Eight times more addictive than cocaine, sugar can be found in just about every processed food, fast food, and the apparent candy and junk food eaten by most Americans daily in the US. Why? The answer is quite simple. If you are addicted to (fill in the blank) food you buy more and eat more.
My husband and I have been sugar-free now for over 7 years. Our 10-year-old and 13-year-old sons have been sugar-free now for over a year.
In this blog post I will be covering
- shocking facts about how sugar controls our brains
- how sugar effects our hormones, and how that effects our weight
- how to quite sugar for good!
- how you can still enjoy food and lose weight
- how to create a customized meal plan (we don’t plan to fail we fail to plan – NOT this time!)
The Truth About Sugar Addictions
When I tell people that my husband and I have not eaten processed sugar in over 7 years we are always met with one of the most shocked and dumbfounded looks of disbelief. Most people have the belief that it is impossible to “not eat sugar”.
Many believe you can cut back, but to fully eliminate sugar from your diet permanently, in today’s culture, seems unthinkable.
Shortly after the disbelief settles the next emotion we are most often met with is resistance.
Up to this point, most people have never met anyone who has eliminated processed sugar from their diet fully for such a long period of time so their truth has been it cannot be done. Now that they have met not one but 2 people who have removed processed sugar from their diets, but 2 children who have as well their mind is in an uncomfortable place.
They must choose is this still my truth?
Years ago I heard this quote…..
“the truth is only the truth until it is not”
We may believe something is true our entire lives until one day something proves that “truth” to be wrong. It is a very uncomfortable feeling, our mind fights it. I mean we believed something for YEARS and now in a moment, we find it false. It takes our brains some time to process this kind of information.
Most people we talk to about sugar addictions, the harmful effects sugar has on brains and on our bodies, the inflammation sugar causes, and how inflammation leads to disease often quickly decide something along the lines of “well good for you but I could never do it”.
And eliminating sugar is impossible becomes their truth once again. Knowing a couple of people have done it those people are an ‘anomaly’, not normal, etc. Their mind needs and wants to hold on to the truth that they may be able to cut back on sugar but they can never fully cut sugar from their daily diet forever.
Why the Sugar Industries Control Marketing
My family and I love watching documentaries. Documentaries about animals, the planet, and normal people who did amazing things with their lives. We watch documentaries or teach about money and health as well.
Funny how we can spend 1/3 of our childhood in a classroom yet learn nothing about 2 things that will forever decide the trajectory of our lives.
- Money / Income
- Our Health
One of my personal favorite quotes of all time is by Mark Twain, “Never let schools get in the way of your education”.
One of the documentaries we watched recently was made back in 2014 and is still absolutely as relevant if not more relevant today in 2022 than it was back then. It is called Fed Up.
The full documentary is free on YouTube. Watching things like this with our 10-year-old and 13-year-old sons is a constant reminder of why we choose to eat what we do, and why we choose NOT to eat what we don’t.
More about how to eliminate sugar from kids’ diets in this modern-day process sugar-infested world in a bit.
In this documentary, they interview three or four families with young children struggling with obesity. One of the mothers was crying during her interview when she said, “I know I need to stop hiding the chocolate and candy and just get rid of it for my son’s sake and his health, but it’s just hard”.
Important to note the mother and father of the child were both also obese so it is safe to say trashing the junk food is vital for the entire family’s health.
Her son had diabetes and a list of other health issues already by age 14 that most people do not fully develop until well into their 50s or 60s.
Eliminating processed sugar and other toxic foods from our diets started about 7 years ago when I started having my own laundry list of health issues all rooting back to my thyroid and an autoimmune system was off. Way off.
My 13-year-old had a dumbfounded look on his face as he asked, “Mom is she crying because all of their health is so bad, or because she has to throw out the candy bars?”
A valid question. Anyone watching could assume it either way really.
