# Taking the Sugar-free pill



## LMlurker (Aug 12, 2021)

*Part 1: Sugar causes obesity* 

Refined sugar is what causes obesity. It has very little to do with psychology or willpower, especially in moderate cases.

Obesity is an epidemic; it's a massive change that happened all over society all at once in the 1970s. An epidemic is not likely to be multi-causal when it persists in populations which vary across most potential causal vectors; construction workers are fat, office workers are fat, urban people are fat, rural people are fat. People in many different countries eating varied diets are fat. One of the few countries with a low obesity rate is Japan, and while the number is slowly rising it's still far lower than almost any other developed nation. The Japanese don't normally eat very much sugar; iirc, 7-14g per day to the USA's 70g average. They have a cultural predisposition to enjoy bitter food. 

Sugar causes obesity due to its hormonal effects. The human body is very efficient at extracting calories from food. Anything that points to insulin levels, glycemic index, fat retention, etc is witchcraft, like most nutrition science. The real silver bullet for weight control is appetite modulation, and this is hormonal. 

The hormone which regulates appetite and makes you feel hungry is ghrelin. Refined sugar is made up of two components: glucose and fructose. Glucose is a carb, like bread, and is digested in the stomach. Fructose is digested mostly in the liver; rather, metabolized, because this is the term one uses for a drug. This metabolization has numerous side effects, but the only important one is that it interferes with ghrelin processes. Your body begins over-producing it, and grows resistant to/underproduces the leptin which counteracts it. You grow more hungry, more often, and will begin to overeat. 

The hunger-inducing effects of refined sugar are moderate, and only cause overeating and weight gain at high doses consumed over long periods of time. However, high doses will almost always be sought, unless conscious action is taken to restrain consumption. This is because sugar is chemically addictive. This means that it creates a strong dopamine response upon consumption, and that cessation of consumption causes physical withdrawal. As with any drug, continued use increases tolerance, leading to higher and higher intake. Tolerance is not gained, however, to the hunger effect. The result of this is greater and greater overeating, and consequently, obesity. 

The narrative of obesity that most people push involves two components: Sedentary lifestyles and plentifully available food. This narrative is flawed and lacks basic counterfactual thinking and a historical perspective. 
A: Wealthy people have not historically been anywhere near as fat as modern people, until the sugar industry began in the 18th century. 
B: Exercise is a very minor component of weight control. Every personal trainer will tell you this. Weight is lost in the kitchen, not the gym, because the calories burnt through exercise are minor— about 100 calories per mile ran, which is about half a Snicker. The human body is efficient.
C: Even if B were not the case, obesity persists in populations that exercise daily. Construction workers, miners, and oil riggers are all generally fat. 
D: Obesity in modern America corresponds to class. The people most secure in their ability to buy whatever food they want (the top 20%) have _lower_ obesity rates than the rest of the country, because they eat fewer processed foods with added sugar. The ability to obtain good/plentiful food does not match the tendency to overeat. 

Here are various misconceptions about food that prevent people from realizing that sugar is the culprit and losing weight:

"Carbs are the real problem, they screw up your glycemic index/ keep you out of ketogenesis" 
People have eaten mostly carbs throughout history, and have only been fat since the 70s. People eat carbs abundantly in Japan, and the Japanese aren't fat. The caloric effects of ketogenesis are minor, because the human body is efficient. The reason keto works so well is that refined sugar is a carb (due to the presence of sucrose), so people stop eating it as part of the diet. 

"What you really need is just a balanced diet and moderation in everything" 
What you are doing when you say this is confronting a chain of deductive logic with a general principle. If you do not disagree with my premises, you must agree with my conclusions. A general principle is only as accurate as a contravening chain of deductive logic is inaccurate in its basis. 

Furthermore, the tendency to make weight-loss about discipline, self-transformation, and achievement sets the entire process of engaging with it at the wrong tempo. More on that presently. 

"Lmao just eat less, it's called self control" 
Self control is the use of the executive functions to modulate behavior. The executive functions are necessarily object-oriented, and can spend their attention on a limited number of things at one time. To modulate diet purely through "willpower" is to maintain constant conscious vigilance to contravene the natural impulse of your hormonal response, like holding urine in your bladder. You are attempting to counter a continuous, long term problem with occasional, short term attention. 

This cannot last forever, because self control is a limited resource and the hunger effect of sugar is continuous, and the dopamine effect escalates with consumption. Without cessation of fructose consumption, you will eventually fail. This is why crash-diets almost always fail. Luckily, obesity is not a natural state, and removing hormone distorting chemicals from your diet will cause you to return to a normal weight. 

