 6-8 servings out of my dishes. right.
Pasta is an exception I allow to my rule, though I eat it probably only once a month now.
In general, it's a very good rule to stick to. This way you are in control and what you're eating at all times.
Some things are easy, eg you can not buy soda if you live in New York or if you only have a dollar general to shop for food.
Together with a psychologist friend we've made a simple app[0] for tracking that journey.
My main motivation was to learn Swift/SwiftUI so it's iOS only, sorry. If anyone cares to try it out, we appreciate feedback.
Gradually cut out sugar and eat basically only whole foods, mainly meat and vegetables. Also try to time restrict eating to avoid morning and evening consumption.
Lost over 75 pounds over a few years (no lose skin) and feel much better although colder without all the fat insulation!
I’m am not overly active and generally spend most of my day sitting, so it’s mainly just diet control for weight loss.
The problem is: I've been trying to cut sugar (forget eliminate) out of my diet for YEARS. 2 days into not having sugar and I go into such severe cravings that I knock off a sweetened glass of milk (with all its consequences - I'm lactose intolerant).
HELP!!! Please can people here tell me HOW do I handle the cravings (and don't tell me "grin and bear it" - at its height, I'm just about ready to kill someone :-( and from there on, it's just a matter of time before I lapse).
Any/all inputs that will help me get through the craving are very welcome.
On the one hand, I'm afraid to say that I can't report any dramatic night and day difference. I do have in general more energy, better dental health, etc, but subjectively that all felt _slightly_ better, not click-baity better. On the other hand, I can report it hasn't been all that dramatic -- I didn't upend my life, made what really felt more like slight changes. Probably the biggest change for me was breakfast -- instead of carbs it's generally Greek yogurt, frozen fruit, nuts, and raisins (for sweetness), and coffee. I also check labels more -- who knew, for instance, that tomato soup had so much added sugar!
I take that as a win since, objectively, it _is_ much healthier to have less added sugars in my diet, and I got this gain without anything overly dramatic or disruptive. And it kicked off a gradual changing of other habits -- I got back to going to the gym regularly a few years after that, and have gotten better at keeping a regular bed time.
The tl;dr I'm trying to make here -- smaller, gradual changes do make a difference, are worth doing, and don't have to be dramatic (and are easier to stick to).
Or do you think all sugar is the white stuff you get at the store?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis
2. Sugar is 50/50 fructose and glucose, the fructose half is arguably poison to humans. It's important to distinguish glucose from sugar when it comes to human health/nutrition.
Fructose is usually considered healthier than sucrose or glucose - the whole "natural fruit sugars are OK" premise - though that seems likely to be nonsense given it's immediately and easily converted to glucose after you eat it. I don't know of any argument that says it's poisonous, or in any sense worse than glucose. That also seems unlikely to be true for the same reason - it's immediately converted to glucose.
(replies suggest my recollection of fructose being metabolised by trivial conversion to glucose followed by the usual glucose pathway is incorrect, interesting)
Fructose is metabolized by the liver[0] ~identically to ethanol. This is why Robert Lustig (the Sugar: The Bitter Truth[1] dude) argues fructose is a poison, and taxing it like alcohol.
AIUI it's arguably the cause of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-alcoholic_fatty_liver_dise...
Your comment strikes me as confusing several factors... fructose does not turn into glucose upon eating it. But something like that is applicable to Sucrose vs. HFCS, rendering them ~identical in consumption (a split of glucose and fructose). That's orthogonal to what the body does with the fructose though.
Furthermore it's intact fruit that is seen as healthier because of the dietary fiber, not because of the fructose. The fructose is always a problem for the liver to deal with when absorbed. Fiber helps by slowing/preventing its absorption, in the best case letting it reach the large intestine to turn into flatulence via guttural flora before the body can absorb it.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose#Fructose_metabolism
The “just-so” evolutionary story behind this goes: when fructose calories are available in excess, you want to make sure you’re storing all you can, because a fruit bonanza is often associated with an upcoming lean period. So, creatures whose bodies treated large amounts of fructose as a metabolic trigger to fatten up and reduce energy expenditure were more likely to make it through the winter.
Now, I don't advocate for the keto diet, and if you indent to do that you should probably talk to a doctor, like for all restrictive diets.
EDIT: I misread your statement. Of course you would die of starvation if you couldn't make glucose. But why couldn't you make glucose, assuming you don't have a specific disease preventing it.