Sugar is hard to escape. Even if you’re one of those people who don’t have a “sweet tooth” and do a good job at avoiding sugary indulgences, you’re most likely still consuming a lots of sugar because it’s so prevalent in our food. According to a report by the University North Carolina, the average person consumes about 300 calories from added sugars a day, and 20-percent of Americans exceed 700-calories from added sugar on a daily basis! This is because sugar is not only in things like cakes, cookies and soda — it’s also in salad dressings, pasta sauces, and even a seemingly healthy snack like yogurt.
Since sugar is so prevalent and has such a profound effect on our body, when we stop eating it there are many things that happen to our body. At first it will be difficult as the body goes through some mild withdrawal symptoms. But after that, there are several amazing health benefits that occur when a person cuts sugar from their diet. Here’s at look at 14 of them…
1. Reduced Food Cravings
You’ve probably heard before that sugar is addictive, hence why it can be so hard to cut it out of our diet and why our body tends to have a negative response to the withdrawal at first. Sugar is designed to cause our body to want more and crave it. When we eat a lot of sugar it sends our blood sugar levels on a roller coaster of ups and downs making it hard to manage. “The lows drive you to drastically increase your blood glucose and, as a result you’re more likely to crave higher sugar foods which keeps you riding the sugar roller-coaster,” says nutritionist Jenna Hope to Cosmopolitan. It’s not uncommon for the body to crave these highs and lows. Quitting sugar altogether means getting off the sugar roller-coaster and reducing those unhealthy food cravings. (To learn how to combat these cravings, checkout this article on Sweet Tips for Beating Sugar Cravings).