*Part 2: How to Quit Eating Sugar*
The process for ceasing sugar consumption is the same as the process for quitting any drug. You need to stop cold, go through ~3 weeks of withdrawal, and then continue to avoid consumption. While it is addictive, it is not terribly so, and if the process of recovery is entered into with conviction it is not difficult to achieve. Here are a few ideas which helped me to recover from my addiction to it:

A: Sugar does not actually improve your life or make you happy. All that it does is create a craving, which you then satisfy, providing a rush of dopamine. It takes a gentle up and down curve of satisfaction and exaggerates it, but the overall trend remains static, with weight gain slowly tipping it downwards. It creates a problem for you to solve; it does not solve a problem you already have. Like any drug, it has its time and place (holidays and birthdays), but daily sugar consumption is like daily alcohol consumption. 
B: The worsening symptoms of withdrawal indicate that the process is working. They provide you with evidence that yes, you are physically dependent on this substance, and that if you continue to avoid it, you will no longer be so. 
C: Intense sugar consumption creates a dramatic daily dopamine rise and crash, which creates early afternoon exhaustion and other low energy periods. These fluctuations are not natural, and go away quickly once sugar withdrawal stops, leaving you more alert more often, even before appetite modulation and weight loss sets in. 

Quiting sugar through this 3-week process (albeit with one or two binges) worked for me. Afterwards, I was careful to restrict consumption to holidays, on which I eat as much as I want so long as it is theme-appropriate. I eat no more than 2 pieces of fruit per day. 

Over the course of the next 5 months, I lost 40 pounds, bringing me down to 5'11" 165lb, where I have remained since. I made no other effort to eat healthily or restrict my diet in any way, and did not exercise. 

Keep in mind that certain other substances (Lexapro, for instance) have similar appetite-enlargening effects which might interfere with your results. 

*Part 3: Why this is not common knowledge*
I strongly suspect that the knowledge that sugar causes overeating and (therefore) obesity is commonly held in the food industry. Fast food restaurants have a concept called "the bliss point", which is  the amount of sugar they can add to a savory food item like a chicken sandwich at which the addictive properties kick in, but the taste is not noticeable. 

The marketing which takes advantage of this addiction and sells sugar as a way of celebrating/treating yourself/indulging may have arisen organically out of normal market research; however, the utter silence of academic nutrition scientists on the matter, when they'll speculate on literally anything else, speaks volumes to me. Nutrition science, since it deals in controlled studies moreso than epidemiological or population-level data, is almost entirely bullshit. It's the kind of academic process you can shove anything you want into, like sociology. The same people that convinced an entire generation that dietary fat leads to obesity and heart disease are at the head of the field in tenured positions now. These types of people are easy to buy. 

If there really is a food lobby fatwa on research into the hunger effects of refined sugar, I anticipate that this is mostly motivated by the profit to be had in the addictive nature of sugar, rather than a desire to keep poor people fat. They've convinced people that sugar is a harmless addiction, which is more durable and valuable than convincing them it has no effects whatsoever. 

*Part 3: More extreme obesity*
It is intuitive to me that more extreme obesity, which doesn't seem to tether itself to the same "try and fail to lose weight every few months" discipline cycle as moderate obesity, might operate by a different principle than the standard sugar loop. However, reflecting on the fact that the vast majority of extreme obesity begins in childhood, it is entirely possible that it is simply the result of more extreme addiction to refined sugar. 

Unlike, say, heroin, refined sugar is almost impossible to overdose on. As such, the tolerance escalation process that leads to heroin overdoses has no natural endpoint for fructose. If the hunger-inducing effect simply continues escalating along with consumption, this seems to me to be an independently sufficient cause of extreme obesity. 

The question of "Why don't you stop yourself before it gets that bad?" is generally asked of these people. But if their obesity begins in childhood, the point at which they reach "that bad" would normally be early adolescence. During this time most people have limited control over the logistics of their diet, and limited emotional capacity for dealing with difficult problems. Childhood obesity similarly isolates individuals from the group pressures which might motivate them to take drastic dietary action; they've never been part of the "acceptably attractive" group, and so receive no social pressure to remain within it. Once one has hit a certain weight, the difference between 5'5" 250 pounds and 5'5" 300 pounds is negligible, in terms of its consequences. A fat person is a fat person, until they begin edging towards 400 and having health issues. They generally pass the point of no return too early to walk back from it. 

I am uncertain whether refined sugar cessation would be sufficient to address extreme obesity. It might be the case that emergent physical or psychological properties change the nature of overeating once a certain threshold is passed. It might not be the case, and standard recovery would work. I lack the data to guess. 

