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010 – The Truth About Sugar

Hey gang today we are talking about the addiction you don’t even realize that you have. So stay tuned.

Hi, it’s Dr. Kelly Shockley with Are You Really Healthy Radio. We’re we exposed the real truths in the realm of health and Empower you with insight and knowledge so you can take back control of your house and was the highest quality of life for the rest of your life. Now, if you’re new here, make sure you click that subscribe button, and all of the links referenced in this video will be found in the description box.

Alright, let’s get started. Hey guys. So sidekick Hank over here. Mr. Bones, whatever you want to call him. He decided he wanted to join us today. So just enjoy I’m a chiropractor. So very appropriate that I would actually have a skeleton in my office. If you don’t do some of the things that I am going to suggest you might end up looking like him sooner than later. And it’s not a very exciting process. So I have notes with me today because this topic is huge and I could be here for hours with you and I want to try to drive home the points. Keep it simple easy to digest user-friendly but also to the point and why this is such a big deal and honestly, my son could probably give this podcast in a much more concise manner because it’s something that he and I talked about all of the time.

So did you know you might actually have an addiction and could you have any idea what that might actually be too? Well many people suffer from the same addiction. So you’re not alone in this not that that makes that great. It doesn’t make it normal. It is actually very problematic and it’s extremely common.

Now, you’re probably suffering from being addicted to the most addictive substance known to man any guesses on what that might actually be? It’s found in like all of our Foods anymore. So the food industry is not really helping you.

If you said sugar you are correct. Sugar is the most addictive substance known to man. It is eight times more addictive than cocaine and your body treats it like a drug. Which if you’ve ever tried to come off of sugar or to wean it out of your diet, you’ve probably realized how difficult it is and maybe you’ve actually got to the point where you feel crummy and your Cravings go through the roof and your moves all over the place and you have aches and pains you feel like you’ve got the flu and you go right back on the sugar because it’s easier, so we’re going to go through some truth about sugar and different types of things you would expect to experience if you want to actually get it out of your system may be some incentive as to why you want to get it out of your system. So just some alarming facts and this is really old data. I haven’t been able to find any new data on this but I can only imagine that it’s actually gotten worse not better.

So research done in the last decade shows that the average. Can consumes at least a hundred and fifty pounds of sugar annually now if you think about that to kind of put it a bit into perspective if you go down the bakery aisle or the cake I’ll as I call it and you get the two pound bag of sugar.

It’s almost like you’re consuming half of that every single day. That’s disgusting. Pretty I mean doesn’t that kind of gross you out a little bit? That’s just not great. I don’t care how good you think it tastes. You would not sit down and eat a half a bag of sugar a day. Would you?  No, so part of why the consumption has gone up so high which by the way our ancestors, you know within the last 50 even a hundred.

Well, yeah, even 50 years ago. We were consuming less than a pound. Per per year less than a pound. Annually. Our ancestors are wasn’t even measurable. But the problem is our food industry has changed and the way of convenience has become a thing and the way that things taste good when you know, Different products are being made from less than good ingredients is to add in Sugar the whole no fat low fat movement that happened back in the gosh.

What was that the early 70s the way that they’ve made those Foods taste better because they took the fat out which is where a lot of satiety and the satisfaction and the goodness came from they opted for more sugar in those. Products to actually make them taste better like go to the store if you haven’t done this before, if this is new information to which is not new information, but maybe you haven’t heard this before go compare an original of something to a low-fat no-fat version of something and look at the carbohydrate content.

And look at the fat content, obviously, they took it out. But of the ones where they took the fat out or they decrease the amount of fat those carbohydrates more than likely are much higher and if they’re not it’s because they’re using a sugar substitute. So look in the other ingredients and look to see if you see any other types of sugar substitutes, which might be sugar alcohols known as like yours orbit all your Xylitol erythritol anything that ends in all is a sugar alcohol another one.

