Why “quitting sweets” seems impossible (and how to go about it successfully)

To sum it up, it’s because of one main thing: evolutionary dependency.

Yes, the vastness of the pre-agriculture world led humans to have minimal exposure to sugars, alcohols, and anything really mixed together.

Also, nutrients, in general, were kind of scarce - think about cooking every meal daily, then think about having to catch, collect, or store all of those ingredients. So having something as calorie-dense as honey triggers people to go bonkers with bliss and consume it endlessly to store and use when resources were scarce.

That mechanism still works even though we have access to hyper-processed sugar variants in quantities our bodies were never designed to experience.

The result: humans developed a biochemical trigger with a sense of urgency and excitement at the taste of honey, fruits, sugar cane, maple sap, and all sugar-loaded foods. This much hormonal excitement and metabolic activity is an actual “shock” to the body.

The reason that blissful experience exists and then is followed by extreme jitters, an emotional snap, or even feeling ill - is because our bodies did not evolve as fast as industrialized farming and mass production. So, we still will experience the happiness of sugar consumption along with a withdrawal only this now occurs at a frequency that essentially “shocking” the body multiple times a day in higher doses, opposed to monthly. A long-term effect forms “insulin abuse”, as in, you’re causing spikes of insulin irresponsibly and your body tries to maintain production but will eventually boycott.

Like hard-drugs. Sugar breakdown tweaks your brain in the same regions opiates do. There’s a more in-depth overview of the science displaying brain activity in an article I’ll share late. But for the high-level view, the opiate effect is the excitement response to consuming sugar which the body attempts to mass store (meaning unlike fats there’s no real “stop” trigger for consumption) - when we overconsume it requires extensive help to eliminate the excess by your kidneys and liver, and when it no longer can eliminate fast enough and insulin production fails or insulin is no longer functional due to abuse, your body calls it quits.

I’d like to add to this summed-up addiction overview (not dependency - you can survive without eating added sugars just fine) that humans have limits.

Some people may be able to digest sugars at a rate you find daunting, but give it time, it inevitably catches up.

Don’t be that person.

Keep it simple - the average human is only meant to consume no more than 6 teaspoons of sugar a day… I’ll let you convert that into grams to see all 1.3 cookies worth of sugar that equates to.

No need to freak out, there are many ways to wean yourself off sugar (or reduce your dependency on it for fleeting happiness) - but it does take about three days of brutal withdrawal and three weeks of alternative eating to adjust.

However, once you do, you’ll be surprised what sugar feels like after being off it for a while.

More often than not, people feel sick when they have too much and cravings convert into umami and savoury pallets. (If you’ve ever stuck through a keto diet bout you’ll be familiar with a permanently altered pallet.)

See what eliminating excess sugar in action looks like with Sarah Wilson’s story on how “I Quit Sugar”. An unexpected journalism job turned into a health revolution.

Oh, if kidney, liver, and pancreatic damage aren’t enough to push you to change, know that there’s an interesting correlation between cognitive focus and emotional stability in high sugar-consuming individuals. If you’re looking to improve your mental clarity and health this is a diet change worth visiting.

So you CAN quit sugar, it just might help to have a good understanding of why it’s so hard so you can better overcome the hurdles and guess what? There are FREE workshops to help!

Check out the upcoming Kick Sugar Summit with Dietician Michelle Hurn October 12-19 2021.

If you have new health goals after reading this you might want to check out a few resources to help you achieve them!

Some options as using a self-care app like Noom exist but rarely does health planning beat one-on-one custom planning based on your specific needs so trying a health coaching platform like Health Atlas Guide or speaking with a registered dietician if you need a full meal plan designed might be better options.