Sugar is one of the most appealing and at the same time dangerous substances that surrounds us from childhood. It becomes so deeply ingrained in our everyday diet that many people don't even realize the true harm of sugar consumption. Meanwhile, it affects many systems of the body, and its excess leads to some serious illnesses, such as diabetes or obesity. That is why many people today want to quit sugar, and we will tell you how to do it in 4 steps, including sugar replacement, withdrawal, and mindfulness.
Step One: Preparation
In any endeavor, system is very important, and if you decide to stop consuming sugar, it’s better to do everything clearly and gradually. First, you can find tutorials on how to identify sugar excess at home — for example, quick fatigue, craving for “something sweet,” mood swings, or poor dental health — all of this may be a sign of overeating sweets.
But to get the full picture, it’s better to do some lab tests and make sure everything is normal (or not). We won’t talk about cases that require a radical change in lifestyle — such situations need individual recommendations. Let’s assume that the tests show nothing serious, but you still decide to break up with sugar. What lies ahead is comprehensive psychophysical preparation. Analyze your diet: what foods or dishes, sweet or containing sugar, do you eat most often? Do you have your own sweet “rituals”? Maybe you love tea with sugar or a candy before bed.
Write down or simply highlight everything that’s in your diet. Define your goal: to reduce the amount of sugar in your diet, decrease dependence, keep it within the norm, and so on. It’s best to format this as a table or in some visually pleasant format that you can use at any time.
Step Two: Identify the Triggers
When it comes to sugar, most often we eat sweets because they give us certain sensations. Everyone’s sensations are different and linked to different situations. Your goal is to identify all the triggers associated with sweet consumption. Are you used to drinking coffee with something? Can’t start your workday without a candy? There’s a great pastry shop near your home and you can’t walk past it? Every such trigger says something. Rituals, habits, lifting your mood, eating away stress, and much more — these are exactly the triggers that should preferably be addressed consciously. It’s worse if you often have bad days and find it hard to refuse a bun or donut to cheer yourself up. Even worse if your stress and depression are almost permanent — but don’t despair. The most important thing is to recognize your triggers and anchors that sugar uses to tie you to itself.
Step Three: Replace One Source of Sweetness
Here we come to one important point — the type of sugar. Simply put, there is natural and added sugar. Natural sugar is part of many other vitamins inside foods, so it is absorbed differently and has a less pronounced effect on the body. Everything considered harmful and that needs to be given up — that’s added sugars, processed and essentially useless. These are the ones found in pastries and desserts. WHO recommends keeping sugar intake within 50 grams per day. But this number is often exceeded.
Quitting any addiction abruptly can even be harmful, so here we’ll take a different approach. If you take almost any sweet, dish, etc., you can find healthier but no less tasty alternatives. Most often, these are fruits, juices, and less artificial sweets. Below is a small table of products:
| Food / Drink | Portion Size | Approx. Sugar Content (g) | Sugar Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Candy | 1 piece (~10 g) | 4–6 | Added sugar |
| Orange slice | 1 slice (~1/8 orange) | 1–1.5 | Natural sugar |
| Tea with sugar | 1 cup + 1 tsp sugar | 4 | Added sugar |
| Tea with honey | 1 cup + 1 tsp honey | 5–6 | Natural sugar |
| Donut | 1 piece (~70 g) | 20–25 | Added sugar |
| Apple | 1 medium (~150 g) | 19–23 | Natural sugar |
| Pastry / Cake | 1 piece (~100 g) | 25–30 | Added sugar |
| Banana | 1 medium (~120 g) | 12–14 | Natural sugar |
| Chocolate bar | 1 bar (~40 g) | 20–25 | Added sugar |
| Sweetened curd cheese | 1 piece (~50 g) | 8–12 | Added sugar |
If you take a look, you can see a significant difference in the amount of sugar, and often it is natural sugar. So, what do we need? Suppose you love going out early in the morning to your balcony, looking at the rising sun, drinking a cup of coffee, and eating 50 grams of chocolate. Is it a necessity or a trigger linked to emotions? Let’s say it’s the latter. We won’t disrupt such a beautiful moment — but what if, instead of chocolate, you had half a banana, a couple of orange slices, some grapes on hand? If it’s tea or coffee, how about honey? Or maybe try having lunch with fruit juice?
Choose for yourself one moment of sweet consumption in which you will replace something with a healthier option. Just one thing, no more. If it feels unusual — you can do it every other day at first, or once every three days. The key is regularity. Did you manage it? Excellent. Now try replacing something else. The main thing in this system is awareness. A sense of control. Think about the fact that you are deciding what and when to eat. Just one product — it all starts with one product. Have you learned to substitute? Excellent. But even such replacement, if consumed too often, is still excess sugar.
Step Four: Conscious Reduction and Adjusting the Norm
So, the final step will be the very refusal of excess sugar in all forms. You should move to this stage only when you can easily replace chocolate, cookies, etc., with something else. You’ve trained mindfulness, and now you can move forward. But for that, you need to know how much sugar is in your foods. To calculate this, you need to look at the packaging or use special online calculators that clearly define the sugar content. Remember the recommended 25–50 grams? For example, in the following combination:
Sugar intake breakdown: 3 cups of tea with 1 tsp sugar each ≈ 12 g; 50 g milk chocolate ≈ 25–28 g; 2 medium bananas (120 g each) ≈ 24–28 g; 1 medium apple (150 g) ≈ 19–22 g; 1 jam-filled donut (80 g) ≈ 25–30 g; 1 glass of fruit juice (250 ml) ≈ 20–25 g.
We already see an excess of nearly three times.
That’s why at this stage, we will gradually give up sweets. Determine the amount of sweets that fits within this norm and move toward it. Gradually. For example, do you put three teaspoons of sugar in your tea? Try putting two. Then one. Not immediately — after a week or two. Then stop adding sugar or only add it for appearance’s sake. Gradualness helps you naturally adapt and transition to a new taste without breaking patterns.
Remember our example with morning coffee? Great. But what if you drink it without chocolate — and without anything at all? Just coffee and sunrise — beautiful. In a month, you may simply enjoy the sunrise and the world. Beautiful, morning. Without sugar.
Yes, this requires great mindfulness, willpower, and desire. But we are not rushing. A small step is still a step. Your body will thank you for even that. The most important thing is to gradually reduce consumption to the minimum possible, to test your strength and discover and expand your boundaries. And you will be able to overcome yourself. Good luck.
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