That’s commonly used is sucralose. Okay? That’s what actually Splenda. Is or any of the other things ask the same potassium I mentioned this in one of our previous episodes is actually aspartame. So we already know Aspartame is terrible for us, but they’re hiding it in that name of a sulphate potassium.

Look to see if you see more of those ingredients in the low-fat no-fat variety a guarantee that you are. So here’s the problem sugar. Is it’s the best way to cause inflammation in your body and what medical finally has agreed upon over the last decade is that inflammation is the root cause of all disease and illness.

There’s not one thing that goes wrong with you that does not involve inflammation. We know that you speed up essentially the aging process the more inflamed that you are. Now you listen way back to one of the earliest episodes you heard me talk about inflammation when I was talking about the differences in markers and how we have new clinical ranges based off of our population right now, which I don’t know if I’ll ask the question again are Americans getting healthier sicker Through Time.

If you said sticker, you’re correct. Sadly. It’s very sad reality. But yes Americans are not getting healthier over. It is very very common. Now when you look at somebody’s blood work, if you used old clinical ranges from even 30 years ago the majority of people would have major major inflammation in their.

But because of how clinical ranges are found nowadays, which is the average of the average population and I shouldn’t say found nowadays, but that’s just how they’re determined. It’s the average of the average population because of how Americans Health has declined and majority of everybody’s walking around inflamed that’s considered the new normal even though that’s not normal or good.

It’s just incredibly common. So everybody’s walking around very inflamed. Not necessarily showing up on today’s ranges, they’ll show up as normal old ranges. They would have shown up with like severe chronic levels of inflammation, which means they’re already heading down a disease pathway an illness sick lack of quality in your life pathway.

Okay, the best way to make that happen the best way to increase inflammation in the body is through sugar now something about sugar. Sugars are not all created equally and we know that sugar is a problem. So oftentimes people are opting for sugar substitutes because we all still crave that sweet taste.

Well, of course we do because it stimulates the pleasure Center in the brain, which is part why sugar is treated as a drug it lights up the same areas of the brain that are drugs do all the pleasure centers The Addictive centers in the brain. So we still long for That Sweet satisfaction. But consciously we know or at least we’re thinking or at least maybe from a weight-loss to standpoint.

We’re thinking that if we cut out the carbohydrates cut out the sugars but use the sugar substitutes that we’re doing ourselves a favor now really, we’re not our body treats all sugars essentially the same even your sugar substitutes the ones that claim they have zero calories to them. They actually are more detrimental.

In a lot of ways because they’re cooked up in a lab. Okay their chemical based. It is amazing the health effects negative ones that come from that they a lot of them create major stress on the digestive system and what we now know also more recently in the last decade maybe even last handful of years or so is that.

The question was okay. If inflammation is the root cause of all disease. Is there a pattern or is there a place where this begins in the body? And what we’re realizing is that it looks like all of this begins in the digestive system in the. And as soon as your gut starts to break down, it opens up this Floodgate for inflammation to happen which then starts to involve other areas of the body and it just depends on where is your body’s next weakest link is to wear that will show up.

So if we want our guts to be really healthy and we want to decrease our inflammation. So that we can have quality of life and maintain our health and not go down this dwindling spiral and buy into the oh, I’m just getting older thing in this is expected in normal. And there’s nothing I can do about it which by the way such a load of garbage like you have a lot of control over how your life looks you do not have to get heart disease or diabetes or Alzheimer’s or any of the other things, but you’ve got to take charge of your health and look at it every single day not try to take care of something once it occurs, but.

Prevent it from actually happening. Okay. So with what I just said inflammation easiest way to create that is through sugar and sugar substitutes will do the same thing. And if inflammation is the root cause of all disease and that begins in the gut which sugars kill the gut. Big-time like it messes up everything you guys there are a ton of bacterias and viruses mold and all this stuff that lives in your gut known as the microbiome.

