Thinking about quitting sugar, but wondering if it’s really worth the effort? It can be challenging to stop eating sugar, but doing so can have a positive impact on your overall health as well as your waistline. Check out these science-backed benefits that you can look forward to when you cut sugar out of your diet!
Aside from the obvious extra calories, sugary foods and drinks can sabotage your weight-loss efforts in other ways. Eating added sugar disrupts your body’s normal, healthy processes that tell the brain when to stop eating. In addition, there’s mounting evidence that sugar can be addicting, prompting you to eat more and more of it even when you want to stop.
Losing weight isn’t easy, and there’s no single solution for everyone. But no matter who you are, cutting out added sugar is a universal way to quickly improve your health and make it easier to slim down.
Who wouldn’t like to have better memory and mental power? Whether it’s forgetting the name of your new co-worker or struggling to concentrate on a task, sugar could be standing in the way of a sharper you.
One medical study found that rats who were fed a high-fructose diet had increased memory issues, while another study found that eating sugar changes the frontal cortex of the brain, leading to more cognitive problems.
When you eat sugar, it sticks to collagen and elastin, proteins in the skin that keep it supple and springy. Sugar causes these proteins to become stiff, making skin look older in the form of wrinkles and sagging.
Frustrated by pimples and acne that just won’t go away? A high-sugar diet has been linked to acne breakouts in all ages, from teens to adults.
Medical research has shown that high amounts of added sugars in the diet — in particular, fructose and sucrose — lead to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes.
Sugar has its own unique and complicated way of harming your health to make your body more likely to get type 2 diabetes. Eating added sugar leads to an increase in body fat, triglycerides, and fat around the liver. All of these factors lead to insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance means that the body’s cells no longer recognize insulin, and therefore they can’t take in glucose from the blood. Over time, the pancreas can’t make enough insulin to keep up, and blood sugar (glucose) levels become too high.
It’s worth noting that there’s no evidence that eating fruits and vegetables, which contain fructose, leads to insulin resistance or diabetes. In fact, these foods seem to have a protective effect.
100 million Americans are now living with this damaging disease. Do whatever you can to lower your risk of getting it! Reducing added sugar is a great first step. Added bonus: you’ll decrease your risk of a heart attack or stroke too!
Garcia Weight Loss offers custom-tailored weight-loss plans are designed to address the factors that make weight loss difficult for you — whether that’s sugar cravings, hormone imbalances, leptin resistance, a slow metabolism, or other obstacles. Contact us for your no-cost consultation!