We'll cut right to the point: YES! Sugar might taste great initially, but it's a highly addictive drug that enters our bodies and slows everything down. Sugar increases your blood pressure, causes inflammation that can put you at risk for multiple health disorders such as diabetes, and leads to weight gain. You can save yourself all these issues as removing sugar will improve your metabolic health.
Although this might seem like a daunting challenge (who wants to give up their favorite sweet treats?), there are plenty of options for keto candies, low-carb treats, and diabetic-friendly snacks that are low-to-no sugar or have a sugar substitute that's still good for you.
How Removing Sugar Improves Metabolic Health
We may not be doctors, however, we know that your metabolic system is crucial. It's what takes food and turns it into energy. Studies have shown that sugar decreases metabolic efficiency. This is a fancy way of saying that your body has to work harder to convert your food into energy.
If you've ever experienced that sleepy, coma-like feeling after a sugar high, you were experiencing your metabolic system struggling to make enough energy to stay awake. Having a hampered metabolic system makes it harder for your body to use food as fuel. This results in weight gain and possible complications for those with metabolic disorders like diabetes.
Removing sugar will improve metabolic health. Therefore, by eliminating or just reducing it, you can take the strain off your metabolic system and allow it to work hard and unhampered to create lean, green fuel for your body. Although we’re not doctors and we’re not giving medical advice, researchers have even found that your metabolic system can start to bounce back after just a week of cutting out that sweet white powder.
If you remove sugar from your diet completely for even 2 weeks, researchers have found that you can drastically enhance your body's ability to process energy.
The Benefits of Allulose and Monk Fruit Extract
A crucial aspect of reducing sugars is finding ways of weaning ourselves off it. Unfortunately, our culture-wide addiction to sugar has made it widespread and nearly impossible to avoid and leaves our bodies craving it wildly. So, the problem becomes, if we want it but shouldn't have it, what do we do? Do we cave and go into a sugar coma, or do we find a better way?
Cue allulose! A rare natural sugar found in small quantities in fruits like figs or raisins, allulose has no glycemic response. This makes it diabetic-friendly, and it's even been shown to tamp down the inflammatory response, whereas sugar usually provokes inflammation. So we can sweeten the deal without inflaming things by using this rare natural sugar instead of the white cane stuff you found on Grandma's breakfast table. Scientists looking into allulose have even seen in early studies that allulose might help control blood sugar.
Monk fruit, on the other hand, has the alias, "The Immortals' Fruit". Although it sounds like the beginning of a romantic adventure, crushing monk fruit and extracting the natural antioxidant from it. Extracting it takes all the calories and carbs out but keeps an intense sweetness. Monk fruit extract is totally natural, avoiding all those awful side effects of artificial sweeteners while keeping sugar out of the equation.
Keto treats, diabetic-friendly candies, and low-carb chocolates that use monk fruit or allulose have all the flavor and sweetness you're craving while still fitting into your dietary needs.