*Part 4: Evo-bio speculation*
Castaways floating on life rafts experience a strong craving for the eyes of the fish they catch. This is because fish eyes are high in essential vitamins and amino acids which are not contained in other parts of the fish. 

It seems plausible to me that the hunger effects of fructose evolved similarly. Fruits contain large amounts of vitamins which are otherwise difficult to obtain, and were (prior to agriculture) somewhat difficult and unpleasant to eat, with large seeds and thick rinds. A moderate hormonal response to sweetness which induces hunger would encourage hunter-gatherers, or even animals, to eat larger amounts of fruits on those infrequent occasions on which they came across them, making it easier for them to consume sufficient vitamins. 

An element of this train of thought which might be enlightening can be found in the hunger effects of artificial sweeteners. These are often metabolized quite differently from fructose. If they generate hunger effects in similar proportion to fructose, it seems likely to me that the hunger response is a response to sweet tastes, rather than a side effect of the process of fructolysis. However, I lack the data to make this determination, or to evaluate how it impacts the likelihood of this Evo-bio hypothesis. 

*Part 5: Social Consequences of Obesity as Sugar Addiction*
Social convention currently treats obesity as one of two things: a terrible moral failing, or a permanent unavoidable affliction. Neither of these things are helpful to the obese, or to those who interact with them. The former has continually and consistently failed to encourage people to lose weight, and the latter is certain to prevent it. 

If refined sugar consumption is the primary cause of overeating and therefore obesity, the manner in which society interacts with the obese should naturally change along with it.

For instance, it is now utterly unacceptable to tell a romantic partner whom you are refusing "I would consider it if you were not fat". If obesity is a moral failing, this is extremely judgemental and rude. If obesity is a permanent affliction, this is discriminatory and shallow. However, under the sugar-obesity paradigm, this should be considered in the same light as "If you didn't drink so much, I'd consider it." As an interpersonal interaction, this is far closer to acceptable. 

Obesity as a solvable problem with a prescribed solution presents far fewer social difficulties than the current model. Much of the moral indignation attached to it (hating fat people as an outlet for rage against the generally incompetent/incompetence of the world)  would cease to be reasonable, and all of the moral defenses of it (treating fat people as a protected class deserving of toleration) would likewise dissipate.

Naturally, this website would have to adjust its tenor slightly, if its users convinced themselves of the truth of this paradigm. But making fun of someone for being fat because they're gross isn't that different from making fun of someone for being fat because they're a junkie, so sufficient common knowledge of the role sugar plays in overeating would level the playing field back to where it is now. 

*Part 6: What to Do Instead of Whining*
Just try it. After three to four weeks of withdrawal, if you immediately notice your energy levels grow more consistent throughout the day, then the process has already been worthwhile, if only to see what you're missing in terms of daily energy. 

After you're through withdrawal, just go two or three months, and see if you're eating less and losing weight. It's a very easy diet to sustain- you just cut out sweets and look for sugar-less bread. Switch from soda to sparkling water and check fast food menus for lower sugar options.

If you haven't seen any results in a few months, you can come back to this thread to tell me what a lying deceitful sack of shit I am. But if you do see results, then you've dramatically improved your quality of life for basically no cost in effort or money. 

Be sure to report back with your results if you do try it, I'm eager to get more data.


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## CivilianOfTheFandomWars (Aug 12, 2021)

Please don’t commit arson.


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## constant exposure (Aug 12, 2021)

That's a lot of words to say "I'm fat"


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## CiaphasCain (Aug 12, 2021)

Mmm coca-cola taste good


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## lurk_moar (Aug 12, 2021)

Protein shakes and protein bars are very sweet. I have cravings now for savory foods instead.


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## Pruto (Aug 12, 2021)

You should take advise from your pfp, tubby.


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## Troonos (Aug 12, 2021)

Sugar is killing us. We don't need to consume it at all. Those who say we do are just trying to justify their addiction.



lurk_moar said:


> Protein shakes and protein bars are very sweet. I have cravings now for savory foods instead.



Dude, same here. I eliminated carbs from my diet a year ago, and aside from feeling significantly better by every metric, sweet foods are overwhelmingly sweet to the point that they're disgusting, and I only crave savory tastes of fat and protein now.


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## DiggieSmalls (Aug 12, 2021)

All carbs but fiber get turned to glycogen


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## LMlurker (Aug 12, 2021)

DaddyDickDown said:


> All carbs but fiber get turned to glycogen


Where did I say otherwise? Look up fructolysis, fructose is processed in the liver unlike glucose.


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## Fascist Frederick (Aug 12, 2021)

Calories cause obesity. If you eat 1000 calories of sugar a day and nothing else you will look like a diabetic skeleton.


