Ep. 016 - Why and How I Stopped Eating Added Sugar

SHOW NOTES

Earlier this year I decided to stop eating added sugar.  In this episode, I want to share with you why and how I did it.  In saying this, I'm not going to convince you to stop eating sugar.  My intention is to help you assess your own relationship with added sugar so you can make decision that support your health and weight loss.

TRANSCRIPT

 Earlier this year, I decided to stop eating added sugar. Today I want to share with you why and how I did it.

Welcome to Man in the Arena, your go-to podcast for all things related to health and weight loss for men over 40. Here we discuss strategies that will get you off the sidelines and into the game so you can achieve your optimal health. It's time to lead a legacy of longevity. Welcome to Man in the Arena.

I'm your host, Craig Spear. I'm a former professional football player, endurance athlete, and a career entrepreneur, and I'm also a men's health and weight loss coach. So if you're interested in changing the trajectory of your health and making good changes in your life in a way that supports a legacy of longevity, then you are in the right place.

Today, I wanna share with you my journey to stop eating added sugar, and one of my main coaching tenants in the work that I do is to not be all or nothing. All or nothing mindset leads to big swings in our behaviour and it negatively impacts our consistency and long-term success. But earlier this year, I started to create a few bright lines that really define what living my healthiest life looks like.

And one of the decisions I made was to stop eating added sugar. Now, when I say added sugar, what I mean is sugar in the form of processed sugar that is added as an ingredient to sweetened. The taste of the food and the addictiveness of the food. So this is things like dextrose, sugar cane, sucrose, cane juice, corn syrup, brown rice syrup, raw sugar and factors.

Over 50 different names for added sugars in our food, the American Heart Association, and who they recommend 25 grams of added sugar per day for women and 32 grams a day for men. So for context, one can of Coke has 32 grams of added sugar. In my opinion, asking what the recommended amount of sugar is in one day is like asking what's a recommended number of cigarettes in a day.

So we know that sugar is horrible substance. It's terrible for our health. And so I wanted to change my relationship with sugar, and the main reason I decided to do this is as a coach. As someone who talks about men's health on a regular basis, on a daily basis, I became much more informed. And as I've done more reading and more learning and more research, what I've found is that sugar is essentially poison.

So, you know, not to be too dramatic, but it is one of those things that I just do not want to put in my body. It's the same reason I don't smoke. It's the same reason I don't drink. In other words, it's one of those things where I don't wanna make trades that lead to negative outcomes. If sugar was a stock, no one would buy it.

There is no nutritional value to eating sugar. The only time sugar really serves a role is in endurance events when you need to replenish glucose for continued movement in a quick manner. So when I ran marathons, or if I did Ironman or whatever it was, Within about 45 minutes, I had burned through my liver glycogen, my blood glucose, my muscle glycogen.

So I needed to replenish that. And the best way, or an easiest way to do that was to consume sort of added sugar, processed sugar in the form of gels or these gummies that they have. Okay? But when you look further into added sugar in our food, we realize it is poisonous to our bodies. When you exceed your threshold to transport sugar in your blood, It leads to insulin resistance, type two diabetes, heart disease, weight gain, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, dental issues, and most importantly, addiction because sugar is a dopaminergic substance.

Sugar is a drug just like cocaine or heroin. It comes from a naturally grown substance, but then this substance is ground down, it's processed, and it has chemicals added to it, and it leads to this huge hit of dopamine. The only difference with sugar is it doesn't lead to altered states, altered psychological states, and it's not illegal.

Okay? Now, the second reason why I wanted to stop eating sugar is it was my experience of going through these cycles of binging on sugar and really just feeling outta control. I wouldn't say I was addicted at times, I probably was, but I just found myself eating it when I knew I really didn't want to. So those are the main reasons why I wanted to stop eating sugar.

I knew more, I knew too much, and I didn't wanna feel the sense of being out of control. So you might be thinking, okay, Craig, this is extreme. I don't have a problem with sugar. And let me just say that I'm not here to convince you to not eat sugar. I'm here to challenge you to analyze your relationship with sugar and ask you what value does it play or serve in your diet.

Now if you want to eat cake, you want to eat ice cream or candy to celebrate birthdays or a hot summer day, by all means, I consider this to be an intentional and healthy relationship with sugar. But if you're like me and you catch yourself going through these binge cycles, or if you want to improve your health, that I definitely encourage you to consider reducing the amount of sugar you're eating.

Now, I want to make a clear distinction here. If you decide to eat sugar, it doesn't mean that you're a bad person, or it doesn't mean that you're someone who doesn't care about your body or your health. Just make sure you're making conscious decisions and you like your reasons. So how did I stop eating sugar?

The first thing I did was I made a decision. It was a conscious decision, and I've made it willingly and knowingly. I made a decision to stop eating sugar, and this was key because it was a declaration and it removed a lot of the guesswork. So like I said earlier, it was this bright line. It was decision I made and that was it.

Okay? The second thing that happened was I was a part of this 90 day challenge where one of the daily rules was to not eat sugar, and this made the process really easy because my brain didn't have to deal with this cognitive dissonance. Also this challenge, it created a layer of accountability and I felt like if I did eat sugar, I'd be letting people down.

And so there was power in having this group and a coach that helped me sort of stay in line. Now as this challenge progressed, and certainly when it ended, I did have thoughts about giving in and having sugar, but I was hyper aware of these thoughts and I recognized them as thought errors when they did show up.

So, for example, we were in Florida, it was March break, and everyone else that we were with wanted to go out and grab some ice cream. And so my brainer offered up a whole bunch of thoughts. "Well, it's hot outside and ice cream is gonna cool you down". "It's Florida, what a nice way to enjoy being on vacation".

Another thought I had was, everyone else is doing it. So these thoughts initially led to an increase in my desire for ice cream. But I was able to identify more helpful thoughts that led to a decreased desire for ice cream. And those thoughts looked like, well, "I can still, enjoy everyone's company and not eat ice cream".

Another thought I had was, being on vacation in Florida is already enjoyable. Ice cream isn't gonna enhance this experience. And then another thought I had was, I can cool down in a ton of other ways. So managing my thoughts and doing regular thought audits. Really has helped me decrease my desire for foods that have added sugar.

This is where the bulk of my work has been done. It's been in my mind and managing my mind. Now, the last thing I did was I reminded myself regularly about the value of not eating sugar and then how I felt as a result. So in other words, I connected with my goal regularly. I gave it attention, and as a result, my mood is way more stable.

When I wake up each morning, I don't feel nearly as much muscle stiffness and inflammation in my joints, and I've just noticed a much greater productivity and efficiency in what I do every day. So I'm already starting to see the benefits of not having sugar. I don't have cravings for anymore. Those are pretty much disappeared and it's one of those things that I'm just really glad I made that commitment and that decision, and I've stayed disciplined to it.

Okay. So with that, I encourage you to assess your current relationship with sugar and consider different ways you can reduce your own sugar intake. Your health is going to dramatically improve and I guarantee you you're gonna feel better now. As always, if you want or need support in this process, please connect with me.

Head on over to the spear method.com and you can schedule a free one-to-one consultation and then we're gonna come up with a very simple, yet effective game plan that will change your health immediately. Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to next week's episode, and in the meantime, keep leading a legacy of good health and longevity.

If you're ready to step inside the arena and change the trajectory of your health, head on over to the spear method.com and download by free guide to learn simple and effective strategies on how to optimize your health today.