Content

• Steps
• Advice

Eating too much sugar can affect health. In addition to gaining weight, eating a lot of sugar can also cause inflammation, have side effects on the heart, increase your risk of diabetes, and can cause kidney damage in the long term. This is the reason why many people choose to stop eating sugar completely. However, for many people "quitting" sugar can be a very difficult task. And it's also quite difficult to know which sugars are suitable for consumption and which ones may be unhealthy, as well as distinguish which foods have natural sugars and those with added sugars. Learning about sugar types and its effects on your body can make you happier, healthier, and in particular help to control your diet better.

Steps

Method 1 of 3: Make a Sugar Diet Waiver Statement

1. 

   
   
   Decide to stop completely or gradually decrease. When you decide to give up any food you will have to decide whether you should stop eating sugar altogether or cut it out of your diet gradually. Either way can cause some symptoms that make you feel struggling, like quitting.
   • If you regularly consume a lot of sugar or have consumed sugar for a long time, then abruptly stopping it can lead to a number of serious symptoms. So it's better to gradually cut back on sugar from your diet over a few weeks.
   • If you are used to consuming less sugar, then abruptly stopping sugar will not cause too much of a symptom.
   • If you gradually decrease the amount of sugar in your diet, you must be sure to be truly honest with your choices. Don't use an excuse to accumulate enough sugar for the whole day to indulge yourself in a sweet treat.

2. 

   
   
   Keep a food diary. Road "Cai" is certainly not an easy task.Moreover, finding foods to replace sugar in the diet is also relatively difficult or time-consuming. Start journaling, eating plans, and how you feel when cutting back on sugar in your diet.
   • Take both your strategy and take notes in your journal. You can start by keeping a food diary to track how much sugar you consume during the day or week. Then, you can begin a plan to reduce the amount of sugar in your diet.
   • In your food journal, you should also keep a note of other healthy strategies to use when needed. You may have to try several different methods to find the one that works for you.
   • You can also make notes about your moods or feelings about progress. Journaling is a great way to manage the stress associated with this task.

3. 

   
   
   Predict struggling symptoms when quitting. Like many other food addictions, when you stop eating certain foods, you may experience a number of symptoms and side effects. And this is completely normal. Remember that sugar is essentially a medicine. With any medicine, stopping it can make you crave or struggle. This phase will pass, but the initial feeling of struggles is quite uncomfortable.
   • How long this craving symptom lasts depends on how much sugar you consume each day and for how long. The more sugar you consume, the more severe your cravings are, or the longer it lasts.
   • Generally, for the first week or two after quitting, you may experience nausea, headache, and even irritability. Your body used to rely on support from sugar sources but now that there is no sugar available, it will obviously be affected, trying to endure until the body gets used to the lack of sugar.
   • Write down your withdrawal symptoms in a journal and write down your positive thoughts about giving up sugar to help motivate you to get through this phase. The results will be well worth the effort you put in, when you get through this sensitive stage you will feel healthier and more energetic than when you are addicted to sugar.

4. 

   Make a plan to overcome your cravings. You may think of cupcakes, ice cream and candies all the time for the first few weeks, but you can rest assured that cravings will eventually go away. Here are some techniques to help you curb your cravings:
   • Dilute sweet drinks. Mix regular soda with water or unsweetened seltzer mineral water. You can also dilute juice and other soft drinks with water. In the beginning, you can use this to reduce sugar cravings, until you feel comfortable switch to just drinking water or other sugar-free drinks.
   • Use fruit. If you crave sweetness, you can try some fruits like: pineapple, mango, banana as these are slightly sweeter than other fruits.
   • Stick to a low calorie diet. If you really crave something sweet that even fruit or other methods can't help you control your cravings, choose a calorie-controlled diet. Stick to a diet with less than 150 calories. You can purchase small, portion-controlled portions of food to help you control your food consumption.

5. 