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## LMlurker (Aug 12, 2021)

Fascist Frederick said:


> Calories cause obesity. If you eat 1000 calories of sugar a day and nothing else you will look like a diabetic skeleton.


You didn't read a single thing I said, did you. You just skimmed the title and rushed off to gratify your need to farm updoots by taking up the same CICO refrain as everyone else in every comment section about dieting.
Nothing I've said contradicts CICO at all.


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## Fascist Frederick (Aug 12, 2021)

LMlurker said:


> farm updoots


You have to go back.


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## Sanshain (Aug 12, 2021)

lots and lots of words to say 'i'm a fat pig who has no self control and can't regulate myself in any way besides arbitrary self denial'.


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## DiggieSmalls (Aug 12, 2021)

LMlurker said:


> Where did I say otherwise? Look up fructolysis, fructose is processed in the liver unlike glucose.


Jeez sailor, I was just adding a comment. Save your salty seaman for the skipper.


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## The Wichita Lion (Aug 12, 2021)

oink oink piggy


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## Coolio55 (Aug 12, 2021)

Took OP's advice and now instead of eating sugar I smoke crack.
Why do I feel so great and healthy all the time?
My body is evolving in realtime and has rejected it's vestigal teeth organs.

Also LOL @ american bread.


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## Pirata (Aug 12, 2021)

Spoiler: Boo


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## Un Platano (Aug 12, 2021)

Coolio55 said:


> Took OP's advice and now instead of eating sugar I smoke crack.
> Why do I feel so great and healthy all the time?
> My body is evolving in realtime and has rejected it's vestigal teeth organs.
> 
> Also LOL @ american bread.


Crack is a good preworkout formula to get the most out of your sessions, but for weight loss, you can't beat meth. Smoking meth, you'll drop pounds twice as fast as a crack user.


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## Onion Guide (Aug 13, 2021)

I hate fat people. Stop being fat. This is a good pill to swallow if you respect yourself.


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## contradiction of terns (Aug 13, 2021)

You're new so you're going to get trolled for sperging. Hell, even if you weren't new you'd probably get trolled a bit for sperging.

Please don't tardrage and earn yourself a thread. I personally enjoyed what you wrote, but much like you have to detox from sugar, you also have to detox from Reddit use, and you're still visibly suffering side effects.


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## Madre Muerte (Aug 13, 2021)

Just don't buy food problem solved.


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## mario if smoke weed (Aug 13, 2021)

You can take my will to live but you can't take my delicious cinnamon rolls, ya retard


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## LMlurker (Aug 13, 2021)

mario if smoke weed said:


> You can take my will to live but you can't take my delicious cinnamon rolls, ya retard


I get that it's a joke or whatever, but the emotional attachment to refined sugar and sweets is legitimately a food industry psyop. Marketing often positions sugar as an emotionally intimate experience (holidays, birthdays, gifts), and I've got a theory as to why.

Sugar was traditionally (ca 19th century) very valuable, as it was hard to produce and had to be imported across long distances. It would be given as a token of affection for this reason, and its rarity made it a logical means of communicating to someone that they were appreciated, much like tea or flowers or jewelry or anything else that was rare. 

However, cultural constructions like this have a tendency to outlive the conditions that create them and linger on vestigially. Sweets are still intimately bound up with holidays and gift-giving, which clusters them together with more genuinely valuable experiences, making people more attached to them than their actual effects would indicate. 

Sugar is still perceived as rare and valuable enough to constitute a special gift. This is in part due to the fact that children are generally restricted from sweets except for occasions which are otherwise special (birthdays, trips out, visiting grandparents). But the vestigial association of sugar and gift giving does just as much heavy lifting here in my opinion. 

Whenever people are advised to stop eating sugar, their defensiveness takes on a character of moral indignation, as though they're being asked to give up on something intrinsically fun and desirable. The psychotropic effects of the substance are way too weak to prompt this kind of attachment; it must be the result of these associations and the marketing which reinforces them, and taking the time to separate out the actual value from the incidentals in these memories (Did the ice cream make you feel good, or the affection of your grandparents?) will make it clearer that refined sugar is basically valueless as a substance. Its only reasonable emotional use is the communication of positive feelings. 

Eating an ice cream cone with your grandmother is a valuable childhood memory, and I wouldn't take that away from anyone. Eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's in the parking lot of a Walmart is fucking depressing. Understanding that the common denominator here doesn't actually create any meaningful commonalities makes it way easier to quit the stuff. I still consume sugar on holidays and special occasions for that reason, but I keep in mind that these things only matter if the people I'm with make them matter.


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## Sanshain (Aug 13, 2021)

LMlurker said:


> words words words



For somebody who claims to be sugar-free you seem to devote a very large amount of time and effort to calling it Satan's Crystallized Cum or whatever.


