How To Start Eating Less Sugar

Overcoming sugar addiction isn’t easy. While the most common advice to quit sugar is to go cold turkey, it is actually a better idea to start eating less sugar gradually.

It is estimated that 75% of Americans constantly over-consume the sweet white stuff, and rely heavily on sugar for comfort, energy, or convenience. As you know from Beating Sugar Addiction For Dummies, excessive sugar consumption can lead to high blood pressure, fatty liver disease, weight gain, and diabetes. It can also increase your chances of developing heart disease and contribute to stroke risk. With this in mind, it pays to be mindful of sugar consumption. Even if you are not ready to go completely sugar-free, you can make many food swaps to help you reduce your sugar intake and improve your health.

Eating Less Sugar Rule #1: Real Food Instead Of Fake Food

Choosing whole foods over processed foods will automatically reduce your sugar consumption. You don’t need to compromise taste-wise. A diet full of whole foods has a lot of fresh fruit, whole grains, vegetables, meat, seafood, and eggs. Ideally, your diet should be at least 80% pure unprocessed foods. The other 20% can be convenience foods and your favorite treats. So if you’re eating 1500 calories per day, then 1200 should be whole and fresh foods and 300 calories for treats such as annie’s organic snacks (which are also sugar-free!).

Drink More Water

If you drink a lot of sugary drinks, try replacing one or more drinks with water. You need to aim to drink around 8 cups of water daily. Start slowly by replacing one glass of sweetened beverage with water daily, then build on this.

Water is the best drink for your body. You must be adequately hydrated to function correctly (including your brain). So staying hydrated will help you to reduce your cravings for sugary drinks, and help flush out sugar.

Eat Full-Fat

This may seem like an alien concept, especially as the diet industry has, for years, led us to believe that low fat is better for you. But many low-fat foods, especially yogurts, are loaded with sugar and chemicals to compensate for the lower fat content.

Full-fat versions of many “diet” foods don’t have high sugar levels. Switching to full-fat is a good idea if you eat many low-fat foods. Let’s look at low-fat yogurt. One serving of low-fat yogurt can have up to 30 grams of sugar which is 60% of your recommended daily allowance. In comparison, full-fat Greek yogurt has lower sugar levels and twice the protein.

Cutting back on sugar isn’t always easy. Our old habits of cravings and reactive eating run deep. Start with the small changes, gradually upgrade your diet and the foods you consume, and make consistent improvements for the best long-term results!

And if you want my help walking you down the path, just message me and we’ll find a time to talk