Fighting the devil Part 1 – Eliminating Sugar

Over the next few weeks we are going to give you the tools and techniques to successfully break away from our obsessive and destructive relationship that white powdery substance also known as sugar!

Sugar is highly addictive; in fact it has similar dopamine responses in your brain as cocaine and heroin do. The long term health risks of sugar include obesity, fatty liver, cholesterol issues, heart disease, some cancers, and even alzheimer’s disease. For at least one reason regardless of what your current sugar consumption is this should make you consider some less sugary options.

Here is a fun fact your reward center in your brain will light up just as much as consuming sugar just by seeing or smelling the treats that you prefer, giving you a small hit of those feel good hormones,  this then creates an intense desire to consume the product. An example of this is seeing those videos on social media about all those treats you can make with nutella (one of my favourites). All of a sudden you are ready to smash a whole tub of the delicious hazelnut treat! One of our biggest challenges is how often we are exposed to sugar cues. There is an abundance of advertisement of your product, someone else consuming the product, walking past a shop and getting the wonderful scent of something you enjoy, overtime you jump on social media.

So with all of the temptation and even our own brains against us, what can we do? Educate and implement! In the coming blog posts I will be giving you stacks of information about sugar and the exact tools you need to beat your addiction! 

For those seriously interested in cutting back there are two amazing books on this topic that I would highly recoommend –

1. That Sugar Book
2. I Quit Sugar

My first tip on eliminating sugar from your diet.

Remember this is a step by step system to break free from your addiction, cold turkey can be quite rough so i prefer a step by step system of elimination.  This, and the following tips, will definitely help get you closer to your goal.

ELIMINATE LIQUID CALORIES

This is my favourite! 

Eliminating Liquid calories is one of the fastest way to cut out excess sugar in your diet.

Liquid calories in my opinion are the easiest due to the fact that they are not necessary from day to day living. We do not get anything out of a liquid calorie that we can’t consume from food. Another bonus of not drinking liquid calories is that you will inadvertently drink more water, a strange foreign substance that is apparently good for us!

What is a liquid calorie;

This is any drink in any form that contains any form of energy. This includes:

Fruit Juices, Soft drinks, any milk drink, sports drinks, flavoured waters, energy drinks, alcohol.

What is allowed:

WATER!!!!, green tea, black coffee (no sugar), personally infused water ( for example dropping a bit of lemon or lime in your glass of water) and sparkling water.

To make the rules really simple for your brain for the first 10 days only drink water!

Step one:

Eliminate all temptations from your house and work – Whatever excuse you are coming up with now file it under bullsh*t and do what you need to do!

Step two:

Every time you are craving that sugar fix drink a large glass of water

Step three:

Persist for at least 60 days! This gives you enough time to start establishing the habit all though you will feel the benefit of more water consumption and more stable moods after the first few days!

Will you join me in my battle to fight the devil ?

Tim Morgan,

4 U Body Fitness

Mobile Personal Training Specialist!