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## Rusty Crab (Aug 13, 2021)

I don't disagree with pretty much anything you're saying but you're dumping way too much effort into this and it's kinda making you look like a sperg.

Re: withdrawal. I had that happen to me when I quit sugar hard like you described. Mine lasted 2 weeks (though the first 3 days were by far the hardest). I went a step further by doing pretty serious research on how many products have unnecessary added sugar infused in them (spoiler: it's pretty much everything you can buy in a walmart). If you hard quit sugar and you AREN'T having withdrawals, there's likely a significant hidden source of sugar in your diet. Even if the label says there's zero sugar, that's often not true at all due to the way other carbs can break down.

Also yeah, I felt indescribably better after I quit it cold turkey. I think a lot of people don't realize they feel like shit until they stop feeling like shit.


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## mario if smoke weed (Aug 13, 2021)

post-merger said:


> words words words


I don't need shit to legitimize enjoying ice cream. I weigh far less than Ethan Ralph, I eat healthier than most Americans, I don't overdo it, that's all there is to it. Fuck the whole "food industry psyop" bruh I just want to have a tasty treat without someone sperging about how bad it is.


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## WeWuzFinns (Aug 13, 2021)

Wear the mask and take the vaccine so that the pigs can continue to eat sugar.


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## Devyn (Aug 13, 2021)

Rusty Crab said:


> If you hard quit sugar and you AREN'T having withdrawals, there's likely a significant hidden source of sugar in your diet. Even if the label says there's zero sugar, that's often not true at all due to the way other carbs can break down.


Something else for people to keep in mind is that things like caffeine (even just black coffee), smoking, and drinking alcohol can also mess with blood glucose levels--there's a reason many people who quit those develop a ravenous sweet tooth seemingly out of nowhere.

Chronically elevated blood sugar can do a ton of systemic damage even if you're skinny, and it depresses your immune system:





						Diabetes Mellitus and Infectious Diseases: Controlling Chronic Hyperglycemia
					

Introduction As the incidence of diabetes mellitus continues to rise, common focus areas for diabetes control are blood glucose levels, diet, and




					www.diabetesincontrol.com


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## Troonos (Aug 13, 2021)

LMlurker said:


> I get that it's a joke or whatever, but the emotional attachment to refined sugar and sweets is legitimately a food industry psyop. Marketing often positions sugar as an emotionally intimate experience (holidays, birthdays, gifts), and I've got a theory as to why.
> 
> Sugar was traditionally (ca 19th century) very valuable, as it was hard to produce and had to be imported across long distances. It would be given as a token of affection for this reason, and its rarity made it a logical means of communicating to someone that they were appreciated, much like tea or flowers or jewelry or anything else that was rare.
> 
> ...


Lots of sugar addicts negrating you, but I'm glad you're here, newfag. You're 100% right.



Devyn said:


> Chronically elevated blood sugar can do a ton of systemic damage even if you're skinny, and it depresses your immune system:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yep. A lot of new high-quality research is demonstrating that most cases of cardiovascular disease likely have an etiology of chronic poorly-controlled blood glucose. It damages *everything*. Imagine how many MIs and CVAs could've been avoided if people just broke their addictions to simple carbohydrates.


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## Reluctant MC (Aug 22, 2021)

It's a lot harder to store pure carbs as fat when compared to pure fat. You have to exceed a certain limit. The problem is 1) calories 2) tards eating both high carb and high fat (low protein and fiber). Either pick more fat with few carbs or lots of carbs and minimum fat. You could also eat a balanced macro diet with normal amount of calories, but I guess extremes are not fun.


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## Stoneheart (Aug 22, 2021)

Devyn said:


> Something else for people to keep in mind is that things like caffeine (even just black coffee), smoking, and drinking alcohol can also mess with blood glucose levels-


Go Fuck yourself! first you say sweets are bad and now you are going for coffee, fags and beer?


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## Rusty Crab (Aug 22, 2021)

Reluctant MC said:


> It's a lot harder to store pure carbs as fat when compared to pure fat.


Provided you burn them off immediately after eating. Most people cannot do that in their modern environment.


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## Reluctant MC (Aug 22, 2021)

Rusty Crab said:


> Provided you burn them off immediately after eating. Most people cannot do that in their modern environment.


Yeah, I guess I'm kind of biased- I walk a lot (sometimes up to 10h a day). And that would be hard without carbs.


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## Slap47 (Sep 16, 2021)

From what I understand abstaining from sugar actually makes you perceive sugar better and enjoy it more. Not sure if this is actually the case.


