It has been around 4 years that I’ve consciously been religious about my health, and fitness, to an extent that I exercise (cardio and strength training – both) regularly. This realization came only after I experienced lifestyle diseases and pain, which eventually led to stress and a toll on my life.
One of the major contributors that could also take a toll on our health is our eating habits and the type of food. Eating habits that is, eating at the right time in the right proportion. And the type of food that we consume. Since this post is about sugars, I’m not going to delve into eating habits and types of food, for now.
Too much sugar eating is bad for health. Studies show that it can lead to weight gain, increase risk of heart disease, increase risk of cancer, accelerate the aging process, and drains energy.
Sometime in 2019, one fine day, I decided to boycott sugar. Sugary foods were biscuits, chips, fruits (such as grapes, custard apple, etc. with high sugar content), shakes, cakes, and whatnot. Not a coffee person at all. I’m a tea guzzler and each cup that I consumed had 1-2 teaspoons of sugar. All these forms of food contained refined sugar.
I wanted to reduce and finally give up. Now the big question – how do I do that?
But that wasn’t easy, since I had been gorging and relying on sugary products a lot. As I read somewhere, you will have sugar withdrawal symptoms if you regularly consume sugar and then stop. Like experiencing exhaustion, headaches, and irritability. I started off gradually by moving and relying more on natural sugars as a substitution. My cup of tea started to have organic jaggery in the same proportion, that is 1-2 teaspoons. But jaggery is also sugar and not doing any good. A little less harmful than refined sugar. Still remains harmful.
The mission was to stop it completely. I minimized my intake and reliance on jaggery. During all this while, I had stopped eating biscuits, chips, cakes, and products having high sugar content. The withdrawal symptoms came in form of low energy levels. There is an urge for strong cravings, but then as a challenge, you need to resist. The withdrawal symptoms will withdraw soon.
Eliminating sugar from your diet can improve the overall quality of your sleep in the long run. It can help reduce weight. I’m not against natural sugar, because that is something the body does need in moderation. I would even add that, once in a while you could have cheat days like I just had one last evening when I savored some sugar-rich cakes. The mind is so conditioned by now, that immediately after eating, I felt guilty.
Refined sugar: It has only one form – ‘sweet evil’.
It is never late. The moment you realize – give up! I’m sure you would find small joy in doing that and an achievement. The benefits are mind-boggling in the long term.
I can take pride in saying that, out of the five listed white poisons, I’ve boycotted one for now. Hopefully, for life.
Image courtesy: The Indian Express
