Why You Should Quit Sugar For 90 Days This Year?

January has just started and there is renewed hope in the air as people begin writing their new year’s resolutions.

The most popular new year’s resolution on social media is PERSONAL HEALTH followed by saving more money and getting more sleep. This shouldn’t come as a shock, it is reported that 1 billon plus adults worldwide are overweight.

 If you have set personal health goals/resolutions such as losing weight, exercising and living healthy for this year the article will assist you to get a fast start to developing healthy habits.

Many people (including myself) have build up bad health habits for many years and expect the 1 January to magically fix all those habit, that is not how the process works.

The biggest issue with the health and wellness industry is people are advised to change too many issues all at ONCE.

We want to start exercising 2 hours a day, eating healthy and drinking 2 litres water every day. After 2 week we quit our health stint and we fall back to our unhealthy habits. Does this sound familiar? (I have gone through the cycle many times)

In October 2018 I had an epiphany on social media – I was saw a man who was 55 years old who had the body of a 35-year-old. It dawned on me that I cannot be an overweight and unfit grandfather. I want to run around the house with my grandchildren. I made a commitment to start taking care of my health and get a six pack (as a bonus) as soon as possible.

I began my journey by focussing on ONE habit – eliminating SUGARY drinks and foods from my diet. I must admit that the first week and month felt like a drug addict being weaned from his addiction.

Albeit I made it to the end of the 90 days without sugar challenge.

The results ASTOUNDED me, they include among many others:

• Lost 13 kilograms
• Dropped a pant size
• Drank 2 litres of water daily
• Exercised regularly (Ran 5 kilometres, 3 – 5 times a week)
• Went to a dietician (got on the keto diet and started to eat clean)

Many people who heard about the results think that it takes super hero powers to achieve them. Nope, not at all.  The surprising aspect is that it took ONE HABIT to create all of them.

Charles Duhigg, the author of “The Power of habit’ writes about keystone habits, which are defined as “small steps or habits that have the power to start a chain reaction into other areas of our lives or businesses”

My obsessive habit of cutting out sugar helped me to achieve all those results.

The good news is; it didn’t take military discipline or super determination from my side, just small steps and focusing on ONE HABIT DAILY. The other habits followed through like dominoes.

Three Reasons Why You Should Quit Sugar For 90 Days in 2019?

1. Sugar makes you hungry. Your blood sugar rises as you consume more sugar. The increase of blood sugar sends signals to the pancreas to release insulin that is needed to deliver glucose from the blood into the cells, this reaction sends signals to your body that you are hungry. Which repeats the vicious cycle: eat sugar, get a temporary high, then crash and then eat sugar again to get more energy. Anyone remember eating a slab of chocolate and being hungry again in a couple of hours? Sugar gives us fake energy and never fill us up, that is why weight gain occurs when you are on a high sugar diet.
2. Sugar consumptions affect our mental functions. The average adult consumes more than the required sugar needed by the brain to function optimally. The abundance of sugar in our immune systems impair several brain functions. A study from the University of South Wales in Australia confirmed that ‘healthy undergraduates students’ participants with high self-reported fat and refined sugar intake were impaired on memory tasks such as logical memory subsets and mathematics’. With the high spark in energy caused by sugar, we tend to become moody and sluggish. I used to fall asleep during important meetings and training, this decrease when I was on my sugar fast.
3. Sugar is addictive. The British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that the addiction to sugar is equivalent to that of cocaine on our brains (you will realise this when you start having withdrawal symptoms). This implies that we all ‘sugarholics’. The more of sugar you consume, the more your body will want it. Breaking the addiction will not be easy however it is possible.

If you have read this far, I assume that you want to work on your personal health and lose weight. I want to help you. When I began my journey I read many books, articles and watched plenty of YouTube videos – I wished I had someone to hold my hand, hold me accountable and motivate me.

This is one of the reasons why I created the #90DaysWithoutSugarChallenge and the weekly email. Subscribe here and join likeminded individuals to defeat your sugar addiction and develop healthy habits.