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## Rusty Crab (Sep 16, 2021)

Slap47 said:


> makes you perceive sugar better


Yes, without a doubt. Milk and plain white bread tastes very sweet to me now.


Slap47 said:


> enjoy it more.


Not as a blanket statement. You'll enjoy smaller amounts more... maybe. Like in deserts you won't want anywhere near as much sugar as before.

But stuff like soda becomes absolutely disgusting. I tried a coke after being off of added sugars for over 2 years. The only way I can describe it is if I mixed dish soap with pure corn syrup and you poured it in my mouth. Absolutely revolting. You can taste exactly how poisonous it is after you've stopped being addicted to it.

Also after you've been weaned off, sugar will outright ruin the taste of some things even in small amounts. Coffee is one such example. The sweetness from the creamer is enough. Trying to add cane sugar on top just makes it taste... off. It's hard to explain. It's like you're not tasting sweetened coffee. You're just tasting coffee AND sugar, but you're tasting them separately. It sounds like nonsense but I swear that's just the feel I get from it.


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## Hoi Polloi (Sep 16, 2021)

Slap47 said:


> From what I understand abstaining from sugar actually makes you perceive sugar better and enjoy it more. Not sure if this is actually the case.


You become more sensitive to it, natural sugars in fruits and vegetables taste sweeter and and can be better because of that. Foods with a lot of added sugar and even artificial sweeteners become sickly and gross, I tried a drink with diet soda as mixer last time I was at a bar and it was so sweet I couldn't finish it. Real sugar isn't any better, even white sugar takes on that kind of unpleasant burt taste you get from dark brown sugar and you can taste that in everything along with overpowering sweetness.


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## Troonos (Sep 16, 2021)

Slap47 said:


> From what I understand abstaining from sugar actually makes you perceive sugar better and enjoy it more. Not sure if this is actually the case.



Very true. Things that contained sugar but weren't sweet before are actually sweet now, and things that were sweet before are intolerably, disgustingly sweet now.


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## gurutu (Sep 19, 2021)

What's the difference, in blood sugar elevation, between eating 100g sugar and 100g of carbs from white bread?


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## Rusty Crab (Sep 19, 2021)

gurutu said:


> What's the difference, in blood sugar elevation, between eating 100g sugar and 100g of carbs from white bread?


As unbelievable as it sounds, white bread is marginally worse than raw sugar.





There's glycemix index and glycemix load (the rate that sugar absorbs and the amount you absorb, respectively). The articles below contain pretty much all the basics about them. And no, this does *not* just apply to diabetic people. It applies to literally everyone unless you're a star athlete that runs marathons every day. The fact that everyone ignores this advice until it's too late is why something absurd like a quarter of the country is prediabetic. 

Quick overview (do yourself a favor and block javascript)








						A good guide to good carbs: The glycemic index - Harvard Health
					

Picking good sources of carbs can help you control your blood sugar and your weight as well as help ward off a host of chronic conditions, from heart disease to various cancers and diabetes. One wa...




					www.health.harvard.edu
				




Much more comprehensive.





						Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load
					

Contents Summary Glycemic Index Individual foods Mixed meal or diet Glycemic Load Disease Prevention Type 2 diabetes mellitus Cardiovascular disease Cancer Gallbladder disease




					lpi.oregonstate.edu


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## Troonos (Sep 19, 2021)

gurutu said:


> What's the difference, in blood sugar elevation, between eating 100g sugar and 100g of carbs from white bread?



Almost the same, surprisingly. Bread's saccharides would have a glycemic index near 100, but bread's fat, fiber, and protein content slows glucose absorption, so the functional GI is much lower, around that of sucrose. Still really bad, though. Stay away.


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## gurutu (Sep 19, 2021)

That's why I was asking. I always hear about sugars, but the problem seems to be simple carbs in general.


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## Troonos (Sep 19, 2021)

Kinda. Simple carbs are fundamentally what's causing the problems with health.

However, starch is technically a complex carb, but the problem is that it's easily catabolized into simple carbs.

Cellulose (fiber) is the only carbohydrate that isn't fucking killing the West, despite being made of the same simple sugars that are poisoning and addicting us. Not only is it indigestible by anything without the gut flora of a termite and a few other insects, but it's really beneficial to digestion (insoluble) and to your cardiovascular health (soluble).


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## Overly Serious (Nov 21, 2021)

I saw this thread go by a while ago and it seemed worth a try. My overall diet wasn't great for sometime (got a *lot* worse over lockdowns). Whilst I ate healthy meals I snacked on sugar in various forms a lot. I recently had a major shift in life circumstances which has removed some of the triggers for snacking and I decided to actively try and avoid building new ones. So, anyway, I cut out the sugary snacks, except one time round someone's house but never in the home which has been the key difference. I'm also eating a lot less bread.

