5 Reasons to give up sugar today - how kinesiology can help

There are many reasons why sugar is not a healthy food.

are five reasons to remove sugar from your diet:

1. Sugar is an addictive substance.

Scientists from Australia's Queensland University have done studies showing that sugar is as psychologically addictive as some drugs. They showed that a drug used to treat nicotine addiction can also be used to help with sugar addiction. Sugar was found to raise dopamine levels in the brain. Dopamine is a brain chemical which makes us feel good, so there is a clear connection between sugar consumption and feeling good. But this is an artificial good feeling which has to be boosted by eating more and more of the sweet stuff to keep the brain experiencing its sugar highs. Once the highs lessen, the desire to eat more sugar kicks in again. If you don't want to be a sugar addict then now is the time to kick your habit!

2. Sugar is one of the most influential factors in weight gain.

The over consumption of sugar is one of the main reasons for the obesity epidemic in the world. With around 70% of the world's population now overweight, this is a massive problem for people's health and well-being and for the health services which are trying to cope with the serious ill effects of carrying too much body fat. Stop the sugar now!

3. There is far more sugar in many foods than you might think.

Most of us love our cup cakes piled high with rich sweet icing; chocolate in all its forms has us in its grasp; we buy sweets, biscuits, fizzy drinks in unbelievable quantities. We know these foods contain a lot of sugar but you would be surprised to find that even foods sold as health foods can contain huge amounts of hidden sugars. Sweetened yoghurts, muesli, fruit bars aimed at children - when you read the labels you will see how many grams of sugar per hundred grams these foods contain. Fruit juice in cartons and bottles also contain much more sugar than you realise. A glass of orange juice can contain as much sugar as three doughnuts and some Innocent smoothies give you seven and a half teaspoons of sugar in one serving. Even though this is not 'added sugar' it still has the same effect on your body as eating refined sugar. Not so healthy really!!

4. Eating sugars and refined carbs stresses your pancreas.

Eating sugars and refined carbs, such as pasta and baked potatoes, creates a lot of hard work for your body. Once you eat something sweet (or something with refined carbs which the body converts to sugars very quickly) your blood sugar rises and the pancreas releases insulin to carry the sugar out of the blood and store it in your liver and muscles. When your blood sugar gets too low, the pancreas releases glucagon to stimulate the liver and muscles to secrete more sugar into the blood. If you eat high sugar foods throughout the day, the pancreas has to keep removing the sugar from the blood, so that your blood sugar stays stable. Ultimately, the pancreas gets overworked and insulin resistance develops. This means your body cells lose their sensitivity to insulin and your pancreas has to produce more and more insulin to get your cells to absorb the excess glucose in the blood. Eventually your pancreas becomes exhausted and cannot produce enough insulin, your blood sugar remains too high and the risk of diabetes and heart disease is dramatically increased. One more reason to get sugar out of your diet.

5. Maintaining a high level of sugar consumption can lead to mood changes and low energy.

If you keep eating lots of sugar for long periods of time, eventually, instead of raising the levels of dopamine in your brain, the dopamine levels will start to fall. This leads to the desire to eat even more sugar and refined carbs in an attempt to bring the dopamine levels up but this will just cause the opposite effect and can lead to feeling down or even depressed; other results might be low motivation, tiredness and general lack of energy. Seriously, who wants to feel like that?

What's the answer?

Clearly the answer is to adopt a low sugar, low refined carb diet. Your blood sugar will be more stable, your pancreas will be able to function normally, your chances of developing diabetes will be greatly reduced and, best of all, you will start to feel a lot better.

Giving your body healthy sugars and unrefined carbohydrates helps it to work at an optimum level. This means avoiding sweets, white carbs such as white pasta and rice, and obtaining your carbs from brown rice, porridge, pulses, vegetables and fruits. (Even whole wheat carbs are quite high on the glycemic index, a measure of how fast the carbs you've eaten are turned into glucose and arrive in your blood). It can be good idea to print yourself out a copy of the glycemic index and aim to eat mostly foods that are in the lower half, i.e. 50 or below. Eating protein with your carbs helps to slow down the digestive process and creates a steady but lower flow of sugar into the blood allowing the pancreas to operate normally rather than being stressed.

However, giving up the sweet drug can be easier said than done when you are addicted to it. Going 'cold turkey' is a painful process and usually leads to a high failure rate despite valiant attempts to change your dietary habits.

So How Can Kinesiology Help?

Kinesiology has the tools to determine whether your pancreas energy is low. Low energy in your pancreas may mean that your pancreas is stressed and needs some support. As we have seen above, changes in your diet are the way to give your pancreas some very necessary support. However, sometimes more than that is needed. If you have been eating a diet that stresses your pancreas for a long period of time, then Kinesiology can give the information needed to know whether taking certain supplements could be helpful. Chromium is very important for supporting the pancreas and sugar metabolism in general. There are also a number of effective supplements which combine a number of vitamins, spices, etc in order to give the best support possible.

There are a range of different Kinesiology corrections which can support the pancreas and rebalance your body so that it can begin to heal the damage done by a high sugar/carb diet. Once the body chemistry is working better it becomes easier to resist sugar. Also help with the addictive aspect through using Kinesiology's range of emotional corrections may reduce your addictive tendencies making sugar a less attractive choice in your diet and speeding up the process of giving it up. There are also take away tools which you can use on your own to help when temptation strikes.

If you would like to learn more about this, please do contact me by email or phone for further information.