There are bad guys there and there are good guys there if you want to really throw your body into a tailspin feed it sugar because what you’re going to do is you’re going to kill all the good guys and you’re going to feed all the bad guys and now your immune system is totally stressed. In Tanked and you just opened up the door for a lot of different bad things to happen Okay, so.

we want to maintain got Health we want to decrease inflammation because if we do those things it’s going to help improve overall health and well-being. So because our body actually treats sugar is a drug and it is an addiction which is why it’s very hard for us to get off of it. What is the best way to go about that and maybe I should actually give you a little bit more incentive first, if they like saying that it’s the root cause of all diseases and enough something simple that you may already be experiencing is maybe some stiffness or aches and pains, you know, I don’t know.

Maybe you have noticed after the holidays that you can just kind of feel crummy. Well, it’s because you’re dry it totally changed and whether it was in the form of sweets and treats or alcohol or other just Indulgence and simple carbohydrates, like mashed potatoes. You just increase the lot of sugar content into the body which increase the inflammation which is going to make you a key and sore and guess what?

For every gram of sugar you put into the body. It basically takes like three grams of water out of your bloodstream in order to process it. So sugar is a great way to dehydrate yourself, and I don’t know about you but. When it comes to the muscular system, the muscular system is basically like 75% water.

And if you’re dehydrating it you’re walking around with beef jerky for legs and mussels versus like nice plump Stakes. You’re not going to move very well. You’re going to be very very stiff. So a lot of times when people come to me and they’re stiff and they’re a key. Part of it can be because they’re dehydrated because they’re just simply not consuming enough water, which is about half your weight and body ounces per day.

Well, I can’t even say that. Let’s try that again half your weight in ounces per day. There we go. So they may not be consuming enough water. They may be drinking a ton of water. So they’re deluding out their electrolytes, but they also might be consuming too many sugars and not even knowing it. So there are dehydrating themselves.

Just simply by consuming too much sugar. So I have them start knocking that out and increasing water and you know restoring laughter lights and lo and behold they don’t feel so stiff and sore and guess what? It’s not because you’re getting older, it’s because you were putting crap into your system, you know, it’s like a race car.

You’re not going to go put like low-grade fuel into a race car and expect it to perform at its high performing level. Right? So our bodies are the same way. Don’t put low-grade fuel into your body and. Performance. So how do we actually fix this problem sad to say, but truth be told you need to cut the sugar out.

Now. I’m not saying you have to be a hundred percent perfect. But initially to get you over this addiction you are going to have to be perfect. Okay going cold turkey. That is the best way to do that, but you may end up with withdrawal. Okay, it’s a very real thing you’re cleaning the body out and you’re detoxing this stuff out of your system that you’re addicted to and as such you will more than likely have withdrawal symptoms depending on how bad your addiction and how high your consumption is with sugars.

Here’s the good news, though. The worst of it happens only in the first couple of days if you can stay tough and keep trucking through it will get easier. You may still be feeling some symptoms up for about two weeks. But two weeks is a drop in the bucket of a lifetime. And you’ll be much healthier and happier when you get on the other side of this but it’s two weeks.

Not of feeling like you’re on your deathbed. Okay, so let me just share with you some of these symptoms that you could expect if you’re going to actually choose to clean this out of your diet, which I highly highly suggest when I talk to my son about sugar. Now, I always say fortunately and unfortunately has me for a mom and partly, you know, fortunately because long-term assuming he doesn’t go off the deep end when.

Charge of his own food. He will be a healthier kid. He will be a healthier adult. He will have a higher quality of life because his health is intact and he’s been taught how to do this, you know part of us. We don’t know to know any better. We’re doing what we’ve been taught we’re doing how we like.

We’re following suit of how we’ve been raised. We don’t necessarily know differently and there’s so much conflicting information out there. How do we really know? What’s true? And what’s not? Well, that’s part of why I’m here and based off of research and Science and then personal experience clinical experience.

This is what I’ve seen so my son would tell you I tell him that sugar is poison. Like I am not giving you that because I don’t want to poison your brain. It is by the way sugar is one of the best ways to like fry your nervous system little side note here before I talk to you about those withdrawal symptoms.