My reply was she is crying because they are so addicted to the sugar she KNOWS it is killing them but she feels helpless because she cannot seem to make herself throw it out.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, well sometimes the stories we hear paint a picture that is an imprint on our lives forever.
Seeing the story of this mother who undoubtedly loves her son but she herself is so addicted to food that is killing them both and cannot seem to bring herself to stop showed my sons that food is just as powerful to our brains as drugs.
Sugar Addiction Facts
Studies have shown sugar is eight times more addictive than cocaine.
Fact:
“Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is a key part trusted Source of the “reward circuit” associated with addictive behavior. When a certain behavior causes an excess release of dopamine, you feel a pleasurable “high” that you are inclined to re-experience, and so repeat the behavior.
As you repeat that behavior more and more, your brain adjusts to release less dopamine. The only way to feel the same “high” as before is to repeat the behavior in increasing amounts and frequency. This is known as substance misuse.” HealthLine Website
It is estimated the average American adult eats around 152 pounds of sugar a year. A YEAR! That is triple what it was 100 years ago.
Sugar and refined carbs (aka processed frank-in foods cooked up in a lab that turn into a sugar response as soon as you eat them) can cause the brain to atrophy or shrink according to Harvard Medical.
Fact:
- Sugar creates a lack of focus in our brains
- Sugar gives people a mood crash
- Sugar leads to memory impairment and studies now link sugar as the main cause of Alzheimer’s and dementia
- Sugar contributes to the high-stress response
- Sugar has been shown to affect changes in personalities
- Sugar suppresses the immune system
- Sugar can lead to nerve damage called diabetic neuropathy
- Sugar creates psychiatric-like symptoms like mood swings or irritability, “hanger,” (hangry), other neurological issues such as anxiety, depression, bipolar, and those associated with ADHD
Sugar has a damaging effect on our brain and science is just beginning to scratch the surface of what Americans eating 150+ pounds of sugar a year is doing to our health.
Here is a great article to check out next on sugar and the brain by Dr. Mark Hyman one of my favorite functional medicine doctors and a great resource for learning how to heal your body naturally using food as medicine.
How the Food Manufacturers Use Sugar to Get More Sales
I bet when you grab your morning bowl of Kellogs cereal you had never heard the dirty little truth about why Kellogs invented cereal……
What do Kellogs and Masturbation have in common? No, sadly this is not the beginning of a bad joke….
Mr. Kellogg believed sexual desires cause disease and invented cereal to stop sex drives and self-pleasuring.
For the majority of people looking forward to their morning bowl of cereal it will come as a surprise that cereal was invented to stop people (namely men) from masturbating.
Pretty sick right?
It’s true John Harvey Kellogg, who first created the cereal in the nineteenth century, originally intended it to be a “healthy, ready to eat, anti-masturbatory morning meal” according to Mental Floss
Mr. Kellogg, a physician, was uncomfortable about sex but leaving it was unhealthy for the body, mind, and soul. He was celibate, having never consummated his own marriage he kept a separate bedroom from his wife. He and his wife adopted their children.
Kellogg was not only anti-sex, he considered masturbating even worse.
Dr. Kellogg wrote a book linking 39 “illnesses” believed to originate from sex and/or masturbation. He also believed meat and rich flavored foods increased sexual desires.
Who would have guessed reading an article on how to stop sugar additions you would be reading about Kellogg’s founder creating Kellogg’s to stop people from having sexual desires?!?!
He literally picked the worse foods in order to prevent people from having sex because he believed it was bad. So using ingredients known to block brain and neuroreceptors is how the recipe for the cereals Americans consume daily was created.
Nuts right? Hold on to your panties here guys it gets worse!
While working as a physician at Battle Creek sanitarium in Michigan he developed a range of breakfast items he believed would prevent a person from pleasuring themselves. He later partnered with his brother will Kellogg, a businessman, who later added sugar to the Corn Flakes and went on to found Kellogg’s company.
