There are a lot of changes you can make to your lifestyle to make your diet healthier. A better diet can mean better energy levels and maintaining a healthier weight. You can find out a lot about the benefits of reducing sugar for example, which not only contains a lot of calories, but is also a simple carbohydrate. Many people have had success in losing weight and feeling more energetic by going on diets that keep carbohydrates low, but even if you do not want to follow a low-carb diet, reducing refined sugars is still a good way to make your diet healthier without too much effort.

  • Why Sugar Can Be Bad for You

As well as being high in calories, sugar is also bad for you because it can cause your blood sugar levels to shift rapidly throughout the day causing spikes and lows in energy. Over time you can even end up with things like metabolic syndrome if you consume too much sugar. This can make it harder to lose weight, and you may also experience things like afternoon crashes in energy, where you feel sluggish.

Sugar can also seem addictive, and you may feel like you crave it at times. Usually people who give up sugar altogether feel like they really miss it for a few days, but after this initial withdrawal period they find that they actually find things that didn’t taste sweet before much sweeter, and dislike the intense sweetness of artificially added sugar.

  • How to Reduce Sugar

One of the easiest ways to reduce sugar in your diet is not to buy or consume anything that has added sugar. Some things have natural sugars in them, for instance fruit juices, and while these are not good if you are avoiding sugar all together, if you are merely trying to cut out sugar additives, then you should look for the unsweetened versions. Processed foods are also a bad source of unnecessary sugar, and many things that don’t even taste particularly sweet have extra sugar added when you look at the ingredients.

  • Using Alternatives

Then maybe there are times when you particularly need to have sugar for the taste of something, for instance some people very much dislike the taste of coffee without sugar. When you want to just cut calories and your sugar intake, there are plenty of sweeteners available that will do this job for you in your tea or coffee. However, for baking and sweet desserts, you may find you prefer to use a different type of natural sugar, rather than mass-produced refined sugar. Coconut sugar can be one good option. This is still not a good idea if you are trying to cut out sugar and reduce your cravings for sweet food, but if you do want to continue eating sugar and just want to get it in a healthier way, then things like coconut sugar can be a great option that also add something unique to the flavor of what you are making.

Cutting down on sugar or even giving it up altogether is not as hard as you might think and can offer a lot of health benefits.