How Sugar Hijacks Your Brain and Holds Your Willpower Hostage
Do you love sugary sweets? Do chocolate-covered treats, ice cream, tasty pastries, and sugary diet drinks have an important place in your daily diet? Do you feel like you are experiencing more than a simple “taste reward” as with other foods when you eat sugar? Do you feel a total sensory reward you have no power over when you get sugar into your body?
You know what? Unfortunately, a loss of willpower is exactly what’s happening.
There are a lot of areas in your life where you’ve succeeded. And you should feel great about that. You’ve worked hard to earn a promotion, created something you are proud of, or successfully run your household and family on a daily basis. If you think about it, you have succeeded hundreds or thousands of times and do so consistently in different areas of your life.
You have overcome hurdles, set goals, and achieved them. You attacked your love of sugar the same way. You tried to limit the amount of sugar you ate, and for some reason, unbeknown to you (we’ll talk about this in a minute), you couldn’t overcome your addiction. This begs the question:
Why do you feel absolutely powerless to resist sugar?
If phrases like “I can’t help myself” and “Can’t resist it” or “I LOVE it!” come to mind when you think of sweet, sugar-filled food, that unhealthy mindset is not even your fault. Seriously, the physiological process that occurs when refined, processed sugar enters your body will always be stronger than your willpower. That’s why you have to change the types of sugar you consume.
(Read that again. It contains the secret to breaking your sugar addiction, burning fat, losing excess weight, and becoming more healthy than you’ve ever been in your life.)
Tens of billions of dollars over the last several decades have been spent by food manufacturers to create unhealthy products that are as addictive as cocaine, heroin, tobacco, and alcohol.
By the way, that is not an exaggeration.
The same process in the mind of a cocaine or heroin addict when they desire their drug of choice is how your brain responds to sugar once you become addicted. This is precisely what happens and why you may feel powerless to resist desserts and other sweet foods that you know are unhealthy.
When you eat sugar, dopamine is produced at very high levels. This causes the pleasure center in your brain to wake up, and your mind tells you that you need more of this wonderful tasting, sugar-filled food you’re eating. “Feel-good” endorphins trigger that same response. This is what happens to a drug, tobacco, or alcohol addict when they consume their favorite drug.
Some people have a natural tendency to become addicted to sugar. Some can eat sugar or not, and they do not care either way. The same way that most people can enjoy a couple of adult beverages without losing control. In contrast, others become alcoholics after their first drink – this happens when some people eat sugar.
So, how do you fix this problem if you have an unhealthy addiction to sugar?
The answer is, replace artificial, processed, refined sugar with natural sugars and sweeteners. When you take a bite out of an apple, that juicy, sweet flavor is natural, and none of the enzymes, vitamins and essential minerals, and nutrients have been stripped from the product. The fiber in that apple pulp forces your body to process it slowly and absorb the natural sugars in that fruit.
Because of this, your body processes the natural sugar in a healthy way.
This is why superfoods, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables in a non-processed state are so good for you. You can prepare them in such a way that you still get a reward for your sweet tooth, but your body does not suffer the extra pounds, extra fat, and elevated risk of heart disease, obesity, tooth decay, liver and kidney problems, and obesity that processed sugar offers.
And there’s even better news.
You did not develop an addiction to sugar overnight. Your body does not naturally crave processed and refined sugars. However, after years of being exposed to this addictive and unhealthy chemical which is intentionally designed to hijack your willpower, an addiction can form in some people.
After 3 to 5 weeks of replacing man-made sugar with natural sweeteners in superfoods, fruits, and vegetables, the good news is that your addiction begins to disappear.
Your body will reset naturally, and you begin to desire those things that nature (and a healthy, non-addicted brain) knows are good for you – beans, kale, oranges and apples, legumes and whole grains, healthy fats found in nuts, coconut oil and extra-virgin olive oil, fish, and so many more delicious, versatile, healthy foods.
You begin to have more energy, not the “frenetic spike followed by a miserable crash” energy that processed sugar delivers—just steady energy available to you all day, every day. Your brain becomes healthier, as does your heart, circulatory system, skin, hair, and entire body.
You start receiving compliments because not only does your body look slimmer and trimmer, but there’s a bounce in your step. You feel good about getting up every day. This simple change from man-made sugar to naturally-made sweeteners can change your life quickly, and you begin noticing the positive difference in just a few days.
What’s the lesson here?
Don’t beat yourself up if sugar, sweets, and desserts have hijacked your brain. You simply can’t compete with your natural chemistry and physiological process. Shame on the food manufacturers that don’t care that they are slowly and painfully killing you. The key is to stop playing their game.
It may seem impossible right now for you to limit the number of desserts and sweets you eat. But when you begin a gradual transition to superfoods, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and the natural sweeteners in those foods, your mindset is changed automatically and naturally. This is when the “Dream You” that you know you have inside you begins to become a reality.
