I’ve seen plenty of videos in various social media platforms , people saying how their entire body/physique/ overall health changed when they stop consuming sugar. Can one go without consuming sugar? How does that happen?
(Thank you in advance :))
In: Biology
First some points of clarification. You can eat sugars… fruits have some sugar. The true goal is to keep your blood-sugar level from rising much. The amount of sugar in fruit isn’t too high, but also pulp of most fruit slows digestion, so the intake of sugar is slow. That’s okay, relatively speaking. Then again, avoid fruit beverages as that just goes right through you and the sugar slams your system. Chemically a lot of other “carbs” behave the same way. During digestion they just turn into sugar molecules quickly and go into you quickly. That’s what you want to avoid. But you don’t need to cut out fruit, just avoid more refined sugars/carbs. And of course, don’t just eat fruit all day.
Broadly speaking your body burns carbs/sugars before it burns fat, partially because of the blood-sugar problem. If blood-sugar levels are high, your body actively tries to burn it off. In fact it will make fat. This is what what insulin does – tells the body to burn off the fat, and hold back on releasing any stored fat so that the sugar goes first. So if you do bring in sugars, you want to do so slowly over time.
If you go really heavy on the no-sugar diet, there’s a body change as you enter what’s called ketosis. Basically you have so little sugar that the body needs to make alternative fuels for some parts of your body by breaking down fats into new molecules called ketones as the substitute fuel. Notably your brain needs them, and your liver is tasked with the job of making them. This can cause a major change in your body, and is probably what most of your social media people have talked about. The change is significant and you will notice that hunger pains basically go away, you don’t have energy highs and lows as much, and at least for a few weeks you (or even others) may notice new smells from your body as you go through the process change and your body adapts. Don’t worry, it goes away in a few weeks or so. I’m in this state now, and while I would recommend it, talk to your doctor especially if you have any health concerns… your liver being given a new job could be a problem for an unhealthy liver, diabetes can complicate this into being potentially life-threatening, etc. I am not a doctor, I don’t know much more beyond what I’ve typed here, and you should not take medical advice from weirdos on the internet.
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