The Dangerous Reason Why You Don’t Want To Quit Sugar (I wish I knew this YEARS ago)!

Ditching sugar is one of the most popular health trends as of late, but does it have a secret cost that slowly catches up with you? My sources say yes…

Quitting Sugar Is a Downward Spiral

Quitting sugar usually starts out as just ditching the “white stuff,” but often that’s just a gateway toward more hardcore habits such as reducing natural sugars like maple syrup, honey, and even minimizing fruit. This is all too common with the American “all or nothing” approach.

As a result, quitting sugar tends to make your diet more “low carb,”  a consequence that can slow both your metabolism and thyroid function by decreasing the conversion of T4 to T3 (thyroxine- inactive thyroid hormone to active thyroid hormone) in the liver. According to Dr. Ray Peat, PhD, “The liver provides about 70% of our active thyroid hormone, by converting thyroxine to T3, but it can provide this active hormone only when it has adequate glucose.”
Slowed metabolism and thyroid function causes a cascade of problems including:

• Slowed hormone synthesis (this is how your body makes hormones)
• Impaired detoxification (your body’s ability to take out the trash)
• Slowed transit time (read: constipation)
• Increases your body’s reliance on stress hormones (stress also depletes magnesium)
• Decreases your appetite (due to slowed transit time) resulting in accumulation of nutritional debt

The Sweet Life

On the upside, eating sugar can have quite a few benefits, and by sugar I mean natural sugars, fruit sugars, and even a little bit of the white stuff (non-gmo of course)! And all in the context of a nutrient dense diet!

• Sugar is incredibly easy to digest (especially ripe fruits, pure fruit juice, honey, or white sugar made into a simple syrup)
• Sugar makes energy easier than fats
• Sugar is very nourishing to the metabolism
• Sugar is ENERGY to fuel your cells

Signs Quitting Sugar is Catching Up with You

If you’ve quit sugar, here are just a few clues your body’s check engine lights are going off like crazy begging you to stop!

• Intense cravings for sugar and sweets (you may even find yourself obsessing over candy or dessert)
• Strong cravings for chocolate and salt, indicating a loss of salt and magnesium due to the stress response and hormones cortisol and aldosterone
• Low body temperature (below 97.8 upon waking)
• Low pulse rate
• Poor digestion, bloating, and constipation
• Low energy/fatigue
• Weight gain
• Edema
• Hormonal imbalance and/or PMS

Before you quit sugar, do your homework.
Dietary trends like this are rarely the holy grail of health they appear to be…
Before you quit sugar, do your homework. Dietary trends like this are rarely the holy grail of health they appear to be…