Dr. John Kellogg renounced the recipe and the brothers were embroiled in a feud for decades. He also later recommended burning a women’s clitoris to prevent pleasuring and using wire to thread through a men’s foreskin to prevent erections and cause irritation.
Pretty sick dude.
How to Detox Sugar from Your Diet and Lose Weight for Good!
Now that we have a very clear understanding of sugar and the harmful effect sugar has on our health we have our WHY. The foundational to any lifestyle change is knowing WHY you are doing something. This keeps you from cheating on yourself when temptation looms.
Sugar is an addiction and like any other addiction it is totally OK, NORMAL, and GOOD to get outside help and guidance!
The way I personally was able to eliminate sugar for over 7 years now was starting the Keto diet to heal my hormones. On keto – there is NO sugar!
Two birds, one stone!
We have all heard the old, “we don’t plan to fail we fail to plan” quote. But when it comes to food THAT IS 100% THE TRUTH!
Why?
Because our culture revolves around food! This journey has to be more than “change the foods you eat” we have to change the way we think about food.
Think back to your childhood. Your team wins a big game and your mom or dad says, “hey kiddo great job lets go grab a _____________ to celebrate”.
If you said “ice-cream” you are with the other 98% of people poled when asked about their childhood treat.
As adults office parties, birthdays, after hours meet ups all revolve around…… food! And more often that not junk food, fast food, or bar food.
Heck even the word “Diet” we associate with a start date and end date right?
Something we do to get ready for summer or weddings or big life events, then we stop when we are done. (insert forehead slap)
This custome keto meal plan is $1 for your first 7 days! You have nothing to loose. Rachel Roberts the creator of the Custome Keto Meal Plan has great success in guiding people to that ever frustrating question of “what the heck should (could) I eat”.
I will say depending on your journey, your health, your hormones etc this should be a 90 day to one year plan to detox your diet and get rid of the foods keeping you stuck in the CONSTANT loop of never ending weight gain.
I still do not eat
- gluten
- dairy
- sugar
- (little to no) processed foods
- beans
- most grains
But I have since transitioned to what my husband and I call the Human Diet (lol). You know the one humans were meant to eat before all these Frank-in Foods cooked up in labs somewhere invented.
We limit our carbs to the evening meals only (kind of a Keto-ish morning with a Paleo-ish dinner).
Our mindset about food is the first place to start to free ourselves of food having control over us and where us having control over food starts!
Having the mindset of “cheat days” to give yourself something to look forward to is ludicrous if you think about it.
Imagine being married and having a once-a-month “cheat day” on your spouse….how long do you think that marriage will last? Yet somewhere along the way, “cheating” on our healthy lifestyles became what people live for.
The explanation for this behavior is simple – they didn’t have a foundation (WHY). Making cheating on their health easy, and fun.
Really understanding why we are doing something makes cheating on our health HARD, disappointing, gut-wrenching even. To look from the perspective of we desire “taste” over our body’s overall well-being….. well this is a much deeper issue than food and why some might need additional support in this journey.
IT IS OK TO NEED HELP friend!
We all need help and support. We all may not have the support we need at home and I need outside help. Such as coaches or programs to keep us focused, and educate us on things like cereal being invented with crap ingredients to keep us sterile with added sugar to keep us addicted to eating it (mind-blowing).
See knowing this fact alone my bet is on you never reaching for another Kellogg’s brand product, and maybe even cereal as much as we as Americans love it.
Programs and Protocols that will help
The Ketogenic Diet
The Ketogenic diet also known as Keto is where the success in healing my own body from an autoimmune disease started for me. I, as most of you I am guessing, tried a LOT of things before getting to something that worked for my body.
The way I approached Keto was cold turkey about 7 years ago now. I printed a list of “approved foods on keto” and I was off to the races.
There are a million ways to get somewhere. I took the hard way.
I had no idea what I was doing. I stumbled through learning and figuring it out. Detoxing from sugar and refined carbs, is what is called the “Keto Flu”, by the way, I am not downplaying when I say it is like coming off of drugs.
