My 7-day sugar detox experience
Ever since I have started living a more fulfilled and healthy lifestyle I began to realize that everything I use to eat contained insane amounts of hidden ingredients. Packaging can be extremely deceiving and can make you think something is healthy when really there is so many artificial additives. The big hidden ingredient that all of these companies are using now a days is SUGAR!!
As we all know, sugar makes almost everything taste better because our tastebuds have acquired an addiction to it. Sugar is an ingredient that is craved like no other. That is why I challenged myself to eliminate it completely from my diet for an entire week. This challenge meant no sugar (not even natural sugars that are in fruit) for an entire week. I wanted to see if it was possible for me to fight my cravings for my Trader Joe's peanut butter or a piece of Lily's chocolates.
At first it was hard, but like anything once you do it for long it becomes a habit. All of last week I was constantly checking labels and reading ingredients very diligently. I was so interested by all of the ingredients companies add and more importantly it opened my eyes how you can train you body so easily.
Sugar became less desirable by day three and most of my cravings disappeared. Since my body almost forgot what sugar tasted like it did not feel the need to have it. The same thing holds true when you are trying to eliminate anything from your diet. Once you go long enough without it, your body is less dependent on it. Yes, we need certain nutrients to keep our bodies functioning properly, but many foods that people are eating contain so much junk it is insane. So many people rely on a large cup of coffee with 5 packets of sweetener in the morning and it is extremely unhealthy. If you can be strict with yourself and try to substitute that coffee for green tea (AKA a matcha latte) you can eventually train yourself to crave something that is better for you.
Now, I am not saying eliminate all sugars completely because we all do need a little bit of natural sugar to keep our blood pumping and our brains working. 1-2 servings of fruit is highly recommended and coconut sugar, honey, and dates are great sources of sugar as well! However, toady in society it seems like everything that contains sugar is extremely artificial and/or contains an excess amount of that one single ingredient. We have to be be more aware of what we are feeding our bodies. If we want to live up to our fullest potential it is especially important to be aware of ingredients in packaged foods.
Even though I included cutting out natural sugars in my challenge, I do believe that they are important. I only did that to test my body and see what it could handle and to be honest with you guys by day six I did grab a few grapes because my body was telling me that it needed that. Overall, I did learn a lot through this experiment and I urge you all to try it. I have become so much more aware of ingredients and reading labels. It is important to be able to pronounce each ingredient that you are putting into your body. If you can't read it, you shouldn't eat it. This detox was a great experience and I can't wait to do more sugar detoxes in the future :)) Stay healthy fam.
