5 Reasons Why I’m Quitting Sugar

If you follow me on Twitter or have read my goals for this year, you may know that I am going sugar free for the whole of January. It’s something I’ve dabbled with before. A month before one of my birthdays I decided to give up sugar purely because it’s in everything bad that I was eating and I wanted to shape up a bit for my birthday. This time around, it’s a bit deeper than that.

Type 2 diabetes is in my family and because of that I have been conscious of my weight and my sweet tooth. Not that I’m saying sugar and weight gain are direct causes of diabetes, but they can play a part. I decided in December that I’d experiment with giving up sugar after seeing someone on my Instagram feed had bought Sarah Wilson’s I Quit Sugar book. I looked into Sarah’s story and her 8-week quitting program and decided to buy her I Quit Sugar and I Quit Sugar for Life books, with the aim of quitting in January. Then Amanda Hamilton tweeted about #sugarfreejan and has been offering useful tips on sugar via her Twitter.

How much sugar was I eating before?

When I was at School I’d have several cups of tea a day with 2.5tsp of sugar in each cup. I’d add sugar to my porridge or weetabix and jam on toast was my weakness. Oh, not forgetting the Go Ahead Crispy Fruit Slices I ate everyday at lunch- each bar has 1tsp of sugar in it and there are 3 bars in a pack! Then Uni came and supernoodles, greasy pizza and alcohol played a part of my diet and social life. I cleaned up my act towards the end and started reading more and more about healthy eating.

For the last 2 years or so I haven’t bought or used refined sugar in anything. I stopped drinking tea because I couldn’t stand the taste without sugar. Now I drink herbal teas, sweeten my porridge with fruit and honey and jam on toast is a rarity. If I baked, I’d use honey or Truvia, a natural sweetener. But then Christmas came and there were no-holds barred, sugar was back in my life. By New Years I was ill, bloated, tired, I’d gained weight and my skin had broken out. I was more than ready to quit sugar.

Why is sugar bad for you?

There has been a lot of talk in the media lately about sugar and going sugar free. I’m super happy about this as it means that 1) it’s made it easier for me to quit and 2) more people are aware of it. To explain why sugar is bad for you, I’m going to give you 5 reasons why I’m quitting sugar.

1. Sugar has no essential nutrients and rots your teeth

This is something I’m sure we’ve all heard at some point in our life. Sugar has absolutely no essential nutrients. No vitamins, no minerals, none of the good stuff, just pure “empty calories”. Every time you add a teaspoon of sugar to your tea you’re just adding calories. Sugar also rots your teeth as it feeds the harmful bacteria in your mouth, causing tooth decay- ew.

2. Sugar is addictive

Ever opened a pack of chocolate biscuits, eaten one and not instantly wanted another one? If you don’t succumb to eating a second biscuit, I salute you! If you’re already onto your third biscuit, don’t worry, you’re not alone! Sugar has been said to be as addictive as drugs. Scarily, French scientists found that cocaine addicted rats chose sugar over cocaine. Sugar gives our brains a happy signal and can override our self-control mechanisms causing us to want more.

3. Our bodies aren’t designed to handle the amount of sugar we’re eating

When in our bodies, sugar is broken down into glucose and fructose. Our bodies produce glucose and we burn it for energy. Fructose is not produced by our bodies. It is a sugar that is found naturally in fruit, but it is the sugar our bodies can’t handle in vast amounts. And by vast, I mean the amount a typical adult eats today. Fructose can only be metabolised by the liver and when the liver is full of glycogen (which it most often is) the liver turns fructose straight into fat. Typical white table sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. It is very, very hard to consume too much fructose by eating fruit, but very easy to get too much by eating sugar and foods containing sugar.

4. Sugar is in almost everything in today’s diet

Way back when, there were very few sources of sugar like fruit and honey (if you wanted to fight a swarm of bees for some). Nowadays everything is so readily available, we’ve invented new sources of sugar and put it in almost all modern day processed foods. When I first started quitting sugar I was shocked to discover just how many foods had sugar. Besides the obvious cakes, chocolate, sweets etc, sugar is added to yogurts, ‘healthy’ fruit smoothies and juices, bread, pasta sauces, ketchup and other condiments, fast food, cereals, frozen foods and much more. In fact, in America they found a baby powder for making up babies milk had more sugar in it than a can of coke!!

5. Sugar increases the effects of ageing

I’m sure we all want to look youthful for as long as we can, naturally I mean. Well, sugar produces free radicals that break down collagen, leading to sagging skin and wrinkles. It can also aggravate skin conditions like acne. Whenever I gorge on too much sugar, I get a few spots spring up the next day.


So there you have it, five reasons why sugar is bad for you and partly why I decided to quit. There is more to sugar than what I have listed here. If you want to find out more, I recommend watching Robert Lustig’s talk, Sugar: The Bitter Truth on YouTube. It get’s a bit “sciency” at times, but it is a very interesting and in fact, eye-opening talk. Also have a look at David Gillespie’s talk on his books, Sweet Poison and Big Fat Lies and of course, Sarah Wilson’s books where she has great sugar free recipes and a lot of information about sugar.


