Member-only story
Reset Your Sugar Cravings with a 30-Day Sugar Fast
The health benefits of giving up all added sugar for a month—or more
Sugar seems to be in everything. From jars of tomato sauce to sliced bread, Americans are hard-pressed to find prepackaged foods of just about any sort that don’t contain sugar in one form or another.
Given the popularity of quick, easy, pre-made snacks and meals (one study concluded that as many as 75% of foods and beverages in the United States contain some kind of added sugar), it’s clear that many of us are addicted to the substance.
I, for one, never stood a chance at resisting sugar: my mother was a baker for most of my childhood and adolescence, and there was never a lack of desserts in the house, whether they came in the form of fudge, chocolate chip cookies, or her unrivaled carrot cake.
But while I enjoyed all the sweet goodness available around the clock, the truth about sugar became shockingly evident as I got older: it’s not good for my body, and it’s far too easy to overindulge in it. That meant that my health suffered.
But if sugar is ubiquitous, how could I possibly remove it from my diet without going hungry? I was determined to find out.
So I did some research and discovered a way to cut all added sugar out of my diet for 30 days. Ultimately this abstinence had benefits for my health, my mindset, and my self-discipline, ranging from increased energy to a massively decreased obsession with sweets. After my sugar fast, I found that I was satisfied with small amounts of sweets, and I gave up some of them completely.
A Primer on Sugar and Other Sweeteners
There is such a thing as “good” sugar—it is that which is found naturally in fresh fruits and vegetables. Those foods also contain fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and there’s no need for most people to cut them out, even during a sugar fast.
While small amounts of added sugar won’t do a significant amount of harm to your health, it’s easy to go overboard. Just look at this statistic from a study by the National Cancer Institute: most people over 19 consume more than 16 teaspoons of sugar a day—over a third of a cup. That’s a lot of…
