Thursday, February 2, 2012

Sugar is evil

I thought drug and spoon
 would be a suiting illustration.
I've known this for years now. The main reason for that knowledge is that I display signs of addiction when it comes to the sweet stuff.
  • Can't give it up even though you know of the negative ways it affect you.
  • Obsession. Thinking about it, planning for it and so on.
  • Emotional usage. Good mood, bad mood, feeling up, feeling down. Any emotion is a reason to use.
  • Abstinence, can't stop using.
  • Withdrawals. Physical reactions to not using. 
  • Tolerance, the need for more, either more often or higher amounts. 
  • Hiding it and lying about it. 
  • Guilt and shame. 
I admit, I frowned at the idea when I first heard about it many years ago. Sugar addiction? That has to be nonsense right? Well, no, not really. Sugar consumption raises the levels of opioids and dopamine in your body studies show. Both opioids and dopamine are linked to us feeling pleasure and to addictions or "needs". Now sugar addiction suddenly makes sense.

At Live Science there is an article today about sugar being toxic to our bodies.
A spoonful of sugar might make the medicine go down. But it also makes blood pressure and cholesterol go up, along with your risk for liver failure, obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

Sugar and other sweeteners are, in fact, so toxic to the human body that they should be regulated as strictly as alcohol by governments worldwide, according to a commentary in the current issue of the journal Nature by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
This makes another aspect of it make sense too, the fact that sugar-free sweeteners are not better than sugar. As a diabetic I've been used the sugar-free and "light" products that's around frequently and nothing has changed really. My blood sugar has gone down a little, but nothing about my health have improved.

It's been 22 days since I decided to stop eating candy. It hasn't worked out perfectly, but it's been far better than any time I've tried before. The greatest result comes from a change in the rest of my diet, I'm now on a low carbohydrate diet. The difference between complex and simple carbohydrates is something that my body fails to see, carbohydrates are sugar and sugar triggers the cravings and the eating.

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