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5 Reasons To Quit Sugar Even If You Do Not Have Diabetes!

Sugar sits pretty not just on your tabletops- with your morning tea and coffee, but is a part of almost every meal and snack. Your morning cereals, low fat or oil-free snacks you pick up from the shelves, most ready-to-eat sauces, spreads, even low fat yoghurt, all come loaded with sugar. Sugar is a highly processed food and all its damaging effects quietly sneak up in our diet.

5 Primary Reasons Why You Should Quit Sugar:

Starving Your Body

Most ready-to-eat foods are loaded with sugars and constitute a significant portion of on-the-go foods. Substituting a healthy meal with sugary foods means that we skip on essential carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, and minerals that should have made up our calories. We replace cereals, protein-rich pulses, and vegetables with zero nutrition foods that are high in empty calories. The body is thus literally starved of the nutrients it requires. Therefore, it is a must to quit sugar.

A 2014 study published in Nutritional Neuroscience explains how a high-fructose diet causes hippocampal insulin resistance while also exacerbating memory deficits. Another study published in Molecular Neurobiology found a link between sugar consumption and negative changes in the brain’s frontal cortex — changes associated with additional cognitive problems. If you want to stay sharp and on top of things, especially as you age, stop eating sugar. Your mind will reward you in spades.

Dr. M.G. Kartheeka, MBBS, MD

Instant High Followed by a Sluggish Feeling:

Refined sugar is instantly absorbed into the bloodstream that causes the release of the hormone insulin. Insulin helps the body to utilize the sugar and blood sugar levels crash leaving you feeling lethargic. Therefore, a lunch packed with sugary treats leaves you feeling sluggish and tired much earlier than eating fruit or meal containing vegetables. Your productivity declines, you feel sleepy and irritated.

Foods such as bread, biscuits, readymade sauces, fat-free yoghurt are all high in sugar content, even though they do not fall into the traditional ‘sweet’ foods category.

Opt for meals with lots of raw vegetables, fruits, cereals, pulses, and other protein-rich foods to keep you energetic throughout the day.

Affects Your Alertness:

The yo-yo effect of blood sugar levels does not just leave you feeling sluggish and tired physically but affects your mental alertness too. You feel disoriented and are unable to concentrate. It can even give headaches to many of you. You need to limit your sugar consumption if you wish to improve alertness at work.

Also Read: Is Sucralose Bad for You? Unraveling the Truth Based on Research

Causes of Weight Gain:

Is sugar fattening? You bet. We have believed for a long time that its fats that make us fat. This is not entirely true. Sugar is metabolized by our liver, where it is converted into fat and released into the bloodstream. This is the harmful fat that makes us gain weight and is the cause of several diseases.

Most products sold in the market as ”Fat-free” or ”low fat” have fats replaced with sugar to maintain the taste, flavour, and texture. Thus leading you down the very road of weight gain you are trying so hard to avoid.

Also Read: What Causes Low Blood Sugar In a Non-diabetic: Research-Based Analysis

Makes you Hungry:

Sugar and foods containing sugar have no healthy carbohydrates or proteins in them. The insulin spike that follows the consumption of foods high in sugars quickly lowers blood sugar levels and leaves one feeling hungry again. This makes us hungry between meals, which is usually unplanned, makes us binge on whatever is readily available. More sugar and fat!

To quit sugar, it is essential to plan your meals such that they contain adequate essential nutrients required by your body. Moreover, to quit sugar, now can save you from a gamut of future complications like heart disease, diabetes, and stroke.

Read More: 10 Harmful Effects of Sugar

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