There's an unspoken rule in nutrition (and life in general): If it looks too good (or too easy) to be true, it probably is—and the same goes for diet advice. When You Stop Eating Sugar, What Happens?
Sugar detox information abounds on the Internet—specifically on health and wellness websites—claiming that simply eliminating that one item may completely transform your diet. Influencers take you along on their sugar detoxes and then show you their before-and-after photographs after they're sugar-free (and have seen their sought-after results).
First, the truth: Too much sugar intake has been related to a higher risk of negative health effects.
It's not useful or true to think of sugar as the enemy right away, but it's also not fair to disregard the evidence that eating too much sugar over time increases your risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic illnesses.
However, the research does not support full-sugar abstinence. According to the current American Dietary Guidelines, added sugar, or sugars added to foods or beverages during processing or preparation, should account for no more than 10 percent of daily calories. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, added sugars are known by a variety of names, including corn syrup, brown sugar, and molasses.
Note that these guidelines do not apply to naturally occurring sugars, such as those found in fruits and milk. Expert-backed standards also suggest receiving 45 to 65 percent of your daily calories from carbs, which can include added sweets as well as naturally occurring sugars and starches.
Basically, even if you "stop" consuming sugar, you're still ingesting sugar
it's very hard to entirely eliminate sugar from your diet. Alissa Rumsey, MS, RD, author of Unapologetic Eating and CEO of Alissa Rumsey Nutrition and Wellness, tells Health that "all carbs break down into sugar once we ingest them." "Our systems break down carbs into glucose, a simple sugar that can be distributed throughout the body and brain to produce energy," says the author.
To be honest, not all carbs are the same right out of the gate. Varied sugar molecules have somewhat different chemical structures, but starches are formed up of a string of glucose molecules. Furthermore, glucose is digested and absorbed more slowly in carbohydrate-rich diets that contain fiber, protein, and/or fat than in carbohydrate-only foods. All carbs, however, are made up of sugar molecules that are broken down into glucose.
All of this is to imply that when you go on a "sugar detox" and exclude added sugars, high-sugar fruits, and other foods, you aren't truly eliminating sugar. It's still coming to you, only in a new form.
But let's assume you fully eliminate carbs from your diet and replace them with protein and fat (remember, this is just an example; if you did this, you'd have to exclude all plant-based meals). Even if that were the case, your body would still require sugar. Because your body uses metabolic pathways to convert protein and fat into glucose to feed your body and brain, this is the case. This is an oversimplification of extremely complex biochemistry, and the process of using protein and fat as fuel is obviously distinct from the standard method of using glucose. Even yet, it's important to emphasize that your body is never sugar-free.
Sugar detox regulations might be a little hazy and differ from person to person
Most proponents of "quitting sugar" avoid all of this complication—that you'll never truly be "off" sugar for good—by imposing arbitrary criteria on which things are OK and which are not. "When you declare you're going to stop eating sugar,' there's no standard for what a sugar detox' means or what items you have to leave out," Rumsey explains. "Some people eliminate all sweets or dessert-type meals; others eliminate sweets and sugar-containing packaged foods, and yet others go even farther and eliminate most carbs (in addition to sweets and packaged foods)."
This ambiguity isn't a good thing because it might lead to a dangerous situation. Because there is no universally accepted definition of a sugar detox, it might lead to progressively radical interpretations over time. For example, your sugar detox may begin with a reduction in sugar intake, then advance to a more extreme form in which you aim to eliminate all carbs.
A sugar detox won't help you if you're addicted to sugar, but it could injure you
The concept of sugar addiction is frequently discussed, but whether or not it is possible to be addicted to food is still debatable. Sugar, like addictive substances, activates pleasure regions in the brain, but so do other pleasant activities such as playing with puppies or listening to wonderful music.
Sugar does not fit the requirements for being a really addictive chemical, according to a 2016 analysis published in the European Journal of Nutrition. The majority of the research on sugar addiction has been done on rats. That's because, while rats eat sugar when it's accessible, they don't seek it out when it's combined with an unpleasant stimulus like a shock (which isn't the case with addictive medications), and their tolerance for it doesn't appear to grow when they consume it regularly. Of course, results from rat studies aren't always applicable to humans, but there hasn't been enough human study to draw any conclusions.
Even so, it's conceivable that you'll develop a food addiction. "When people talk about feeling 'addicted' to food, they usually mean a combination of intense cravings, a sense of being out of control around food, and frequent overeating or bingeing on certain highly palatable foods," Alissa Rumsey, RD, CDN, CSCS, a registered dietitian and nutrition therapist, and founder of Alissa Rumsey Nutrition and Wellness, tells Health. "Being out of control around food is a very genuine emotion, and the language of addiction, 'this is a biological desire that I can't control,' resonates with this sense."
In reality, that sensation is more likely to be caused by constraint rather than addiction. "We tend to enhance our demand for foods when we vilify them and deem them 'off limits,'" Sovinsky explains. You'll eventually grab for that forbidden food, and you'll feel out of control because you've been denying yourself for so long and telling yourself that you won't be able to eat it again. "This might explain why some people get addicted to certain foods, such as sweets."
However, the "withdrawal" you may experience when you stop eating sugar isn't evidence of addiction, and it's not something you should "power through" for a few days. "It's certainly plausible that individuals are feeling low blood sugars depending on how people define sugar and the items they're taking out," Josée Sovinsky, RD, RP, a dietician and psychotherapist at Blossom Counseling Center, tells Health. "The brain, in particular, requires a significant amount of sugar in the form of glucose. Headaches, difficulties focusing, dizziness, irritability, anxiety, and an increase in food ideas are some of the adverse effects of not getting enough." You're not detoxifying; you're just running low on energy.
Instead of quitting sweets, there's a better way: consume them whenever you want.
Anyone who has heard of intuitive eating knows that allowing oneself to eat whatever you want may lead to a healthier relationship with food. This is why: "Through a process known as 'habituation,' the more you allow yourself to consume addictive foods, the less exciting they become," Sovinsky explains.
While you may consume more of these meals than you are used to initially, they will soon lose their appeal. Rumsey agrees, and instead of prohibiting sweet foods, he suggests keeping them in the house, claiming that this will reduce your need for them over time.
If you still can't give yourself unconditional permission to consume sugar whenever you want, consider shifting your attention from "I have to cut back on sugar" to "I will eat substantial meals and snacks throughout the day." You may believe that you must intentionally quit your habit of reaching for sugar at a set time each day, but there is a better approach to accomplish so than just reminding yourself that you are not allowed to have the sweet treat.
Sugar cravings can be reduced by eating meals that contain all three macronutrients (carbs, protein, and fat). And having a snack armory of foods you enjoy—cheese and crackers, avocado toast, hummus with pita and/or vegetable sticks, etc.—means you'll always have something other than a sugary treat to grab for in between meals.
The bottom Line
when you quit consuming sugar, your body responds by having severe and out-of-control sugar cravings. "You will regain faith in your body if you focus on having a flexible perspective regarding sugar, as well as eating consistent meals and enough calories and carbohydrates," Rumsey advises. That seems a lot more achievable (and healthier) than another 21-day "detox."