My 5 day Sugar Detox plan will help you reduce and eliminate your sugar intake by enjoying a whole food approach without added sugar or artificial sweeteners. You will kick sugar cravings, lose weight and inflammation all while enjoying real food!
Why Do We Crave Sugary Foods?
The average American who eats a standard American diet consumes 17 teaspoons of sugar daily according to the American Heart Association. Dietary guidelines suggest that amount is more than 3 times what's recommended.
Sugar is mostly coming from sugary drinks, energy drinks and sugary snacks like pastries, cereals, doughnuts, cookies, cakes, pie, ice cream.
The Standard diet in the United States consists of ultra processed foods for convenience, fried foods, refined grains like white pasta and white flour, sugary beverages and lacks in protein.
Using quick sources of processed foods lacking adequate protein and dietary fiber, cause a spike in blood sugar and hunger for more shortly after eating.
Step 1 to End Cravings for Sugar is to eat whole foods, single food ingredients and reduce or eliminate processed, packaged refined foods. Nutrient dense healthy foods will help with satiation keeping you feeling fully for longer.
Step 2 to End sugar cravings is to get good quality sleep. Lack of sleep causes your hunger hormone Ghrelin to increase which makes it harder to say no to the sweet stuff.
Next, a very common reason for craving sugar and refined carbs is an emotional one. I was a person who had a difficult time handling my stress and mood swings.
My stress hormones were imbalanced and I constantly chose sugar to make me feel better. It was a vicious cycle but the good news is, once you start on a low-sugar diet or low-carb diet, and make lifestyle changes for your mental health, you can desire less of the sugary treats.
I learned how to sooth myself without sugar and carbs for my emotions and discovered long term solutions like regular physical activity to reduce stress.
Sugar cravings or eating for comfort, can be seen as just a bad habit that grew overtime from how you respond to daily stress, anxiety, boredom, upset, etc.
Sugar cravings or eating for comfort, can be seen as just a bad habit that grew overtime from how you respond to daily stress, anxiety, boredom, upset, etc.
The good news is that unhealthy habits or old habits that you've used over a long time in your life to deal with struggles, can be overcome with simple diet changes. But it does require a bit more than the 21-day sugar detox rule or myth to remove an unwanted habit and establish a solid habit change for the long run.
Behavioral changes and habit formation is an ongoing process that takes a period of time, but the length of time will vary for each person and is dependent on a variety of factors.
Unfortunately when you decide to eliminate your favorite junk food; sugar and refined carbs can feel like an addictive substance that haunts you with cravings.
If you've always had a sweet tooth, the best way to fight sweet cravings or any food cravings is create a new habit and not give in to those temptations that rewards addictive behavior, and this can be the hardest part.
Often when you go cold turkey, withdrawal symptoms can occur, but I have found effective ways to teach my clients how to combat this, as well as remove the harmful habits that have caused their weight gain in the first place.
When you have sugar cravings and indulge, you raise your blood sugar levels, and that blood sugar spike triggers your dopamine levels, which is your excitement hormone.
This releases more feel-good hormones in the body like serotonin, which tells your brain that, the simple carbs and even complex carbs will give you comfort and make you feel good.
The brain likes habits and this becomes stronger each time we give in to those high-carb foods like white bread, white rice, pasta, even whole grains that turn to sugar in the body.
High sugar consumption contributes to spikes in blood glucose, which continues a vicious cycle of eating comfort food, weight gain, shame and guilt.
Keeping your blood sugar balanced and removing inflammatory foods is the way I have helped hundreds of women in my online sugar detox course to eliminate cravings, lose weight, reverse insulin resistance, lower A1C and improve their overall health.
Is a Sugar Habit also Sugar Addiction?
Studies show that in some people, sugar triggers a high dopamine response, which is your reward system in the brain. Much like a drug addict before taking a hit of addictive drugs, dopamine is lit up when someone who feels sugar addicted sees sweet treats.
Some people can moderate sugar, enjoy a little and not feel that heightened dopamine response while others can't. I need to be an abstainer because moderation never worked for me.
Sugar Withdrawal Symptoms
Symptoms of sugar withdrawal will vary with each person, depending on how much excess glucose is in your system from the foods you were eating prior to starting a detox.
Common withdrawal short term symptoms are:
Headache
Fatigue
Dizzyness
Trouble sleeping
Leg cramps
Brain fog
Irritability
Anxiety
Intense cravings
Low energy levels
My 5 day Sugar detox plan provides the tools needed to help alleviate and combat these common symptoms so you get off to a good start!
Balance Blood Sugar with Whole Foods As a nutritional therapy practitioner and sugar detox coach, one of the ways I have helped my clients achieve freedom from sugar cravings is with a high-protein, nutrient dense diet.
Many women in my membership think they are eating enough quality protein, but many times they are not. Once they increase their protein, the cravings are reduced.
Animal protein has essential amino acids that we can not make in our own bodies and must get them from protein we eat. Protein is very satiating and when you're body doesn't get the nutrients in needs, it will continue to seek all day long.
