Insulin Resistance. Pre-diabetes. Diabetes. Heart disease. Cancer. Obesity. Chronic fatigue.
Every day, people are walking around afflicted by the above ailments, all of which they’re feeding with their lifestyle habits and food choices. Most of the time, they’re completely unaware of their presence.
In fact, you’re in the middle of an epidemic right now, and most of you don’t even know it. It’s the epidemic caused by sugar, and it’s ruining your life.
Let’s look at some shocking stats before we go further:
- According the the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Americans consume between 150-170 lbs of refined sugar per year (that’s ¼ to ½ lb of sugar per day OR the equivalent of ½ C to 1 Cup a day!!! —- crazy, right?!!) – Canadians do consume less but we aren’t too far behind.
- Children 4-8 yrs old are consuming 7 times the recommended amount of 3 tsp/day (and parents are their kids “sugar dealer” – we give them this in the form of treats and snacks).
- There are one million Canadians who have diabetes and don’t even know it, and then there are 1 in 5 adults who have pre-diabetes and don’t know that either.
Sugar has become the most abused food product known to man and has created the most confusion.
Sugar has become love.
Sugar has become a treat.
Sugar has become a way to escape, numb, and distract yourself from the hard things in life.
Sugar is there when you’re sad, or lonely, or tired.
In fact, sugar is everywhere.
It’s in your yogurt, your cereal, your vanilla latte, your orange juice, your fat-free treats.
Sugar is evil. Fact. It’s the opposite of love. It’s the opposite of a treat. It has the potential to make you sick, fat and rob you of any kind of vitality you once used to have.
Sugar affects you in more ways than you know or probably care to truly understand, I mean, you can just worry about that later, right?! Wrong. Sugar wreaks havoc in your body. Overload your body with sugar in the moment (or several moments, several days a week, for months at a time which turn into years) and you’re unconsciously choosing to make your body a mess.
In this post I’m going to show you 5 ways that sugar is ruining your life and you may not even realize it:
1. It’s Crushing Your Confidence
Feeling like you can’t resist sugary treats or consistently indulging when you weren’t intending to makes you feel like a failure. It erodes the trust you have with yourself because you feel like you’ve lost control, in spite of having best intentions.
It weakens the belief you have in yourself to accomplish a simple task – eating better. When you can’t even do that you start to question your abilities and your worth in every other area of your life. You may not even realize you’re doing this or make the connection, but after working with hundreds of women I can testify this is true.
Self-doubt starts to creep in and negative thoughts fill your head. Negativity and self-doubt are contagious, and before you know it both will have spread through your entire being. You start shrinking back from life and your world gets smaller as you don’t feel good being seen. You lose your voice as now you’re unsure of your own thoughts and, if left unchecked, feelings of constant discontent and unhappiness become present.
2. It’s making you fat
Overindulging on sweets and treats can lead to weight gain, which then further zaps your self-love. Your jeans get tighter, you hate getting dressed in the morning, you feel frumpy, and don’t even recognize yourself when you look in the mirror.
Most women believe that they simply need to exercise more, but that’s the biggest weight loss myth out there. There will never be enough time in the day to out train your nutrition.
- [Tweet “There is simply not enough time in the day to out train your nutrition, it’s far easier to simply eat a little bit less.”]
Women avoid fat like the plague, believing that it’s dietary fat that’s making them fat. As a result, you might find yourself opting to buy 0% fat yogurt, and ordering a nonfat latte, completely unaware of the amount of sugar you’re consuming.
Fat doesn’t make you fat, overeating sugar does.
3. You’re creating insulin resistance in your body, which leads to diabetes and other health problems
Insulin is a hormone in your body that acts like a key, allowing sugar to enter your cells from your bloodstream. Insulin resistance is when the “key” (insulin) is no longer able to unlock the cells and sugar just stays in your bloodstream.
To compensate for this, special cells in your pancreas work overtime to try and produce more and more insulin, but eventually they burn out. After this happens, sugar just stays stuck in your bloodstream. This is how “high blood sugar” is created.
When you have high blood sugar and make no changes to your lifestyle (diet or exercise), then you are well on your way to getting diabetes. The difference between insulin resistance (also known as pre-diabetes ) and diabetes is your blood sugar level.
Diabetes threatens nearly every part of your body, increasing your risk of memory loss, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, nerve damage, poor vision, and even foot and leg amputations.
Making the choice to become aware of what you’re putting in your body and choosing to eat less sugar and make healthier choices is the single best thing you can do to prevent this from happening. The second best thing you can do is exercise!
4. Your body becomes the perfect host for diseases
The human body was never meant to handle the amount of sugar that the average American consumes today (which is about 32 teaspoons/day). The recommendation for adults is between 6-8 teaspoons.
It’s easy to connect the dots and realize that consuming excess sugar can lead to obesity, BUT more and more research is being done and supporting the fact that excess sugar consumption has a direct link to:
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Certain types of cancers – specifically breast cancer, colon cancer, liver cancer and pancreatic cancer. Too much sugar can
- Fatty liver
- Polycystic ovarian syndrome
- Cardiovascular disease
The food you eat has a direct, impact on your health and quality of life.
5. You always want more – it hijacks your brain
Notice how when you intend to have only one little square of chocolate, eventually the entire chocolate bar has disappeared. Or if you haven’t eaten sugar for a while and then have some it’s like you’ve unleashed a beast! When you have some you always want more.
That’s because sugar acts on the same reward area of your brain that drugs like cocaine and meth do. Eating sugar triggers the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter in your brain, which gives you a high, so to speak.
Over time, the amount of sugar required to create the high increases due to dopamine receptor sensitivity (1). This is what can lead to to those insatiable cravings. Not good.
Sugar also hijacks the functionality of your brain. What is known from the research on drug addicts is that repeated exposure to drugs alters the ability of your frontal lobe to be able to exert control, make good decisions, and have good judgement. This frontal lobe impairment is literally why it feels like you simply can’t stop eating it sometimes.
The scariest thing about sugar is that it’s affordable, accessible and perceived as “harmless”… that it’s a “treat”. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Ready to Deal With Your Sugar Cravings?
Here’s the thing – everything I’ve talked about above is preventable and in some cases reversible, as long as you choose to deal with it sooner rather than later. It comes down to being willing to change, to let go of habits that are hurting you and creating new ones that will help you feel, look and live better.
Want to find a way to start dealing with the sugar in your life? For me, making changes is easier when I know what to do. Here are my best tips:
- Eat more veggies
- Drink more water
- Get more sleep
- And download my *free* 10-Step Sugar Detox Guide
I lay out 10 simple steps you can start doing in your life tomorrow, so that within 24 hrs you can feel better and in more control of your sugar cravings – promise.
Click the banner below to get instant access to the guide now.
References:
- Physiol Behav. 100: 454, 2010
- Physiol. Behav. 104: 87, 2011