I've lost several kilos and remarkably I didn't even really notice I had because I was too busy to weigh myself. The big difference with cutting out sugar that led to this, I think, is that I'm nowhere near as hungry as I used to be. You would think cutting out so many calories would lead to more hunger but in fact my diet is a lot more regular now. I rarely get the major hunger pains that I used to. It's more 'hmmm, I'm getting hungry. I'll eat in a bit' since removing the sugar.

I don't want to jinx it. I know it can take six months for a habit to form and an old habit can return after a much longer period if the same triggers for it are reintroduced or new ones formed. But, I want to say this thread was a positive one. It convinced me to give it a go and to also stick with it through the first few days. I hope I can continue this.


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## Troonos (Nov 21, 2021)

Overly Serious said:


> I saw this thread go by a while ago and it seemed worth a try. My overall diet wasn't great for sometime (got a *lot* worse over lockdowns). Whilst I ate healthy meals I snacked on sugar in various forms a lot. I recently had a major shift in life circumstances which has removed some of the triggers for snacking and I decided to actively try and avoid building new ones. So, anyway, I cut out the sugary snacks, except one time round someone's house but never in the home which has been the key difference. I'm also eating a lot less bread.
> 
> I've lost several kilos and remarkably I didn't even really notice I had because I was too busy to weigh myself. The big difference with cutting out sugar that led to this, I think, is that I'm nowhere near as hungry as I used to be. You would think cutting out so many calories would lead to more hunger but in fact my diet is a lot more regular now. I rarely get the major hunger pains that I used to. It's more 'hmmm, I'm getting hungry. I'll eat in a bit' since removing the sugar.
> 
> I don't want to jinx it. I know it can take six months for a habit to form and an old habit can return after a much longer period if the same triggers for it are reintroduced or new ones formed. But, I want to say this thread was a positive one. It convinced me to give it a go and to also stick with it through the first few days. I hope I can continue this.


You don't get hungry anymore because fat and protein flatten your blood glucose curve, whereas carbs would shoot it sky high, resulting in an inevitable crash and subsequent ghrelin cascade. This is one of my favorite benefits of cutting out carbs.

Congratulations, fren. Keep it up. Not much feels better than self-improvement.


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## Overly Serious (Nov 22, 2021)

Troonos said:


> You don't get hungry anymore because fat and protein flatten your blood glucose curve, whereas carbs would shoot it sky high, resulting in an inevitable crash and subsequent ghrelin cascade. This is one of my favorite benefits of cutting out carbs.
> 
> Congratulations, fren. Keep it up. Not much feels better than self-improvement.



Thank you. I appreciate the support. I changed my weight loss target this morning, as I'd met the last one and stayed under it for four weeks.

It's the change to appetite that has blown me away about this. Losing weight due to fewer calories is one thing. But no longer having the big hunger pangs is amazing. It's really not so much about eating less as changing what you eat. Refined sugar is amazingly bad. Yet for decades the diet advice has always been "fat fat fat".

I'm going to start planning out meals and freezing them so I always have something healthy and filling to hand.


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## Clint Torez (Dec 9, 2021)

Sugar is bad for you? What a unheard and unique statement! What other fires of knowledge will you bring to us mortals?


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## Troonos (Dec 9, 2021)

Clint Torez said:


> Sugar is bad for you? What a unheard and unique statement! What other fires of knowledge will you bring to us mortals?


I mean, nearly 100% of the West is addicted to simple carbohydrates with an intensity similar to heroin, and that addiction is killing exponentially more people than recreational drug use, so clearly it needs to be reiterated.


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## Overly Serious (Dec 9, 2021)

Clint Torez said:


> Sugar is bad for you? What a unheard and unique statement! What other fires of knowledge will you bring to us mortals?


You mock but I don't think people *do* understand this. They understand that excess calories make you fat. They understand that sugar is calories. But re-read (or perhaps just read) the OP's post. There's a lot more to it than that. I opened this thread today to post a small update. I've lost near to another kg since I last posted just a few weeks ago. I hope I can continue this trajectory because if I can then by March I'll have lost around 9kg in six months and at a steady rate, not wild bounces. This is a big deal to me and it corresponds with me having dropped sugar. I don't really feel like I'm dieting, the wild hunger pangs I used to get are *mostly* gone.

See growing up I was always told fat bad fat bad fat bad x infinity. And that's still what most people think. I've made no active effort to reduce fat from my diet. Just sugar. It's making a world of difference. So yes, this is a message that needs spreading, imo. And thank you to the OP for such a detailed explanation. It's what prompted me to try this.