I told you I needed notes over here because I can go all day long about this topic. So. Sugar’s we already know if you consume too many sugars. You’re going to end up with diabetes more than likely type to okay, and if you don’t get your sugars in control, when your type 2 you will eventually make yourself be like type one where you’ll be dependent on insulin.

That’s the main difference between the two but what I don’t know if you know is that once you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes you’re twice as likely to end up with Dementia or. And or Alzheimer’s okay. Dr. David Perlmutter is a. I can’t even say this Doctor David Perlmutter is a world renowned urologist.

He would really like to change the name of diabetes or not diabetes. He would really like to change the name of dementia and Alzheimer’s to type 3 diabetes because ultimately that’s the next phase or the next showing of that disease process the give you live long enough with diabetes and you haven’t changed your ways.

Ultimately here’s how that’s going to present later on. Life, that’s just it and it’s older form. It’s not truly another disease process. It’s the same thing just gone unchecked. So with that said take home sugar fries your brain If you fry your brain quality of life is going to go down the tubes big-time in you’re going to have a lot of expenses, you know to you that you’ve worked so hard for you’re going to spend all your retirement trying to help you at least survive and.

Still live and function not what you’re working for and there could be more expense put on your family, which is also not what you’re working for. So take care of yourself now, so you’re not a burden to yourself or others later down the road. You can do this. It’s not that hard. So back to withdrawal symptoms speaking of it’s not that hard.

I promise you these only last a few days. At most like a couple of weeks but nothing severe that long. It’s normally just the first couple of days where it’s symptoms are most severe and then they start to come down off of that. So I’m going to give you the list. This list is a little long you will not necessarily experience all of these but I’m putting them out there so that you know, if you go off of sugar and now you’re experiencing this hey, that might be what the issue is to stay the course and it will go away.

Okay, so. Your list anger anxiety appetite changes brain fog concentration difficulties Cravings, obviously depression dizziness fatigue flu-like symptoms. Those are probably the most common things that are shown up the flu like symptoms just kind of achy, or maybe a little fevery wanting to stay in bed, right headaches are another big one, especially if you choose to cut caffeine out at the same time.

Immune system weakness. So if you end up getting sick in the midst of this, it just may take a bit to get over it now stay the course because again this ultimately is going to boost your immune system. You won’t get sick nearly as often or if you don’t get sick. But when you do it last longer, you won’t have that happen anymore.

Either you will be strengthening your immune system by cutting sugar out. Insomnia major issues with sleep. That’s another one that can come up of just not sleeping soundly may be tossing and turning having a little bit more difficult time falling asleep at night are other common things so flu-like.

And insomnia are the things that I’ve heard reported back to me the most commonly or most frequently. Okay, irritability. I can totally happen like you just took away like one of your pleasure sources and so yeah, you may not be super happy about it and maybe you don’t notice it but your. Members to let them know that you’re doing this and it will be better within just a couple of weeks.

So to also maybe give you a little bit more patience in life. That would be super helpful. Okay mood swings not just irritable, but just mood swings to you could feel a little shaky as well some short-term memory problems, which actually will end up clearing. Okay. This is a good thing. And then some weight gain more likely weight loss but the body is trying to recalibrate itself.

So you need to give it a little bit of time and just what I tell people to do through this process is keep flooding the system with water do some Epsom salt soaks because that really helps just pull more stuff from the body and it’s soothing okay if you’re hankering for something sweet now.

I just spaced his name one of the docs out there. He’s huge when it comes to detoxing off of sugar. He would say stay away from fruit. Stay away from artificial sweeteners, like even not artificial sweeteners that are bad but sugar substitutes, I should say like your Stevia stay away from that or even monk fruit, which those are totally appropriate to use but not in this initial phase because when you put something sweet and you’re still stimulating those pleasure centers into really kibosh that addiction. You don’t want to have anything that’s sweet. Now if that is too much and you’re feeling like you’re dying, I have had people successfully still come off of Sugar by having maybe like a handful of raspberries or a handful of blueberries use just a smidgen of fruit.

