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Why sugar makes you tired

Consuming large amounts of processed sugar causes spikes in your body’s blood sugar. This causes a temporary surge in energy, but then causes a massive crash that leads us to feel more tired than we did to begin with.

These constant highs and lows cause the body to stop being able to regulate our own energy. The bottom line: a diet rich in sugar is going to worsen any tiredness you already feel.

In Britain, the average person consumes 237 teaspoons of sugar a week! This is often from hidden sugar in processed foods, soft drinks, even in bread.

Of course, there is also sugar in fruit. So does this mean we have to stop eating fruit too? Not necessarily, as it would take much higher quantities of fruit to get the same amount of sugar that you could get in a chocolate bar, so if you are having a couple of pieces of fruit a day, that wouldn’t normally be enough to affect your insulin functioning.

MY ADVICE

Keep a food diary for a few days and seeing how much sugar you really consume. Once you are aware of it you can try and cut down slowly. If you crave sugar and normally have a bar of chocolate every night, try and only have half instead.

Replace sweet treats with healthier options like fruit with yoghurt. It is also important to consume lots of proteins like lean meat, fish, hummus and eggs and fats like coconut oil, avocados, nuts and seeds to help balance blood sugars in the body and curb cravings.

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