I was shaky, irritable (like really bad yall my poor family), and I felt sick for a couple of weeks. It was pretty ruff.
Physical symptoms of drug withdrawal include:
- Nausea and vomiting.
- Diarrhea
- Muscle and bone pain.
- High temperature and/or chills.
- Fatigue and exhaustion.
- Restlessness.
- Vivid, unpleasant dreams.
- Flu-like symptoms.
Minus the vomiting that about sums it up. However, don’t panic, the “Keto Flu” is totally avoidable with knowing how to go Keto properly. Again, having a coach, online program, or something of the such will HELP you avoid the bumby start I had.
I have done some research for you and found some really great options to look into.
Non the less Keto worked for me. I dropped 30 pounds almost instantly when NOTHING AND I DO MEAN nothing else worked for me!
I even fasted 7 days with water and vegetable juice only (no sugary fruit – just veggies, gross I know) and I DID NOT LOSE A SINGLE POUND!
My step-dad did the fast for 5 days with me and lost a pants size at age 58 (insert pitty party weeping here lol).
If you are in that boat where you feel like you have tried everything and NOTHING worked!
I feel you hang in there this post will help I promise, I have been there too that is why I started this blog, to help you friend!
The Personlized Keto Meal Plan above is a great starting point!
When I started Keto it was the FIRST time after having my babies and my hormones going bazerk that something FINALLY worked!
I dropped 30 pounds in the first 2 months and then about 20+ more over that year…..and have kept it OFF FOR GOOD! (7+ years later and counting)
I completely healed my autoimmune systme and and off all medication – 100% naturally! And it was using food as medicine and clean natural living! And you can too!!!
However, I know that so many need more in the beginning.
More help, more guidance, more one-on-one about their body and their journey. If that is you book a call with me! Why not? It is free!
Why is the first call with me free?
Because I want to see if I am the right coach for you and you are the right student for me. I only take on a small number of one-on-one clients and I want to be sure that I can meet you where you are and help and serve you as a GPS to get you in the right direction!
I spent the last 7+ years deep in researching how to heal my body naturally from an autoimmune disease (thyroid issues which 1 in 3 women in the US have). And trust me friend it was a long and bumpy road. I learned SO much about my body, about health and wellness, and holistic healing!
I have intentionally never gotten “certified” as a wellness coach or fitness coach for a reason!
One because 7+ years is longer than Med school and two because then I would have to “color in the lines” of whatever that certification says I have to….. no thank you!
I want to be able to share my journey freely, real, raw, and unedited!
It is my journey after all that healed my body! Not a certification.
If that sounds like your jam – click the “book a free coaching call” button below and email me your name and a good contact number and we can connect for a quick pre-screening call.
I would love to see if I can help you arrive at your wellness destination much quicker than I did.
I want this for you too friend! If you are ready to ditch the diet drama and create a new healthy lifestyle were you control food – food does not control you! I urge you start with the custome meal plan, or book a call with me let’s see if my 1-on-1 coaching is a fit for you.
Conclusion
One of the first factors in losing weight and keeping it off for good, including detoxing from sugar addictions is MINDSET. Even if your not ready to go all in towards your weight loss goals, working on your mindset around food will change your health and propel you in the direction of your wellness goals.
Thankfully today there are SO many great keto and paleo options out there it really makes sticking to it easier than ever.
If you heard my story on healing my hormones and know it is your hormones, or feel that it could be your hormones that is the reason for your body not getting the weight off there is a bit more to it than there might be for others.
This would be a great time to book that call and we can investigate together some next steps in your wellness journey.
Be sure to check out my resources page before you go! I have lots of the books I read along my journey that were instrumental both with mindset and food, my favorite workout gear, and lots more for you to explore there.
Until next time.
Happy healing,
K’Lee
Here are some articles to check out next……
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