Beating Sugar Addiction For Dummies

Chapter 1

Moving from Sugar Addiction to Sugar Reduction

In This Chapter

Explaining the nature of sugar addiction

Taking the first steps of your low-sugar journey

Turning your life around by changing your thinking

In small amounts, sugar is an innocuous substance. Every cell in your body needs sugar (glucose) to survive and function, so your digestive system breaks down the carbohydrates you eat into glucose to fuel your body. A major problem with the modern diet is that sugar is present in enormous amounts instead of in the small amounts found in natural foods. Processed foods, sweetened beverages, engineered sweeteners, and refined grains are pervasive in the Western food supply, overloading your body with unmanageable amounts of sugar and chemicals.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that sugar is just as addictive as cocaine. It acts on the pleasure center of the brain just like alcohol and heroin, so the more you eat, the more you want. Combine sugar’s addictive nature with its omnipresence in society, and you get a recipe for a global health disaster. Reaching for yummy, quick, and convenient “food” during a stressful, time-crunched day is all too easy for people, and eventually ...