Is Sugar Really Bad For You?

This year at the end of March I really started to reflect on my eating habits and mood. After having Daxton I just wasn’t losing weight like I used too. I struggled to lose a pound and it became really frustrating. I knew my body would change, but I never expected weight loss to be so hard after pregnancy. (A little naïve of me right?) I continued to look at my eating habits and thought, “I don’t understand, I eat really healthy.”

During my frustration, I turned to a friend who is going to school for Nutrition. She asked if I would like to be her client for a class she was taking and she would be my “Nutrition Coach.” I thought, Yes! This is exactly what I need. I had to keep a 3 day journal of my eating habits and then we would do a series of meetings via FaceTime. After my friend reviewed my 3 day journal, one of her recommendations was to reduce my sugar intake. I thought, I don’t eat that much sugar. I enjoy my sugar in my coffee in the morning with creamer, I enjoy a sweet treat after dinner, and I enjoy my glass of wine now and then, but other than that I didn’t realize what I was eating that had sugar in it.

So, I started reading the labels of things. WOW!!! I couldn’t believe what had sugar in it. After a week of reading the labels, I knew I had to do something to cut my sugar. So, I took on the Whole30 Challenge. I’ve been wanting to do one for awhile and thought, this is the time, I’m ready.

What is Whole30: Whole30 emphasizes whole foods and the elimination of sugar, alcohol, grains, legumes, soy, and dairy. If you would like to know more about Whole 30 follow the link. Whole30

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My Whole30 Journey

On April 1st I started my Whole30 Journey. It was a real challenge, and I thought to myself, why does this have to be so hard to just eat Whole foods? The first week was hard, I felt tired, continued to crave sweet things, and just didn’t have the energy that I used to have. I kept telling myself, we will get through it and continue to push on. I just took it one day at a time, because every time I would look at the date and think, I have 25 more days of this, I don’t think I will make it. After that first week, it got a little easier. I finally started to understand my food I was putting in my body, I was finally starting to get educated on the ingredients in the food, and I was starting to get some energy back. During this program one of the “rules” or I should say recommendations is to not step on the scale during the 30 days.

This journey isn’t about weight loss, this is a journey of eating healthy and starting to realize that the food you put in your body fuels your body. If you are putting junk in your body, you are going to feel like junk. If you are putting clean foods in your body, you are going to feel good and have energy. After about 2 weeks on the program, I started to feel great! I was less swollen, I started to feel less bloated all the time, and I had energy!

I completed my Whole30 Challenge. This challenge may be a little extreme, but sometimes I need that extreme to motivate me. With this challenge I learned, that sugar has a big impact on our diet. It impacted by weight loss journey and my overall health.

Sugar and Your Health

According to WebMD “Americans consumes on average of 20 teaspoons a day, compared to the recommended 6 teaspoons for women and 9 teaspoons for men.”

Sugar affects your entire body from head to toe. It affects your mood, teeth, skin, liver, heart, pancreas, kidneys, body weight, and sexual health.

The occasional sugary snack can give you a quick burst of energy or also knowns as the sugar high by raising your blood sugars fast. When that level drops, you probably start to feel anxious or jittery (sugar crash). If you are eating those sugary snacks more often, this may effect your mood beyond the afternoon slump. One study has shown that high sugar intake leads to a greater risk of depression in adults. Depression.

Eating sugar can cause inflammation in the body, which can increase joint pain or make joint pain worse for individuals. Inflammation in the body may cause your skin to age faster or even cause acne.

Your heart, liver, and pancreas are all linked to insulin production. When you are eating too much sugar your body is producing too much insulin, which may cause your liver to become resistant to insulin causing Type 2 Diabetes. With that extra insulin in your system it affects your arteries which can affect your circulatory system. Your pancreas is what regulates the insulin, when you are eating too much sugar your body stop responding to insulin, which causes your pancreas to pump out more insulin than needed. When you have type 2 diabetes it affects your kidney function and can lead to kidney damage. Your kidneys play an important role in filtering your blood sugar. If your blood sugar levels reach a certain amount, the kidneys start to let excess sugar in your

Sugar and its effects on the brain

As a Psychology major studying the brain is always interesting to me. The effects of sugar on the brain, is shocking. The term Brain Fog is a real thing. Eating sugar gives your brain a huge surge of dopamine, also called the feel-good chemical. The surge of dopamine that sugar gives to the brain is equal to what substances such as cocaine, heroin, and other drugs give to the brain, which is causes addictions.

