The world has a fondness for sugar in all its sweet, delicious forms, but over-indulgence has its costs. A rise in obesity and metabolic syndrome is a frightening trend in the developed world, and sugar directly contributes to poor health outcomes like this due to several reasons.
Why is Sugar Bad?
Ordinary table sugar is a disaccharide, meaning that it is made from two smaller sugars: glucose and fructose. Glucose is the body’s primary energy source and the end-product of the metabolism of complex carbohydrates in foods like pasta and bread. You need glucose to function properly. Fructose, however, serves no unique purpose in the body and it’s not something you need in your diet to thrive.
When you consume fructose, your muscles can’t use it for energy and your body quickly stores it as fat unless you’re in a fasted state. Your liver is the only place that fructose can be directly metabolized to energy, which only happens if glycogen reserves in the liver have been exhausted from an overnight fast or prolonged, heavy exercise. Most of the time that you consume sugar, the glucose part of it can be used to fuel your muscles and brain, but the fructose in it is stored as fat.
That’s not a good thing if you’re trying to lose weight or improve your general fitness, but worse than that is the other effects that fructose has been shown to have on your body. Fructose consumption causes weight gain and decreases insulin sensitivity. It also affects your triglyceride and cholesterol levels negatively and increases the risk of hypertension. This collection of health issues is termed metabolic syndrome and is itself a significant risk factor in the development of type 2 diabetes.
The major problem of sugar consumption is that people consume way too much of it. A little is fine and won’t negatively affect your health, especially if you practice a healthy lifestyle in general. No amount is actually good for you though, and the more you eat daily, the more detrimental it is to your health and fitness.
Benefits of Reducing Sugar Consumption
There are numerous benefits to cutting out sugar or reducing your intake as much as possible. Some of the major benefits include:
• Improved insulin sensitivity
• Increased satiety
• Increased energy
• Better mood regulation
• Improved weight management
• Decreased risk of type 2 diabetes
• A reduction of systemic inflammation
Sugar is metabolized fairly quickly–much faster than most complex carbohydrates. Consuming large amounts of it spikes your blood sugar from the glucose component, while the fructose gets stored as fat. This blood sugar spike causes a massive release of insulin to compensate, which results in more fat storage as now the glucose is also being stored as fat because your body has too much energy to use at once.
An increase in fat storage isn’t the only problem with this though, as large, sudden releases of insulin contribute to insulin resistance. Your cells become accustomed to a higher level of insulin and stop responding properly to the hormone, affecting nutrient partitioning and utilization. When you cut out sugar, insulin sensitivity improves and your body is better able to use food for energy. Moreover, your muscles benefit greatly from this, as increased insulin sensitivity helps to shuttle more amino acids and glycogen into the muscles, improving recovery from workouts and making it easier to maintain a healthy weight.
The flow on from these positive effects is that you will also experience increased satiety from your meals and be less likely to binge eat once you’ve left the roller coaster of blood sugar spikes and troughs. Your mood will also stabilize, but that benefit is dependent on your personality too. If you experience constant stress and mood swings, sugar reduction will help alleviate this (but probably not completely, as it likely stems from other causes).
Finally, your skin will also thank you for not consuming so much sugar. Sugar is a known source of systemic inflammation, and having too much inflammation in your body is believed to be a major risk factor for heart disease and other conditions. It also leads to premature aging of your skin. Most people who cut sugar out of their diet experience marked improvement in their complexion and this reflects a number of internal changes, including healthier nutrition and nutrition being used more effectively.
If you want to experience these benefits for yourself, all you have to do is gradually wean yourself off sources of sugar. If you consume a lot of it every day, start with a big jump and then decrease your intake more and more over several days. You may experience a form of withdrawal at first, and this is normal. It will pass if you keep at it, though you will feel bad for a few days if this is the case.
When you manage to get down to barely any sugar consumption, try to maintain this for as long as you can. Eventually it will stick and you won’t crave sweet foods anymore. Most importantly though, you don’t need to cut sugar out completely to experience most of the benefits. Be sensible and keep your intake low, but don’t worry about the occasional dessert or can of soft drink, just don’t make it an everyday thing.
If you’ve been trying to improve your health and fitness, reducing sugar intake is one of the best ways to take this to the next level. Give it a try and see for yourself!