If you absolutely have to otherwise starve it out as much as you can. Two three days. You’re going to be doing far far better. Okay, so here’s the thing.

Different suggestions that will actually help you through this process. You gotta commit to doing it right so. Get a support system. It will make life a lot better. Maybe you and your spouse both need to lay off the sugar. Maybe it can be a whole family adventure because the kids would really benefit from not consuming this either you will see a change in an improvement in their behavior, their ability to focus their ability to stay calm right kids already have so much energy and you give them like sugar in it.

They’re just like firecrackers and then you want them to sit still and you wonder why they can’t. Maybe it’s because you gave him something that puts their body into freakout mode. So the whole family can get on board with this or get one of your buddies, you know, it’s always easier to do something if you have a support system and people are on the same page.

Okay, so definitely you’ll all be healthier in a short period of time so do this together the other thing like I was just saying go cold turkey. Okay that. Physiologic addiction the only real way to break it is to go cold turkey. So do that as best as you can don’t just try to reduce it because you’ll actually be setting yourself up for failure versus the cold turkey.

You will be setting yourself up for much more likely success. Okay, the other thing don’t drink your calories stay away from sugary drinks always. I don’t ever use any of these. Okay, pops juices Gatorades. They are all ridiculously high in sugars high fructose corn syrup is still sugar and it is not good for you.

And there are even worse health effects that come from that then legitimate cane sugar. So clear that out of the diet as well. Yeah, the diet counterparts those artificial sweeteners. They have even worse health effects on you. Okay, consume like clean protein or meal replacement shakes that don’t have those added sugars in them either if you need something that’s a liquid form to get some calories in you can make smoothies green smoothies or fine.

Don’t be throwing in lots of fruit. Okay. Make sure you’re eating more protein your protein and also your good healthy fats. Those are going to help balance your blood sugar level out there going to help balance mood regulation. They’re going to give you more satiety and help you feel full and more mentally clear in the long run.

They are ultimately what we need to consume the most of good clean proteins. Good fats and lots and lots of green vegetables. Okay vegetables in general, but the ones that grow above the surface eat those all the time ones that grow beneath the surface for this part, maybe wait until you’re like a week or so out.

We’re talking these sweet potatoes and carrots and parsnips. They have more sugar content to them. Not that they’re bad. But as your weaning off of this you don’t want those sweets in your diet. Okay? Yeah. I’m saying yeah, because I got my notes over here. Just making sure I’m staying on track with you guys.

I’ve already kept you here longer than I normally do but we’re gaining, okay. You can have unlimited good carbohydrates. That’s what I was just talking about. All your vegetables. Those are your good carbohydrates the ones that grow bunny above the ground not beneath the ground. You can also have fruit the fruits that we don’t think of as fruits.

Do you guys know what those are like, we know what the definition of the fruit is the seeds on the inside. The only fruit that’s really on doesn’t follow that rule as a strawberry and right now that one’s off the list so the fruits that you consume on a regular basis all day long every day if you want to from now until the end of.

Because they’re really good for you our avocados. They’re all the squash their your cucumbers Tomatoes as long as you don’t have Nightshade problems, right and lemons and limes. You can totally use in your water or as part of your salad dressing. They are completely acceptable. Okay, if you absolutely absolutely have to have something sweet.

Berries are going to be your best bet but make sure you are only doing a small amount. Otherwise, you’re still going to be consuming a lot of sugar even though it’s in a natural form. Okay, so like blueberries maybe a quarter of a cup is more of a classic serving size versus a. Of blueberries that’s a lot more sugar and it will wreak havoc on the system to okay, if you’re looking for more of an overall eating style some of the things that you would recognize now name wise ketogenic which is.

Difficult to do and I don’t like the dairy in the ketogenic. So stay away from that part of it. But otherwise it’s a high amount of fat good clean meats and vegetables something that’s much more realistic and doable is more of the Paleo or like a modified Mediterranean diet. So just stay away from the Der the desert part of that until we get past those first few weeks K and then you can add those in that’s fine.

