Halloween is coming!
I’ve always loved Halloween, but this year seeing the Halloween decorations actually filled me with dread*. Halloween is supposed to be pretend scary, but it does have a truly sinister side that harms people and causes a great deal of suffering.
The real monster is the sugar.
If it were just during Halloween, we would surely survive. However, our sugar problem is more like 24/7/365. Our taste buds have adapted and now we “need” a certain level of sweetness regularly to feel satisfied.
Our taste buds aren’t the only thing that have adapted. Sugar affects every cell, organ, hormone, and tissue in our bodies. Here’s the short and not-so-sweet progression of what happens when we eat our body weight in sugar every year:
- First the pancreas obliges by churning out more insulin to get that sugar into the cells.
- Once sugar intake is chronic, the pancreas gets in the habit of churning out high insulin all the time.
- Our cells get inflamed from all the sugar being forced into them by the insulin, and they don’t work as well as they should.
- Insulin stays consistently high, which inhibits fat burning, and we become resistant to fat loss.
- Eventually, we have way too much blood sugar regardless, and the liver starts packaging it into fats called triglycerides, which then deposit not only in fat cells, but also in the liver, the muscles, and even the pancreas. This is toxic, inflammatory visceral fat, which often takes the form of a beer gut.
- Then our cells start resisting insulin, causing blood sugar to stay high, where it damages our blood vessels.
- Plaques form in the blood vessels causing hardening of the arteries, blood pressure rises, and the eyes and kidneys show early signs of damage.
- If you’re getting bummed out, just skip to the last bullet point.
- Since we can’t get the sugar into the cells because they’re now resisting insulin, we don’t have the fuel to create cellular energy. On top of that, the high insulin shut off fat burning. So we have a plethora of fuel, but our cells can’t burn it. Sugar and fat end up where they don’t belong. We’re exhausted.
- Our sex hormones even get whacked out on all the sugar. Men grow “moobs” and women grow facial hair. Libido is a thing of the past.
- The immune system is suppressed and we get sick a lot.
- Our risk of every health horror imaginable goes way up.
- We gain weight. We feel tired and old.
- We think this is just “getting old”, but it’s all accelerated by the SUGAR!
- This process is reaching epic proportions in the US and around the world. More than half of the adult population has prediabetes or diabetes. Even scarier, Type 2 diabetes diagnoses in kids is skyrocketing.
- This scary story can have a happy ending. The great news is that it’s all reversible, even entrenched cases of diabetes. It’s in your power! So don’t worry. Instead, get motivated!
To summarize – if you’re tired, unable to lose weight, having health and hormone issues, aging fast… maybe it’s the sugar. I wish this were all “pretend scary” like the rest of Halloween, but hopefully it’s made you more aware of how insidious and far reaching our collective sugar addiction is.
Click here for more “how-to’s” for kicking the sugar addiction. But in the meantime, notice how often you eat foods/drinks with added sweetener, don’t be tempted by the evil Halloween candy, and do our cleanse 🙂 which is very effective for reversing sugar addiction and the health effects of it!Â
* I do realize that my transformation to a totally un-fun downer of a health nut is nearing completion. But it’s totally worth it if others get healthier and happier!
Image credit Jee World
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