After noticing that his intake of sweet snacks had increased significantly in recent months, YouTuber Cam Jones decides to remove all food with added sugar from his diet for 30 days to see what kind of impact it might have on his health and overall wellbeing. But all it takes is his first “cursed” trip to the grocery store on day one of the challenge to understand that this will be more difficult than he first thought.
“I quickly realized how much added sugar is in the stuff that I normally buy,” he says. “There’s even added sugar in the things I assumed were healthy, and the more I look at labels, the less things I add to my cart.”
It also doesn’t take long for the early side effects of giving up added sugar to make themselves known, either: Cam soon begins to experience intense cravings, a drop in his energy levels and ability to focus on work, and headaches. Looking back, he believes that is a result of his brain missing the extra boost of dopamine that it gets when eating sugar.
“This can lead to overconsumption and reliance, and then withdrawals,” he says. “On the plus side, withdrawal symptoms are only supposed to last a few weeks, so hopefully this is the hardest part and things can only go up from here.”
Cam turns his attention to making alternatives to his favorite snacks, including kale chips and sweet potato fries, and stocks up on fruit so that he can still enjoy something sweet when the craving takes him. “Once I get a feel for the snack situation, things really start to look up,” he says.
In the final two weeks of the challenge, Cam finally starts to feel some positive effects. “I feel like on the whole I’m eating healthier and being more strategic with my meals to help stay full and fend off cravings,” he says. “I’m also starting to notice my energy levels evening out. I’ve been able to get some good workouts in without feeling exhausted later on in the day.”
However, he has to admit that this restrictive diet “takes a lot of the fun out of eating” and makes it harder to be spontaneous. “It even limits how you can celebrate special occasions,” he says.
“I don’t think it’s helpful to treat sugar as a bad thing, but what I do think is important is being in control of how much you consume on a regular basis,” he concludes. “For me, I feel like these last 30 days have really helped me regain some of that control and build my intuition so I can be smarter about my eating habits going forward.”
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