   Join a diet program or diet support group. Weaning is not easy at all, so you need the support of someone else or someone experienced. Instead of trying it yourself out on your own, sign up for a group program or support group.
   • You can sign up for live or online support groups. You can share your cessation process as well as tips on how to motivate you through this stage. It's great that someone lets you share your accomplishments!
   • Share your cessation plans with friends and family. Sometimes your quitting can affect who you eat with. Therefore, you should explain why you are quitting sugar, foods you cannot eat, and foods you can eat. Ask friends and family to help you complete the journey, and even join you.
   • Tell a friend or family your goal of giving up sugar so that a friend or relative can support you. In addition, this will help limit the possibility of other people dragging or giving you foods high in sugar.

6. 

   Prepare yourself for failure. In our lives, there are so many parties that we cannot help but attend, especially with many attractive sweet dishes, it is very easy to deviate from your way out of the way. If you have pampered yourself, then no big deal, stop and immediately resume your sugar-free diet right after.
   • Try to keep a record of what you eat and how you feel when you eat it in a journal. There are times when you feel stress or other emotions that cause you to fail on your sugar-free journey.
   • If possible, try to refrain from even just one piece or a cookie. Then, immediately go back to your sugar-free diet.
   • Note, after a few days, the cravings for sugar will skyrocket, so you will have to carefully stay away from sugar.
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Method 2 of 3: Changing Shopping Habits

1. 

   Carefully read the packaging information every time you buy food. When you're on a sugar diet, be careful with grocery store foods because there are many foods high in sugar.
   • You can look at the ingredients and nutrients chart on the packaging to see how much sugar each serving contains. However, through the ingredients table, you can not tell if it is natural sugar or added sugar.
   • Be careful when buying food! Sure, everyone knows that sweet foods are often high in sugar, like cookies, but not everyone knows that some salty foods contain sugars like salads, breads, and ketchup. Therefore check the ingredients on the packaging carefully and avoid buying foods containing sugar.
   • Read the ingredients carefully to check if they contain added sugar. Note, some products still list sugar in the ingredients table, but do not contain added sugar. For example, both plain yogurt or unsweetened apple sauce contain natural sugar.
   • Added sugars are usually sugars such as white sugar, brown sugar, beet sugar, cane sugar, molasses, agave syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sugar cane sugar, honey, maple syrup, juice concentrates and many other sugars.

2. 

   Replace added sugar with natural sugar. Added sugar is the type of sugar added to foods that increases sweetness and most added sugars contain no nutrients. The natural sugars in fruit and milk combine with vitamins, minerals and fiber to make this sugars even more nutritious.
   • Some natural sugars such as fructose (in fruit) and lactose (in milk). All fruit, fruit products (such as unsweetened apples) and dairy products (such as yogurt, milk, or cheese) contain natural sugars, but in varying amounts.
   • You can also replace foods with added sugars for healthy, natural sugars. When you are craving sweets, try foods with natural sugars such as fruit or yogurt.

3. 

   Avoid processed foods. Processed foods are often added with added sugar to enhance flavor, texture and also help increase shelf life of foods.
   • Frozen foods, packaged snacks, canned soups, sauces, salad dressings all have added sugar. So, if possible, try to make these yourself.
   • Try to eat whole and sugar-free foods. For example, use unsweetened apples or yogurt as a snack. Fragrant foods usually contain added sugar.
   • Fruit can even be added with added sugar when processed. You can drink fiber-stripped fruit juice with water to stay full longer. If fruit is included in your diet, then it is better to choose whole fruit.
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Method 3 of 3: Changing Eating Habits

1. 

   Skip the sweets and desserts. One of the most common and obvious foods that contain added sugar are candies, cookies, cakes, pastries, and many other dessert foods. Almost everyone knows this food has a lot of added sugar when it is processed. Cut out sweets and desserts to help you lose a large portion of sugar.
   • As mentioned earlier, you can choose to immediately give up sweets or desserts altogether or gradually cut back from your diet.
   • If you want to stop completely at the same time, then you need to ignore the search for alternatives. If you want to reduce it gradually, you can find some healthy, natural sweet foods instead.

