Sugar Impacts Your Energy

Sugar Impacts Your Energy

Your friend Sugar makes you think she will give you so much energy when you are together.   She talks you into joining her and it is fun and feels so good.  Then 30 minutes later “crash” you know you were so wrong to spend any time with her. 

But you still believe her and think maybe spending more time with her will give you the energy you want back.  She fails you over and over again but you still believe her promises and keep going back to her for energy.

Why do you keep doing this? 

What is Sugar’s hold on you?

Sugar is addicting.  There are studies that show that sugar fires up the same parts of the brain as cocaine.  You want it and have to have it because your brain is addicted to it.  It is not the quick energy spike you are addicted to, it’s the dopamine hit.

How does Sugar actually impact your energy?

Little Miss Sugar runs in with a spike in blood sugar and a corresponding spike in insulin.  The large spike in insulin quickly shuttles the glucose out of the blood and into the cells or to the creation of fat.  This process drops your blood sugar quickly resulting in that energy crash you feel 30 to 60 minutes later.  Then your body sees lower blood sugar.  Then it says give me something to eat quick resulting in you eating or craving, you guessed it, more sugar.

Without my Sugar How do I keep up Energy?

First off you do not have to completely eliminate all sugar.  It might be helpful to slowly decrease your sugar intake over time based on your bio-individuality.  Consider replacing your normal sugary snacks with fruit, tea, protein, or fat combination a couple of times a week.  See how that feels in your body.  Continue at that pace for a couple of weeks and then start to decrease sugar intake more over time until you reach about 25 to 35 g of sugar a day.    

This replacing of sugary snacks with lower glycemic foods such as proteins, fats, fruit, and vegetables to provide a more sustainable blood sugar level and energy level.

Second, add in a brisk walk.  There is a study that indicates that eating a sugary snack increases energy and tension for up to an hour.   Participants then had increases in tiredness for the next hour with continued high tension.  The participants that took a brisk 10-minute walk instead of the sugary snack had increased energy and decreased tension for up to 2 hours.

If you would like to work more on your energy by working on decreasing sugar cravings then join my group to Kick Sugar Cravings to the Curb.