In the brain, excess sugar impairs both our cognitive skills and our self-control (having a little sugar stimulates a craving for more). Sugar has drug-like effects in the reward center of the brain. Scientist have proposed that sweet foods -- along with salty and fatty foods -- can produce addiction -- like effects in the human brain, driving loss of self-control, overeating, and subsequent weight gain. Verywellminded

Kids and Sugar

When grocery shopping for Daxton, I’ve learned to ALWAYS read to labels and the ingredients. It’s really eye opening when you see the products that are advertised as “organic” “reduced sugar,” etc. and start reading the ingredients and some of the bars have an extreme amount of sugar.

I just recently bought Daxton The Perfect Kids organic refrigerated snack bars. I was reading the box (didn’t read the label) and they advertise as 7 grams of protein, 8+ superfoods, USDA Organic, and NonGMO verified. I thought to myself, these would be a great healthy snack option for Dax. Since I was looking at my sugar intake, I started to read the labels on Daxton’s food. This bar has more sugar than a Snickers Bar and I would give Daxton these probably once a week.

The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends that children ages 2-18 years old consumes less than 25 grams (6 teaspoons) of sugar a day. This includes no more than 8oz. of sugar-sweetened drinks per week. Children younger than 2 years old should have NO sugar at all. American Heart Association

When children eat a diet of lots of added sugar early in life it is linked to obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes. All these put children and young adults at risk for heart disease. Also, when you are giving your children sugary treats it leaves less room in your child’s tummy for heart healthy foods such as; fruits, veggies, and dairy products.

Doing the math: 4 grams of sugar equals 1 teaspoon.

Examples:

One serving (¾ c.) of Lucky Charms® cereal = 2 ½ tsp of sugar

One serving (two) Chips Deluxe Rainbow Chocolate Chip Cookies®- 2 ½ tsp sugar

One serving Honest Kids Organic Juice Drink = 2 tsp sugar

Just like in adults, sugar intake takes a toll on the entire body. Imagine how hard it is for us as adults to reduce or eliminate our sugar intake. When we are introducing those sugary foods at a very young age our children are developing that taste for the foods and always wanting more. As seen in adults sugar as the same effects on the brain as in children. This is a highly debated topic in Pediatrics and research, but sugar intake has been linked poor concentration, mental health distress, anxiety, and poor memory in children later in life. If you would like to read further about the statistics of effects of sugar intake during pregnancy and your children follow the link. Alarming Statistics on How Sugar Affects Children Development

Getting started to reduce the sugar

Cut back on the amount of sugar added to things you eat or drink regularly such as; cereal, pancakes, coffee or tea. Try cutting the usual amount of sugar you add by half and then wean down from there.

Swap out the soda (this was a hard one for me!) Water is best, but if you want something sweet to drink, drink carbonated flavored waters. When choosing your carbonated waters, make sure to read the ingredients and watch out for the added sugars. Some waters that I love are LaCroix, Bubly, and Spindrift. You can also add fruit to your water for additional flavoring.

Eat fresh, frozen, dried, or canned fruits. Chose fruit canned in water or natural juice. Avoid the fruit canned in syrup. I hear the debate a lot of fresh is better than frozen. There has been some research done that frozen is better than fresh because the vegetables are picked and frozen at freshness rather than picked before they are ripe. So, if you don’t have it in your budget you can always buy frozen.

Read food label and choose products with the lowest amounts of ADDED SUGARS. Dairy and fruit products will contain some natural sugars.

Add fruit. Instead of adding sugar to your cereal or oatmeal, try fresh or dried fruit.

Instead of enhancing your foods with sugars use spices instead. Try cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, etc.

Substitute. Switch out sugar with unsweetened applesauce in recipes. Always use equal amounts.

Making these changes may seem simple, but can be challenging. Sugar is very addictive and when you cut it out of your diet you are going to experience some symptoms such as; anxiety, jittery feelings, brain fog, restlessness.

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I challenge all of you to cut out sugar for 14 days and see how you start feeling after those 14 days. It isn’t going to be easy, but I believe you can do it. If you’re not up for that 14 day challenge, that’s okay. I then challenge you just to start reading the labels on things that you consume or buy and look for the sugar and added sugars in the labels and the ingredient list.

I’d love to hear from you. Would you accept this challenge? If you accept this challenge, tell me about it. What are you struggling with? Comment below.

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