Why You Are Addicted To Sugar
For the average person most of their diet consists of eating a lot of simple carbohydrates. Without much protein and fats the simple carbohydrates will decrease your hunger at the moment and will give you a short term energy boost, but soon those empty calories will leave you hungry for more. Sugar is just like a drug and when you try to cut most of it out of your daily diet you will start to feel withdrawal symptoms like headaches, dizziness, fatigue, anger, mood changes, depression, even flu like symptoms. Now you can see why that first week or two are very hard to overcome when you start a new diet. In today's blog I'm going to go over why your body is addicted to sugar and how you can send yourself to Fitness Rehab.
Let's think about why we are addicted to SUGAR. When you are in taking lots of sugar into your diet, the body will use it as it's main fuel source of energy. Many of us have been born into a diet rich in sugars since birth. We give our kids cereal, pancakes, waffles, muffins etc. for breakfast and try to hydrate them with sodas and sugary drinks throughout the day. It's no wonder most people are obese today, they've been taught since babies how to eat improperly. Now to all of a sudden cut it out of your diet can seem nearly impossible. Another thing that keeps us slaved to the sugar is that it gives us a Natural High. Eating foods that have lots of sugar cause a Dopamine release of the brain. Dopamine puts you in a happy state. Now you can see where the addiction comes from, who wouldn't want to feel happy all day. By eating these foods often, the Dopamine receptors start to down regulate. With fewer receptors the next time you eat sugary foods the dopamine effect won't be as strong and you will have to eat more quantity to get the same feeling as you did with less. Sugars and junk foods have a great effect on your brain similar to cocaine and nicotine and this how bad of an addiction most of us have with sugar.
To stop your addiction to sugar you need to cut it out of your diet. You can do it slowly but this is the harder approach. If you keep giving yourself a lot of sugar your body will keep craving more of it. The better approach for some is to go cold turkey go on a low carb diet. Make sure to have the appropriate amount of Protein and healthy fats for your fitness goal. The first two weeks will be hard to adjust but after you get past that period it becomes so much easier. By this point your body sees that it's not getting the same amount of sugar as before and starts to use Fats now as its main fuel source of energy. In this state your body will be more efficient at burning body fat and you won't crave sugars making dieting feel so much easier. If you aren't sure how much protein and healthy fats you should be having in your diet check out one of our customized programs that come with a customized meal plan specifically for your body type and fitness goal.
- FitnessWithFlex
