8 Great Benefits of Ditching Sugar

Sugar is just terrible stuff. It provides a moment or two of sweet taste but long term promotes weight gain, high blood sugar, system wide inflammation and a feeding system for potential disease.

So how is it that so many of us are, by some estimates, are eating an average of about 22 tablespoons of this stuff daily? Well, for starters, sugar is highly addictive. In fact, researchers have shown that sugar can activate the same pleasure centers in the brain as tobacco, alcohol and even heroin and cocaine.

As with any addiction, breaking sugar’s grip can be uncomfortable, but the benefits you’ll reap will far exceed the ‘pain’ of a few days of discomfort. In fact, in as little as a week, you’ll likely start feeling the positive effects of living life low-sugar. As you phase sugar out, cravings will taper off, eventually to the point where, you may not care at all if you ever a cupcake again.

The best part of quitting sugar is watching your health improve almost immediately. Your energy will return, aches and pains begin to lessen and then disappear along with other ills. Here is what you can look forward to:

Weight is reduced along with Diabetes risk.

It’s shocking how many sugar calories we consume daily when we’re not paying attention. When we reduce the absolute number of calories we consume, we’re lowering our blood sugar levels. That means the body has to produce less insulin to clear the sugar from the blood. And that means it’s better able to burn those calories for energy instead of storing them as fat.

Better blood pressure and lipid levels.

Let’s stop relying on Big Pharma for a temporary fix. Just cutting out sugar can help move blood pressure into a healthier zone. Cutting sugar can also help push cholesterol numbers in a positive direction, and ditto for triglycerides. For some people, ditching sugar can drop levels by up to 30 percent, which may be just enough to keep you off the meds –a major benefit!

Fewer headaches.

The blood sugar spikes and crashes that come with high dietary sugar intake not only keeps appetite permanently primed, but all that yo-yoing may also be turning up the volume on your headache and migraine pain. In fact, sugar may be triggering your head pain in the first place, so lay off the sweets for a happier noggin.

Less menstrual cramping.

If you’re a woman who suffers from painful menstrual cramps, cleaning up your diet and ditching the sweet stuff, helps you to significantly tame the body’s production of prostaglandins, the hormone-like, culprit compounds responsible for menstrual pain.

Less anxiety and depression.

It’s easy to think of a sweet snack as a harmless, mood-lifting yummy, yet it has an impact and it’s not good. According to a recent study men with a sweet tooth were 23% more likely to develop an emotional disorder, and high-sugar consumers of both sexes ran a higher risk of recurrent episodes of depression.

Less brain fog and cognitive decline.

In the short term, a diet with little or no added sugar can enhance clear and quick thinking right now. The brain fog-sugar connection was recently shown in a recent UCLA study which determined that high sugar consumption negatively impacted learning and memory. One more reason to ditch the donuts and load up on unprocessed foods rich in nutrients and good fats to help keep your brain sharp. With conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease on the rise, research points to sugar as a main culprit

Better, more restorative sleep.

Less sugar equals better sleep. Many people don’t realize that sugar is the enemy of a good night’s snooze. It can have a stimulating effect and if it happens to be chocolate, you're getting a dose of caffeine with that sugar.. So your metabolism will work at trying to clear excess sugar throughout the night, sending you frequently to the bathroom to pee, and disrupt your sleep.

A lot fewer urinary tract infections.

Excess sugar feeds the UTI-causing bacteria, which promotes bacterial overgrowth and UTIs. So, when you cut sugar out of your diet, you’ll starve the bad bugs, making it a lot tougher for them to cause you trouble.