Sugar Detox Plan
Sugar, what comes into your mind when you think of it? Sweets, tea, coffee, chocolates, or refined sugar grains themselves, and many more. In today’s world sugar plays an important part in our day-to-day life and is found in almost every sweet food and beverage.
Over the past few decades, sugar has been gaining popularity and with that rapid popularity of consumption of sugar, there has been the growth of the problems of obesity and the risk of being diabetic among the population.
The problem is getting serious day by day instead of declining. Now, it’s time to give it a rethink on your lovely item sugar.
What sugar does to your body?
Having anything above the actual need always leads to a problem. The same goes with the sugar too. It acts like a slow poison to your body.
Eating sugary food will give you instant energy but later on, make you feel even more lethargic. Eating sugar gives your brain a huge surge of a chemical called dopamine, giving you a good feel, which explains why you’re more likely to crave. Sugar will instantly lift your mood but as the body goes on utilizing every bit of it, you might feel jittery and anxious.
You might end up having dental caries, an increase in joint pains, and premature aging, adding up excess fat leading to fatty liver disease.
This can lead to heart disease, like heart failure, heart attacks, and strokes. Sugar may impact the chain of events needed for an erection. If you have diabetes, too much sugar can lead to kidney damage and failure too.
Above mentioned are the few important side effects of having excess sugar. So hereunder we are going to discuss and share a few tips to detoxify our body from excess sugar and protect ourselves from this sweet thing that is not so sweet in reality.
Get your body detoxed from excess sugar
Detoxification in general means getting your body rid of a toxic substance which is excess sugar in this case. This process can be either carried out with the help of diet or exercise or medications.
Getting rid of excess sugar might seem challenging but it’s not impossible when you get started.
Following are various steps you can take to detoxify excess sugar out of your body :
1. Swap your sugary beverages with water
Start having plain water instead of sugary drinks like soda, energy drinks, fruit juices, and beverages. You can add mint or lime for flavor if needed.
2. Start your day with low sugary food items
3. Try to grab unsweetened food for snacks. It can include:
- nutrient-dense snacks like nuts and seeds
- whole fruit and nut butter
- hummus and veggies
- hard-boiled eggs when you need a refuel.
4. Rethink about having dessert
You can try to minimize the habit of eating dessert or get rid of it if possible.
5. Focus on the whole diet
The food includes likes of:
- unprocessed foods like vegetables, fruits which contains almost no or less sugar
- Choose foods rich in protein i.e., poultry, eggs, and seafood
6. Eat healthy fat and protein-rich food
Eating these will give you satiety and help in managing food cravings and temptations.
7. Increase dietary fiber intake
This idea works the same as above. It gives you a sense of fullness, avoids cravings
and snacking.
8. Stay hydrated
It’s one of the best and common tips for detoxification of every harmful thing. Staying optimally hydrated is essential to managing sugar cravings. When you drink plenty of water, the body will easily release stored forms of glucose. The body will replenish the sugar and it helps to avoid food cravings.
9. Avoid artificial sweeteners
Taking artificial sweeteners in place of sugar seems to be a great idea but many researchers suggest that certain artificial sweeteners may lead to metabolic changes that may increase cravings, food intake, and weight gain.
10. Manage your stress level
Stress also may lead to a craving for sweet foods. Sugar also has a calming effect on stress hormones, which contributes to your desire for sugar when feeling stressed, so managing your stress level might help you avoid such.
11. Exercise
It can help increase energy and reduce stress, which can help combat symptoms like fatigue, low energy levels, and stress-induced cravings.
Exercise helps to increase your energy level and lessen stress and normalize your insulin level. Exercise helps move sugar into your muscles for storage, increasing your insulin sensitivity.
12. Get enough sleep
Sleep deprivation alters the appetite cycle and increases sugary food cravings so getting the proper amount of sleep will help.
13. Eat something bitter
Bitter food reduces the craving for sweet foods as stated by some researchers.
14. Always stay motivated and disciplined
This is the most needed step for everyone. If you can keep yourself determined and control your cravings, you can get yourself detoxified.
Alternatively, you can access a PDF version of 21 Day Sugar Detox Meal Plan
Conclusion
Getting yourself rid of sugary food is going to be a difficult process and even might take a long time but when you start to see the result of detoxification, you’ll feel it’s worth it.
A few modifications in diet, regular exercise, and sleep patterns can help to detox sugar.
The sugar detox sounds extreme, but it can be a great alternative to cut your intake of refined sugars and adopt a cleaner diet. So just don’t give up, always stay motivated.
References :
- Elliott SS, Keim NL, Stern JS, Teff K, Havel PJ. Fructose, weight gain, and insulin resistance syndrome. Am J Clin Nutr. 2002;76:911–922. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Drewnowski A, Krahn DD, Demitrack MA, Nairn K, Gosnell BA. Taste responses and preferences for sweet high-fat foods: evidence for opioid involvement. Physiol Behav. 1992;51:371–379. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Colantuoni C., Schwenker J., McCarthy J., Rada P., Ladenheim B., Cadet J.L., Schwartz G.J., Moran T.H., Hoebel B.G. Excessive sugar intake alters binding to dopamine and mu-opioid receptors in the brain. Neuroreport. 2001;12:3549–3552. DOI: 10.1097/00001756-200111160-00035. [PubMed] [CrossRef] [Google Scholar]
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