Integrative Health Blog

Just about everyone knows that sugar is bad for our health, but during the holidays, it appears with more frequency and is difficult to avoid. 

In case there are readers who have missed out on this fact, I will provide you with the crash course to start off this article.  The Atkins website   sums up 10 reasons why sugar is bad (listed below) and other websites go on to list 146 reasons why sugar is not a sweet thing for our health. 

10 Reasons Why Sugar Is Bad for Your Health

1. Sugar causes glucose levels to spike and plummet, which cause mood swings, fatigue, cravings and headaches.

2. Sugar increases the risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

3. Your immune function can be affected by sugar. As if being sick wasn’t bad enough, studies have shown that sugar can interfere with the way your body fights disease. Bacteria and yeast feed on sugar, so excess glucose in the body causes these organisms to build up and cause infections.

4. A high-sugar diet can lead to chromium deficiency. Chromium, a trace mineral, helps regulate blood sugar in the body. While it can be found in meats, seafood, and plant foods, 90% of Americans still don’t get enough chromium because of refined starches.

5. Sugar accelerates aging. After sugar hits your bloodstream, it attaches to proteins. The mix of these proteins with sugar causes the skin to lose elasticity and leads to premature aging.

Most of us know that eating too much sugar is bad for us. Sugar promotes acidity in the body which provides a breeding ground for illness and disease.

Rising rates of sugar consumption over decades has contributed to increasing rates of candida, obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes, adrenal fatigue, metabolic imbalances, liver toxicity, cancer, vitamin and mineral deficiencies and a range of health conditions.

When your body craves sugar, it may signal a high level of candida, which provides an internal acidic, environment in which bacteria and fungus, and ultimately disease, grows.

Unfortunately, most people don’t know how to combat sugar cravings and don’t realize that many of the processed foods they consume every day disguise sugar on labels with names such as high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, maltose and dextrose. When you constantly feed your body sugar, which is acid-forming, your taste buds can become addicted to the taste and crave more sugar! On the other hand, as you feed your body alkaline-forming foods and beverages, your taste buds will crave less sugar and you will feel better.

Healthy Tips

Life certainly doesn’t come with a guide book and we all do the best we can with the tools we have.

That said, when we see a better way or when we gather more information we are inspired to make changes.

Today I want to share with you 3 common mistakes that could be sabotaging your best efforts at maximizing your health:

1. Too much sugar

2. Too much white flour

3. Not enough “real” food

Nowadays it seems everyone has a “sweet tooth” but for some the desire to consume sugar is anything but an innocent or occasional craving. 

For some, the need for sugar morphs into an unwavering compulsion and could be considered an actually biological addiction.  Before you continue to read any further, check and see if this sounds like you:

•  Have tried over and over again to cut out sugar from your diet, or at least decrease it, and no matter how hard you have tried, you end up giving in to your cravings and wind up feeling like you are a failure? 

•  Does it ever feel like there’s absolutely nothing you can do to overcome the cravings and you know you’ll ‘give in’ no matter how much you’ve told yourself you wouldn’t?

•  Would it feel like a million-ton weight was lifted from your shoulders if you learned it’s not your fault that your craving sugar and it’s not a lack of willpower that’s driving you to eat anything sugary you can get your hands on? 

In cases like these, it’s important to understand that a biological addiction to sugar/or carbohydrates CAN exist.  More importantly, recognizing that your inability to refrain from eating it is likely not your fault.  If you’ve been simply trying to employ good old-fashioned “willpower” to overcome your addiction, please know that this strategy simply will not work in almost all cases.  The biological needs of your body will ‘win-out’ over willpower each time.