In the last post, I talked about self-control, denial, and my “slight” sweet tooth, so I thought it would be good to follow up with a discussion about how sugar affects the body. Spoiler alert: it’s all bad.
There isn’t a single good thing that sugar does for you…
- It has zero nutrition value whatsoever. It actually works very strongly against you since it triggers insulin spiking, typically resulting in more body fat.
- “Sugar makes kids go crazy!” – FALSE. While sugar can be burned in the body as fuel, it provides no boost in energy and actually slows you down due to the insulin spiking. Kids are just crazy already.
- Sugar is VERY addicting and doesn’t fight hunger at all, leaving you very susceptible to over eating. This just compounds the effects of its empty calories. In fact, it can take up to a couple of weeks just to get the sugar cravings out of your system, and those cravings can be strong. Like ”cigarettes” strong, and eating or smoking to relieve a craving is sort of like tying your shoes REALLY tight so that you can feel the brief relief from untying them later. You’re doing it to yourself.
- It can really mess up your skin in the short term, and even cause long term damage if you don’t get it under control in time (I’ll go into that more in a minute).
All in all, it does NOTHING good for you internally, and, in case you didn’t know it, your skin is basically a billboard for your internal health, advertising what’s going on in the inside.
Back to your skin… Two of the proteins in your skin are collagen and elastin, which are responsible for keeping your skin nice and young, both in structure and appearance. When you have extra sugar in your blood stream, it attaches to proteins in a process called glycation, which produces advanced glycation end products (aka AGEs). Guess which proteins are glycation’s favorite: collagen and elastin. AGEs then cause your skin to become thin, rigid and discolored, which leads to wrinkling and sagging, as well as deactivating the natural antioxidants in your body that protect your skin from sun damage. If you aren’t seeing the results now, you will by your thirties, which is when they typically start to show, according to most studies.
So what can you do?
- First off, cut back on foods with sugar in them! It’s surprising how many things have high sugar content, but eating natural foods is easier than ever now that eating healthy is becoming more popular.
- Avoid condiments and drinks with a lot of sugar: soft drinks, heavy coffees, margaritas 🙁 , ketchup, and barbecue sauce. Even most diet soft drinks still trigger insulin spiking, so you should honestly avoid those too. (Healthy Condiment Alternatives)
- Exercise! You can burn off that extra sugar in your blood by staying active.
- Foods with natural sugars in them – fruits, vegetables, etc. – are great in the right proportions. If you don’t over eat them, you should be fine.
- In regard to dessert, eating ice cream or cake right before you go to bed basically guarantees that you’re going gain body fat while you sleep because it has no chance of being completely burned off in time.
- And if you’re really worried about your skin, you may want to look into changing up your sunscreen regimen as well.
Plus, you could always go cold turkey on sweets until it’s out of your system. If the withdrawals seem like they’ll be too much then find a buddy. Suffering is always better when with a partner!
There’s a lot of information about sugar and its effects available out there, so look around if you are curious. This is another good video we found that explains how sugar became so popular and some of its other negative effects.
In Good Health,
Ryan
