5 reasons why you should remove sugar from your diet.
I cannot describe the difference removing sugar made to my health. My energy level and my skin improved significantly, my hormonal issues disappeared together with many other symptoms such as water retention.
Here is a simple description what sugar does in your body. As blood sugar levels rise, the pancreas produces insulin, a hormone that prompts cells to absorb blood sugar for energy or storage.
As cells absorb blood sugar, levels in the bloodstream begin to fall.
When this happens, the pancreas start making glucagon, a hormone that signals the liver to start releasing stored sugar.
This interplay of insulin and glucagon ensure that cells throughout the body, and especially in the brain, have a steady supply of blood sugar.
Weight loss
Sugar tricks your brain telling you that you’re hungry! A hormone called leptin is stored in fat cells and after we eat, excess glucose is shuttled into and stored in our fat cells. Leptin is then released from the fat cells telling our brains we can stop eating. Too much leptin floating around all the time makes us resistant. This means we can’t hear the signals and as a result we want to keep eating. Sugar stimulates the pleasure center of the brain-it’s not your imagination if you think you are addicted to it!
Moreover, sugar is the biggest cause of inflammation, which is now known to be the underlying cause of many chronic diseases like obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Excess sugar is stored as belly fat, and belly fat releases pro-inflammatory chemicals called cytokines which cause inflammation.Gut health
Sugar negatively affects the gut microbiome and can cause a dysbiosis, an imbalance in the gut bacteria. Sugar promotes and overgrowth of yeast and bad bacteria. This negatively affects our immune system and causes inflammation.
Hormonal balance
Sugar – which includes all refined carbohydrates, can lead to significant hormonal imbalance. One of the effects of too much sugar is insuline resistance.
Over time, insulin resistance can lead to serious conditions like diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol, heart disease and even stroke.
Insulin imbalance is also related to polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which is when reproductive hormones are imbalanced. The symptoms of Pcos can be acne, weight gain and difficulty losing weight, excess hair on the face and body, irregular periods, fertility problems and depression.
Other signs of hormonal imbalance can be sleeping disorders, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, feeling irritable, moody, depressed.Anti-Aging
When sugar in the blood is elevated it crosslinks proteins making them lose strength and elasticity (think collagen and elastin). This not only happens in our skin, it happens all throughout our bodies. High sugar intake is linked with Alzheimer's disease. High blood sugar can be an indicator of future cognitive decline and even predict, Alzheimer's to come-especially in women. Research suggests that women are more vulnerable to the effects of insulin resistance and high blood sugar.
Healthy heart
Too much sugar, not fat raises your LDL and triglycerides, causing damage to blood vessels. Sugar is the leading cause of insulin resistance, high triglycerides, lower HDL and produces more of the small and dense LDL particles, the ones that cause the most damage!
What you should avoid?
Basically all the white stuff. Sugar and simple, refined carbohydrates without fiber such as white pasta, white rice, couscous, white bread, cookies with wheat and of course, sweetened beverages.