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## HullDown (Dec 9, 2021)

Just avoid processed foods. Apples, grapes, sweet potatoes, carrots and bananas have plenty of sugars and simple carbs, but no one has ever maintained obesity from them alone. 

Losing weight is hard, but it's not difficult. There's no need for books, classes, YouTube gurus or anything of the sort - unless you are brain damaged, you know that cakes and sodas will make it more likely for you to gain weight, and veggies, healthy fats like olive oil, fish and lean cuts of meat will make you lose excess weight. Unless you are aiming for a completely unnatural body type like a bodybuilder would, patience and common sense are the only things necessary.


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## Troonos (Dec 9, 2021)

HullDown said:


> Just avoid processed foods. Apples, grapes, sweet potatoes, carrots and bananas have plenty of sugars and simple carbs, but no one has ever maintained obesity from them alone.
> 
> Losing weight is hard, but it's not difficult. There's no need for books, classes, YouTube gurus or anything of the sort - unless you are brain damaged, you know that cakes and sodas will make it more likely for you to gain weight, and veggies, healthy fats like olive oil, fish and lean cuts of meat will make you lose excess weight. Unless you are aiming for a completely unnatural body type like a bodybuilder would, patience and common sense are the only things necessary.


"Processed" is a vague bullshit term. Processing doesn't just blanket make everything inherently unhealthy. It's a really wide umbrella term that ranges from healthier to less healthy.

And those fruits are terrible for you. There's a reason I instruct my diabetic and pre-diabetic patients to avoid bananas at all costs. They're more unhealthy than many candies. Removing them from your diet has a significant effect on A1C. Berries are the only low-carb fruit.

And lean meat is not great advice. Fat is not the enemy, and insufficient fat intake interferes with satiety.


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## HullDown (Dec 9, 2021)

Troonos said:


> "Processed" is a vague bullshit term. Processing doesn't just blanket make everything inherently unhealthy. It's a really wide umbrella term that ranges from healthier to less healthy.
> 
> And those fruits are terrible for you. There's a reason I instruct my diabetic and pre-diabetic patients to avoid bananas at all costs. They're more unhealthy than many candies. Removing them from your diet has a significant effect on A1C. Berries are the only low-carb fruit.
> 
> And lean meat is not great advice. Fat is not the enemy, and insufficient fat intake interferes with satiety.



Processed is not a vague term. Cheese is processed milk; milk is not processed anything. A cake is processed flour and butter; flour is processed wheat, and butter is processed milk. Sure, processing doesn't logically imply anything, but can you name a processed food that should be a staple of your diet if you are trying to lose weight?

Saying that fruits rich in sugar should be avoided by diabetics does not imply anything about what non diabetics should do. Again, talking about obesity, how many obese people do you know that ate apples and bananas until they became severely overweight? How many are maintaining their obesity with fruits and veggies? 

And sure, as a rule you can have fats from meat, but if you are trying to lose weight you are better off eating lean meat like poultry and having some walnuts or macadamias over just having meat. You are getting healthier fats and eating more by volume. 

Mind you, I'm not saying you won't lose weight if you follow a low carb diet, or keto, low glicemic index, or however it's called now. But you are cutting off healthy food alongside the crap. Apples are not candy.


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## LigmaTwatz (Jun 30, 2022)

Interesting read OP! 

It’s crazy that the most sugary low vitamin high carb foods are directly advertised to children. Long term effects of sugar and artificially colored dyes have known additives that make foods addictive; and have connections with other mental illnesses like ADHD, ADD, depression, etc. 
Something else I’ve found interesting, is there’s a link between diabetes of the brain and Alzheimer’s. 
In places where sugar is literally added to EVERYTHING. 

it’s important to not blame the consumer when the labels are intentionally misleading, with labels saying “0 trans fats” means more sugar, or sugar can be rebranded as “glucose, Saraclose, palmtree oil, cane syrup” etc. 

it’s important to remember the rich elites run these companies, they directly sell us poison, making us medical patients, with brings more revenue in. Medical treatment costs money, which is why places like the US don’t have universal healthcare. The taxpayers foot the bill for the elderly, Crippled, and minority’s.


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## Brahma (Jul 2, 2022)

HullDown said:


> milk; milk is not processed anything.


Milk is processed milk.

It's pasteurized, ie cooked.

It's homogenized, ie mixed together with all the other milk from all the other cows from all the other farms.

It's split into different products, heavy cream, cream, whole milk, semi skimmed and skimmed ie put into a centrifuge and varying weights and viscosity products siphoned off for separate sale

I'm old enough to remember when you'd get the milk from the doorstep and my mother would skim the cream from the top to keep aside for cooking


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