If you want to know anything else about sugar or you’re thinking of quitting too, let me know in the comments below.


14 Comments

  1. Chess
    January 26, 2014 / 8:06 pm

    I’m completely with you on this one. I read an article not so long back about sugar, the effects of it and how to go on a sugar free diet. It was worded in such a way that it really stuck with me. I went away and actually looked at all the food I was consuming and how much sugar was in it, I was completely shocked.
    I aim these days to have the lowest possible sugar diet I can. I allow natural sugar but only in small amounts. Over christmas I fell off the bandwagon a bit, but am now trying to hop back on, which is so difficult because as you have said it is incredibly addictive.
    I love the links that help with going sugar free and will be giving them a follow. :)
    x

    http://www.handbagsandhunters.blogspot.co.uk

    • January 26, 2014 / 11:55 pm

      It is shocking just how much of our everyday foods have added sugar. I’m exactly the same, Christmas was my downfall. Glad I could be helpful :) x

  2. January 26, 2014 / 8:18 pm

    Great post and really informative! I have cut sugar out of my diet quite a bit, I’m not 100% sugar free but I’d say 80% of the time I am. I’m glad people are becoming more aware of how bad sugar is for you. X

  3. January 26, 2014 / 8:35 pm

    I’ve been thinking about a sugar detox too. I definitely try my best to cut it out, but there are always chocolates etc kicking around at work and I end up nibbling on them.

    • January 26, 2014 / 11:58 pm

      That was my issue- my office always has treats and things laying around. It’s always someone’s birthday, or someone has come back from holiday and brought sweets as a gift… Now I honestly don’t find it hard to just say no x

    • January 27, 2014 / 6:42 pm

      I was a self-confessed sugarholic! But it surprisingly hasn’t been that bad xx

  4. January 29, 2014 / 10:43 am

    The problem is that the two anti-sugar authors seem to give the thumbs up to glucose and ignore the fact that the ‘addiction’ research with rats and cocaine actually also looked at sweeteners and had the same effect – thus sweetness is the issue – not fructose. Doesn’t really fit with people who sell recipe books based on glucose or other sweeteners – which is why they ‘cherry pick’ evidence when it suits them.

    Re sugar is addictive – hard to separate from food that tastes good – see the book Sugar Salt Fat – and definitely nothing to say that fructose is uniquely addictive (despite what the gurus claim).

    Re Dr Lustig While Dr Lustig’s theories and evidence may seem convincing to the general public and reporters, the real test is how well he performs with his fellow scientists!

    He was certainly called out for overstating the evidence and poorly extrapolating rat research at a conference he spoke at earlier in the year – check out the Q and A video in the attached article by David Despain (as well as the other lectures)!

    http://evolvinghealthscience.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/sugar-showdown-science-responds-to.html for a full review and links to all lectures – if not just watch the Q and A at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypWe6npULUQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnGhfX2yaU4

    What research shows that it is fructose that causes addiction? At the Q and A at the Sugar Symposium, Dr Lustig was called out on this and one researcher showed that rats liked glucose based carbohydrates over sucrose, and another questioned the applicability of rat research to be extrapolated to humans!

    Also a recent rat studied suggests that it might be the sweet taste and NOT the fructose (as they used an artificial sweetener) although the article title gets it wrong also!

    The major issue with Dr Lustig’s theory is looking at US Sugar intake over history – levels were still high in the early 20th century – so saying it is sugar is either an oversimplification or there is a threshold value that we have recently crossed. Methinks that it is a perfect storm of more sugar and less burning it up with physical activity!

    .

    With regards to fructose to fat – Gillespie and Wilson have invented this – even Lustig in his book says under the worst conditions – it is at about 30% conversion.

    While most would agree we eat too much sugar – the authors you have recommend definitely overstate the evidence and need to ‘eliminate’ the ‘poison’. here is a much more reasonable article and position if you are interested http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/sugar-diet_b_1553284.html

    • February 1, 2014 / 5:38 pm

      Thank you for this! I’ll definitely look more into this.

  5. January 29, 2014 / 2:52 pm

    Great post hun, I had so much sugar before and since gymming I’ve just naturally cut down since Ive just felt like eating more healthy. And thanks for your sweet comment! The weather is aaaswful :( And the lipstick is mac – russian red, it’s the same as in my blog profile pic on the right hand side, only that in this picture it looks way lighter than it really is xx

    • February 1, 2014 / 5:42 pm

      I’ve noticed a big difference since I started eating clean and so cut down my sugar intake, but it’s been interesting to cut it out completely. Oooh thank you for that xx

  6. January 30, 2014 / 3:05 pm

    Great post – I’ve really been trying to cut down on sugar as well but it’s so hard! Trying to go cold turkey at the moment so I get out of the habit of eating it. It’s scary how many foods and drinks include it without us even realising!

    • February 1, 2014 / 5:44 pm

      I know! That’s what I’ve found since cutting it out too. I’m the same, I’m not intending to cut it out 100% forever, but definitely want to cut it right down so am quitting it for now x

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