2. 

   Make your own delicious sugar-free alternatives. Sweets bring a lot of fun in the diet. When you're trying to get rid of sugar, it's better to find foods that are low in sugar or have foods with natural sweetness instead when you crave sweetness.
   • Use fruit as a substitute for sugar. You can try eating a small cup of whole fruit or sprinkle with cinnamon after dinner. If you allow yourself to consume some sugar, you can eat fruit with a little bit of low-fat ice cream or dip the fruit in dark chocolate (chocolate contains some sugar).
   • If you like baked or fried foods like muffins, pancakes, or pastries, you can try the sugar-free baking method. There are a lot of recipes available online today with unsweetened apple sauces, sweet potatoes or mashed pumpkins as natural sweeteners.
   • If you don't like to cook or prepare your own, you can buy foods that are low in sugar. You can find a variety of foods for people with diabetes or diet foods. However, these foods are also high in artificial sweeteners.

3. 

   Limit alcohol intake. Alcohol also contains sugar. In addition, this drink does not contain any nutrients. Quit alcohol altogether or stick to a low-carbon diet.
   • All alcoholic beverages contain sugar, not particularly sweetened concoctions like margaritas.
   • If you want to drink beer, choose a light, low-carb option that contains the fewest calories and sugar.
   • If you want wine, try a "spritzer" made with grape wine and seltzer water that has been cut in half in sugar and calories.
   • If you normally want to drink a concoction then you can ask for a sugar-free drink like seltzer or diet soda water to help cut down on sugar and calories.

4. 

   Choose foods made with natural sweeteners. If you need sugar, it's better to go for more natural, less processed ones.
   • You can also try honey, agave syrup, molasses, or room syrup to increase the sweetness.
   • All of these foods are natural sweeteners and may even contain some vitamins and antioxidants.
   • Make sure you choose to use the sweetener mentioned above, not the mixture. For example, some companies sell honey, but it's a mixture of honey and corn syrup. Make sure you buy 100% honey or 100% maple syrup.

5. 

   If you have to go to a restaurant, order wisely. Eating out often makes you more likely to eat foods that contain a lot of sugar, since the food in a restaurant usually does not have a nutrition sheet for you to check. Before ordering, you should ask serving the ingredients of the dish, but it is better to have a strategy to order the food to have the lowest sugar. You can try the following to help limit sugar in a restaurant meal:
   • Choose salads with pure oils and vinegar, instead of salads with pre-prepared sauces. Alternatively, you should also request to serve your own sauce.
   • Requires the main course to be free of gravy and gravy as these two sauces may have added sugar. You also have a separate order for these items.
   • If in doubt, just choose steamed vegetables or simple steaks instead of casseroles and other mixed dishes that contain a lot of ingredients. Choose the simplest of the dishes since they are likely to have the fewest additional ingredients.
   • For desserts, choose whole fruit or omit dessert.

6. 

   Differentiate artificial sweeteners. As more and more people stop eating sugar and become more healthy about health, the scientist has developed artificial sweeteners as a low-calorie alternative. Certain artificial sweeteners like aspartame, saccharin, sugar alcohol and other artificial sweeteners all have different side effects and are potentially harmful to your health.
   • Many studies have shown that while weaning, the sweet flavor of artificial sweeteners can make you crave even more sugar.
   • Avoid processed foods sweetened with artificial sweeteners such as diet drinks and any foods that contain sweeteners but are labeled without sugar, like candy, ice cream, cakes, etc.
   • The following are some artificial sugars such as aspartame, acesulfame K, sweetener Saccharin, neotame, sucralose, maltitol, sorbitol, or xylitol. Avoid these sugars if you want to quit.
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Advice

• When you are constantly craving sugar, you can eat some fruit instead of drinking juice or eating sugary foods. The fiber from fruit helps to make you feel fuller (so you won't be tempted to eat more) and, in addition, natural sugars will help curb your cravings.
• Avoid overeating, even if it's healthy and safe, eating too much, even if it's healthy, is not a good thing!