this is what happens when you cut sugar out of your diet

At the beginning of this year, I was eating like crap. And yes, I had put on some weight.

Last month, I cleaned up my diet big time.

At the beginning of this month, I was almost at my target BMI.

And now I am at my target BMI of 22.0. Goal achieved, and my weight is back where I want it. Part of reaching the goal that I didn't mention before was completely cutting sugar out of my diet.

Okay, not completely. Mostly. In modern times, it's basically impossible to cut out sugar from everything you eat. For example, the flavored yogurt I eat has a very small per-serving sugar amount of 3g natural, 0g added.

What I'm specifically referring to here added sugars; that is what I cut out completely.

The celebration meal

When I reached my weight goal, I celebrated with a pizza, which is something that's loaded with added sugar (it's in the sauce), salt and cheese. Months earlier, I made the decision that when I reach my goal, that's what I'm eating, and so I did.

The pizza tasted great, I ate to the point of feeling stuffed (which was stupid), but hey, I earned it, right?

After eating that pizza, I felt slightly sick for the rest of the day. To be clear, it was made correctly and cooked properly, so no problems there. But after eating, my body said, "Dude, what are you doing?"

Two days to clear it out

When you take out sugar and stay off it for a while, then consume a pile of it later, yeah, the body doesn't like that at all. I felt sick, sluggish, and also had difficulty concentrating. Not fun.

Not only did I feel sick for the rest of the day after eating the pizza, it took two days before I felt like myself again.

To be fair, I can't put 100% of the blame on the sugar, since that pizza also contained a ridiculous amount of salt. But still, a pile of added sugar was in there.

A high I don't chase anymore

What I'm about to describe is something salt does not do to me at all, but added sugar does.

Let's take a candy such as, say, a Ghirardelli square in a flavor I like (such as milk chocolate caramel). That square is under 100 Calories, pretty much tiny, and nowhere near the size of a full sized chocolate bar.

What happens when I eat that is as soon at it hits the tongue, my eyes close, and the mmmmmm... moment happens.

Some would call that savoring the moment.

I don't.

That's a high. And not the good kind.

What's happening there is that my body has to stop, "enjoy" the pleasure moment, have some momentary recovery, then I can get on with whatever after the moment has passed.

Only sugar does this to me and nothing else.

I don't literally close my eyes and pause after eating mustard, chicken, greens, yogurt or anything like that. My eyes stay open, I don't pause, get my fill and get on with things.

If added sugar is in anything I eat, I get a similar high from it.

An example of this is BBQ sauce:

That 60 Calories might not look like much (and it isn't), but just two tablespoons of that sauce piles in 13g of sugar. And who uses just two tablespoons?! If someone were to put this over their chicken, they'd use at least four tablespoon's worth and take in 26g of sugar. That's the equivalent of 12 teaspoons of sugar.

This is incidentally why I'll season chicken and not use sauce on it. The blend that McCormick Himalayan Pink Salt has is actually quite good, and a pinch or two of that is all that's needed. A good seasoning goes a long way.

Does weight loss happen faster when sugar is cut out?

Yes.

When I was getting my BMI back to 22, weight loss was slow but steady. When I cut the sugar out, oh yeah, that sped things up noticeably.

I won't say it was a night-and-day difference in weight loss speed, but still, noticeable. Progress was made, and I reached my target weight goal. Job done.

Published 2025 Jul 8