5 Great Reasons To Cut The Sugar From Your Diet
One of the essential components of the Optimised Health Formula protocol is management of blood sugar. Not many women who work with me to resolve her PMS, cramps, low libido, PCOS, endometriosis, fibroids or infertility start out with stabilized blood sugar.
You’ve probably heard about how sugar is the source of many health issues. There’s been a lot of talk in the media about the evils of sugar consumption. Sugar is hidden in all sorts of foods including bread and salad dressing. Add to that our love for things like cookies and ice cream and it’s no wonder our sugar consumption is skyrocketing. Unfortunately, all this added sugar is doing a lot of damage to our health. It’s making us gain weight in record numbers and is affecting our hormonal balance more than ever!
It’s time to cut added sugar from our diet.
If you’d like support on your sugar detox journey, enrol now in our complimentary sugar detox!
Here are five reasons why you should do a sugar detox and do what you can to avoid consuming sugar as much as possible.
#1. Consuming Sugar Spikes Your Insulin
As soon as your body starts to digest sugar, your insulin spikes up. Insulin is the hormone that is in charge of keeping blood sugar levels from rising too high and converting extra sugar into fat for storage.
It’s a delicate process and consuming sugar in large quantities will cause your insulin to spike and deal with more than it is designed to handle. Over time it becomes less and less effective this is when things start to negatively affect your health.
#2. Consuming Sugar Makes You Gain Weight
Because of the insulin and because sugar adds a lot of calories to food, it can make you gain weight and you don’t have to be eating a lot of candy and cakes for that to happen.
Since the late seventies, when health authorities advised consumers to watch and lower their fat intake, the food industry has provided us with all sorts of low fat and fat free food options. To make these low fat foods taste ok, they had to add a lot of sugar.
Take a look at regular and low fat or fat free salad dressing. The lower fat options have a lot more carbs and in particular, sugar. You may not taste it, but it’s there. Since sugar is much more quickly digested than fat, you’re hungry sooner after consuming a low fat meal and you eat again. The end result is weight gain.
#3. Consuming Sugar Increases Hormonal Imbalances
For women especially, a diet that contains too much sugar can lead to significant hormonal imbalances.
One of the most notable effects of too much sugar is insulin resistance. This is often associated with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and disrupted reproductive hormones. This often leads to problems getting pregnant.
Another notable – and connected – effect is higher cortisol levels. Like with the science, I will often notice that my clients who are consuming too much of the bad kind of sugar end up with higher cortisol levels. This leads them to experience added inflammation in their body in the form of pelvic pain and vaginal dryness. This is often connected with conditions such as endometriosis and fibroids too and will often lead as well to problems getting pregnant.
Insulin resistance leads to weight gain. And, did you know that estrogen gets stored into our fat cells? So the more fat you have in your body, the higher your estrogen levels will be.
#4. Consuming Sugar Increases Your Risk For Diabetes And Metabolic Syndrome
With all that increased sugar and weight gain comes a higher risk for diabetes and a condition called metabolic syndrome. Metabolic Syndrome is a group of symptoms and behaviors that put you at a much higher risk of developing heart disease and Type II diabetes.
Thankfully both conditions are reversible and the first step toward better health is to cut out the sugar.
#5. Sugar Doesn’t Have A Lot of Nutritional Value And It Makes You Hungrier
Last but not least, it’s important to remember that aside from a little boost of energy, sugar doesn’t provide a lot of nutritional value to your body. If you want something sweet, you’re much better off grabbing a piece of fruit than a cookie. At least with a piece of fruit you’re getting some vitamins and fiber with your sugar fix.
Conclusion
If you want to balance your hormones from the inside out, the first thing you should cut out is sugar. It causes spikes in your blood sugar, that then make your body produce a large amount of insulin to pull the sugar out of your system (and convert it to body fat). The sad little side effect of that process is that your blood sugar goes on a roller coaster ride that will leave you hungry and craving more sugary treats.