Cravings for a specific food is often a sign of an emotional craving. But when you are not even sure what you want to eat, but keep looking in the cupboard, pantry and fridge for "something" that is often a sign your protein needs have not been met.
I recommend clients to have a minimum of at least 30 grams of protein per meal or try to hit a goal of 90-100 grams of protein daily.
Calorie intake and carb intake still need to be tracked in my opinion, if you are looking to lose body fat. Not everyone in my online Sugar detox course follows a ketogenic diet. Many woman use a low carb approach to reduce their cravings and have successful weight loss.
Enjoying healthy fats, like coconut oil, olive oil, butter and avocado oil, is another way to reduce and/or eliminate carb cravings and desiring excess sugar. If you grew up in the low-fat era, learning to enjoy fat and not fear it will be a new change for you.
Dietary fat does not raise blood glucose and it helps you feel satisfied, not to mention it makes delicious, tasty food. Avocado oil, olive oil, butter, nuts, nut butters are a great way to get in healthy fats.
While high-fat foods are delicious on a ketogenic diet, if you eat too much fat, you will likely not be burning your own body fat. So being aware of how much fat you are eating is still important.
Beware of Hidden Sugars & Artificial Sugars
The most important thing when starting a sugar detox is to check nutrition labels for hidden sugars as they are lurking everywhere, even in seasonings.
When you are headed to your local grocery store looking for salad dressings for example, don't just look at the total grams of sugar, check the ingredients listed for any name of sugar.
My rule of thumb that i share in my new book, the30 Day Sugar Elimination Diet, page 27, is to avoid all forms of sugar if listed within the first 5 ingredients. If past the 5th ingredient it has a minimal amount of sugar and should not cause a spike in blood sugar.
Here are just a few names of sugars and artificial sugars to avoid.
Health Benefits of Lifestyle Change
Hydration- Getting plenty of water during your first week is very important to your successfully removing too much sugar in your life. being dehydrated is often confused with being hungry so plan on drinking half your ideal body weight in ounces during the entire week you detox.
Sleep- Getting enough sleep and good quality sleep is so important to fighting cravings and making better choices.
When you are sleep deprived your body is seeking energy to make it through the day so cravings for food even when you aren't hungry will happen for those who aren't sleeping well. Prioritize your sleep and you will notice the struggle will be diminished to stay on any sugar detoxes.
Regular Exercise- While it's not required in any of my courses or programs to exercise for weight loss, it's a good idea to strive for movement daily.
Getting in a walk in nature will not only benefit balancing your blood sugar, but will also help with managing stress, another key component in sticking to a no sugar diet.
5 Day Sugar Detox Step-by-Step Plan
The goal of the 5 day sugar detox is to rewire your brain to want whole foods and less sweet foods to balance your blood sugar and end sugar cravings.
To help change your taste buds to enjoy natural sugars in a sweet treat from fresh fruit like berries instead of processed refined foods.
The 5 day challenge includes the following educational videos to watch to prepare and help you during each of the 5 days.
Introduction to prepare you for the 5 day Challenge includes;
What to Eat on this Challenge
Low Carb or keto
Do Calories matter?
Tracking
Snacking
Intermittent Fasting
Exercise
Sleep & Supplements
Alcohol
Desserts
Journaling
Day 1 How to Overcome Physical & Emotional Cravings
Day 2 How to Avoid Carb Withdrawals
Day 3 True Hunger or Emotional Habit & What do you do once you know it's Habit
Day 4 How to Quickly Recover from Overindulging & End the Shame Game
Day 5 Trauma & Dopamine and Sustaining a Sugar Free Lifestyle
We have a private Facebook group for members of the 5 day challenge to help support and encourage, as well as find buddies to be accountable to.
Register Here for the 5 Day Sugar Detox Challenge
Research Studies
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5341154/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
https://hms.harvard.edu/news-events/publications-archive/brain/sugar-brain
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5946262/
Brenda Bennett is a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, Certified Keto coach, Sugar Detox Coach and has been living a sugar-free life since 2006. Brenda Bennett is the writer and photographer behind www.sugarfreemom.com and allergy-friendly low carb food blog that focuses on fresh whole-food recipes that are free of grains, gluten, and of course sugar.
She launched the blog in 2011 as a place for her family and friends to find her recipes easily, and it quickly because a leading resource for low-carb versions of high-carb favorites.
She has written 2 cookbooks, Sugar-Free Mom, and Naturally Keto and her 3rd book The 30-Day Sugar Elimination Diet, is a four part program to help you detox from sugar, eliminate cravings, balance blood sugar and lose weight all while eating a delicious, nutrient dense whole food meal plan that offers two tracks to follow, low carb or keto.
She is the CEO and owner of the Sugar Free Tribe Membership which provides weekly live coaching classes, courses and weight loss support for living a sugar free lifestyle to reach your health goals.
This article is meant for informational purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice. Please seek the advice of your doctor or healthcare provider before making any changes to your diet.
Medical Review by Dr. Ken Berry, MD.
The post Sugar Detox to Kick Cravings and Withdrawal Symptoms appeared first on Sugar-Free Mom.
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