Give up Sugar for 10 days; feel the difference
When you give up sugar (not just glucose, but also alcohol, bought fruit juices, refined foods, fizzy drinks, alcohol, cake, biscuits, breads and pasta) for just 10-14 days, your body and your health will improve significantly. You’ll notice health improvements almost immediately.
- You will stop insulin resistance;
Around 70 per cent of Western adults have some degree of insulin resistance. It lies behind many chronic illnesses from arthritis to cardiovascular disease. It starts with consuming too much sugar, and your cells’ receptors rejecting the excess and creating barriers. It’s called glucose intolerance. Excess sugar requires more insulin production to drive the sugar out of the bloodstream, but insulin is actually a type of toxin to your body and cells. So cells then build up a resistance to insulin and the excess glucose can’t be pushed into the cells. The pancreas produces more and more insulin to do the job of pushing that sugar into the cells, and in the end it just gets ‘worn out’. This produces a situation of prediabetes, then diabetes.
Insulin resistance and sugar are also major reasons why some people just do not seem to be able to lose weight. The microbiome alters. And the microbiome of overweight people and diabetics is almost identical. The bacteria in the respective microbiomes also create more inflammatory metabolites.
This insulin-sugar-microbiome downward spiral also causes poor absorption from your foods – for example, of vitamins and nutrients such as B1, magnesium, calcium, potassium, vitamin D and even protein. You become less lean and muscular and instead become flabbier. This spiral lies as the heart of metabolic syndrome and increases the risk of diseases like cardiovascular disease, strokes, dementia and cancer.
- You will lower inflammation in your body
Chronic inflammation is the precursor to all chronic illness and even some everyday problems.
Do you have back pain or stiff joints? Or arthritis? Or migraine, or regular headaches?
Sugar, and especially insulin can turn on an enzyme called Cox-2, which is present in every cell in your body. This immediately causes the production of highly inflammatory hormones all over the body. A group of these hormones is called prostaglandins and drive arthritis. Others drive cancer. Others cause inflammation in your arteries.
Some just make your arms, feet, legs and face puffy.
- You will change your general health
Lowered sugar and inflammation will help overcome lethargy. Sugar damages the liver, which converts alcohol and sugar in the same process and this can cause fatty liver disease. Yes, consuming sugar puts up your fat levels too! This coupled with inflammation causes lethargy, increases your blood pressure and also increases your risk of cardiovascular disease.
Cutting sugar will improve your immune system. Just a glass of supermarket orange juice will put your immune system down for 90 minutes.
But sugar also damages the nervous system and we know it can alter your moods causing anxiety and irritability, and it can even cause your brain to shrink. Although your brain needs sugar, too much is a bad thing. A 2012 UCLA study in animals showed that an excess of sugar increased the aging of brain cells. And a 2009 study from Boston College showed excess sugar caused mental deficiencies and brain fog.
Excess sugar slows down mental awareness. Yes, sugar damages the brain. Research shows that when you take away the sugar from a child’s diet, the number of epileptic seizures they have falls dramatically. The same has now been found to be true in adults. Older people with higher blood sugar levels have more dementia – it’s all on this Website!
Finally, cutting sugar can even improve your eyesight.
So what are you waiting for?
- You will quickly end sugar cravings
Sugar is just as addictive as drugs like heroin and cocaine. Sugar stimulates dopamine which causes cravings. This can take just three or four days to overcome.
But sugar is also the favourite food of ‘bad’ gut inhabitants such as yeasts and E. coli. If they don’t receive sugar they send chemicals to the brain demanding it. You may well have a sweet tooth, but so do your pathogens. It only takes five to seven days to overcome this. Taking Oregano oil (180 mg first thing and last thing) will help clear the yeasts.
Are all sugars created equal?
In the average Western diet the top sources of ‘bad’ sugar are fizzy soft drinks (high fructose corn syrup), bought fruit juices, smoothies and fruit drinks, alcohol (especially beer), biscuits, cakes, chocolate, sweets, flavored yogurts, mass market cereals, refined and most processed foods – even bought foods like bread, soups, dried meats and ketchup.
Natural whole grains and fruits are better for you but not perfect. Cooking (and even juicing) can make matters worse, Like ‘whole foods, a raw carrot releases its sugar slowly preventing insulin peaks. But juice a carrot or cook it and it becomes an inflammatory and diabetic nightmare.
Start by cutting out the ADDED SUGAR
In the Western world, people consume between 15 and 30 percent of their calories as added sugar – as listed above – everything from chocolate to bought orange juice and alcohol to cakes. That’s where you should start.
You will feel better within ten days. A month, and you’ll be a new person.
