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Is This the Year You Break Up with Sugar?

Writer's picture: Slavena Yaneva-JensenSlavena Yaneva-Jensen

If cutting down on sugar—or quitting it altogether—is a promise you’ve made to yourself this year, you’re not alone. For many people, maintaining steady energy levels and improving overall health often means taking a hard look at sugar intake.


No food is worse for your waistline than sugar. When you eat or drink it, it puts your body in a hormonal state that favours fat storage. But giving up sugar comes at a price.

Like other addictive substances, when you stop taking in sugar, your body goes through withdrawal. So, your reward for stopping sugar is a few days of irritability, headaches, and fatigue. Here, I’ll share five things that I’ve found helpful when coaching people to a sugar free lifestyle.

1) Understand that sugar addiction is real


The first thing to understand is that sugar addiction is real. When you eat sugar, it changes the chemistry in your brain by releasing a “feel-good chemical” called dopamine.


There is an actual chemical change happening inside your brain, meaning you aren’t weak or pathetic for craving sugar.


 

2) Eat to stabilize your blood sugar


You want to work toward removing sugar from your diet, and you’ll make that process easier if you feed your body foods that stabilize your blood sugar. 

It is the dips in blood sugar that bring on that intense hunger where you feel like you must have some sugar immediately. You want to eat in a way that prevents those dips, which allows you to feel more in control. 

A practical way to do this is to feed yourself a high-fat salad each day as you are moving away from sugar.

  • The salad greens and colourful vegetables provide volume, nutrients, and fibre, which are all things that keep your stomach full and your blood sugar steady.

  • The high-fat ingredients in your daily salad will keep blood sugar steady as well, so don’t be afraid to put raw nuts and seeds, avocados, hard-boiled eggs, and cheese on your salad. 


    Many of us have a hard time adding fat to our diets because the diet advice for the past 50 plus years has been focused on low fat.

    However, fat is far from evil. In fact, it is an important component of a healthy and enjoyable weight loss plan for two reasons.

    • First, consuming fat in your diet prevents spikes in blood sugar, which keeps the fat-storing hormone, insulin, low.

    • Second, dietary fat is very hunger satisfying, which may lead you to consume fewer calories throughout the day.

    That brings me to my next point, which is that you’ll want to avoid extreme hunger. 


 

3) Avoid extreme hunger


The beginning of your journey to a sugar free life creates a lot of changes for your body.

Your body is a very adaptive machine.

If your diet up to this point has been high in sugar or your meals have included quick digesting carbs like cereal, bread, pasta, and desserts, your body adapted to your high sugar lifestyle and became very good at running on sugar.

Removing those foods and replacing them with slower digesting foods will cause your body to feel temporarily robbed of energy.

If you let yourself get too hungry during this transition, your body will try to get you to eat by spiking your hunger and cravings.

Not only does your body want food, but it also wants energy, and there’s no quicker source of energy than sugar.

By staying slightly ahead of hunger, you avoid the extreme hunger that feels like it can’t be satisfied with anything other than sugar. 


 

4) Cut your sweet tooth with mint


There is no denying that sugar has a powerful grip, but as you stop feeding it to your body, you notice that grip weakening.

Yet, there is always that remembrance of the pleasure of sugar in the back of your brain. This is what’s behind the common thought of just wanting a little something sweet after a meal.

If you find it challenging to give up sweets after dinner, it is helpful to change the taste in your mouth with something minty like a stick of sugar free gum.

If you try this, I think you’ll find that the strong mint flavour overwhelms your taste buds, which quickly removes your mouths’ need for something sweet.



 

5) Set short-term goals


The strategies that I discussed have helped many people move away from sugar, myself included.

While the goal is to give up sugar for good, that thought is very intimidating.

If you tell yourself that you can never eat sugar again, you’re likely to implode and revert to your old ways.



Remember that breaking up with sugar is a marathon, not a sprint. Set short-term goals, like reducing sugar for a day or a week, and celebrate those small victories. Over time, these changes will help you feel more energized, in control, and ready to tackle whatever your training plan throws at you.

Ready to fuel your runs without the sugar highs and lows? Start small, stay consistent, and see the difference it makes in both your running and overall health.


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