So fight sugar with fat it really is helpful fat does not make you fat. Hey, I don’t know if you knew that but there you go. That doesn’t make you fat actually carbohydrates do we’ll talk about that on a different show because that’s a whole other slew of information. I could sit and talk about all day long with you.

Okay? Bad fats are not good. So you want the good fats, which is like your coconut oil avocado oil grass-fed butter ghee olive oil as long as you’re not cooking with it because it’s not stable enough to actually sustain heat and there’s some others but those are the main ones. So stick with those add more of a man, they’re going to help you feel full and it helps regulate your blood sugar levels.

Okay, and the insulin levels and it’s going to help you cut your craving for the sweet. So add those in and then be ready for emergencies. This is like key for everything. Hmm. Do not go to the grocery store. If you’re hungry because you will go for simple carbohydrates and you’ll completely kibosh all of the progress that you’ve made.

Likewise be prepared for emergencies have healthy snacks and healthy foods readily available so that you don’t reach for something in a package because that’s going to have sugar in it. Okay. Make sure you have your house stocked with appropriate and safe snacks to ward off any drop in blood sugar.

So nuts, you know hummus and vegetables avocados mashed up avocado with vegetables is really good to jerky’s as long as they don’t have added. Sugar are good nut. Butters are also good.  Seeds work. Well, let’s see. I got the list. Yeah. You got it. Okay, and then D stress is much as you can like how is that related stress actually increases one of the hormones that makes you crave sugar.

So while we can’t get rid of stress we can find ways to better manage stress working out is a great one because it actually. Essentially blocks your ability to absorb the stress hormone. So it legitimately reduces the stress hormone in your body which will help ward off those Cravings or use other techniques that you know help you decompress reading a book going for a walk in nature meditating yoga, whatever it is, make sure you’re doing something 10-15 minutes a day every day.

While you get through this process and then I would keep it there because honestly stress causes so many other health problems, too. They say that 93% of all visits to doctors are for stress-related illnesses. It’s a thing in this country. Maybe we should move. I don’t know. Okay, so. Let me just check my notes here.

Oh something super simple that research has shown that really helps is just taking in deep breaths and we’re talking belly breaths not not lift your chest up, but actually belly breathe which opens up your lungs. It pushes your diaphragm down and it allows as much air and oxygen into your system that you can get that actually switches your body out of stress mode.

And helps you swap out of fat storing mode to fat burning mode. Like seriously. It doesn’t get much easier than that. So throughout your day maybe deep breathe for just a couple of minutes. Like holy cow. I got to start doing that again to just the deep breathing for the fat burning mode, like sign me up.

I’m all for that and then sleep who sleep is huge now guess while you’re going through this process you may actually have more issues with sleep, but it will regulate and normalize again. Sleep or the lack thereof also increases the same stress hormone that I was talking to you about what just stress.

So you want to try to aim for of course the classic seven hours that you know you want this to be as uninterrupted as possible. We want the quality of sleep that’s going to help balance all the hormones which will ultimately help decrease Cravings as well. It balances your blood sugar levels and it’s going to improve your insulin sensitivity, which is your body’s ability.

To burn off your sugar without storing it so you can do this. It’s incredibly important start don’t delay get going and just from this simple change. I would be so anxious to know what you see improve about your health. So I’m challenging you who is going to accept my challenge. I want to reach out.

Let me know that you’re quitting sugar and I’ll check in on you and just a matter of days couple of weeks and see how are you doing? I want to know. And I want to know how your health has changed. It will change for the better guys. So do yourself a favor, cut the sugar out. It’s also known as the white devil in our household it is there is nothing good that comes from that at all.

So thank you guys for staying around share this information with anybody who you think might benefit again. Let me know what it is that you want to know from me so I can better serve you and I just appreciate you guys so much and here’s to being healthy. Hey guys. Thank you so much for tuning in today.

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Thanks so much guys and stay tuned for another episode of are you really healthy?