Food Theory: I Quit Sugar for 30 Days!

Are you a sweet tooth? *Manic laughter* Next question. This guy here is about to give up

sugar

for the next month. Spoiler alert, it's going to change his life. Hello internet! Welcome to Food Theory, the show so sweet it could give you cavities. If you've been watching for a while, you'll have noticed that it's a little difficult to have the cleanest diet when you're the host of a

food

channel. You're constantly devouring sour candies, super spicy sauces, fast

food

burgers, edible underwear, and sometimes even edible trees. However, even outside the scope of this program, as a parent of a 5-year-old, I am constantly surrounded by unhealthy food choices.

Especially when it comes to sweets. It's something I didn't really think about until recently. How much

sugar

and artificial sweetener do I consume all the time? And look, I'm not old by any means. I mean, I'm old by YouTube standards, but at least I'm getting to the age where I have to start taking care of my own health. So, since it's a new year, a new me, I decided to cut out sugar for the last month. And since misery loves company, I won't be alone on this little adventure. Steph, our social media manager Kai, as well as our live producer Ash, join me and join us in eliminating almost all sugar from our diet.

To see what physical and mental changes occur when a group of sugar fiends like us leave behind their favorite vice. Will we end up feeling healthier? Will we want to continue with this style of eating? Or will it just be a month of sugar-free misery? So, we had our goal in mind and our timeline, but as soon as I started researching the logistics of this, I realized that, wow, sugar is a vague term. We all know by now that our body needs sugar to function, specifically in the form of glucose. But at the same time, we hear reports about sugar being a bad thing that will leave us toothless and weak-hearted.

So do our bodies need something that's as bad for us, or is sugar not as bad as all the headlines say? Well, the answer is somewhere in between. Now, pause here. This is a very confusing topic because there is a lot of discussion about the best terms to use when talking about sugar. You've probably heard people refer to sugar in two groups: good sugars and bad sugars. And let me be totally clear about this: I'm not trying to assign any kind of moral value to the foods or sugars you're consuming. These names have more to do with their long-term effects on the human body, because in excess nothing is good for health and everyone has different nutritional needs for their diet.

So for the purpose of this video, we'll stick with those two tags, since they're the ones you're most likely to hear when you're in the real world. That way, you'll have the context behind these names and what they really are, rather than simply framing them as what you should eat and what you should never eat. That kind of advice? Not very helpful coming from me. So, with all that out of the way, I think we can resume the video and continue with the episode. Sugars found in fruits, vegetables, and milk are known as good sugars. These sugars are found in the cells of their respective foods, so when you eat them, you are also ingesting additional nutrients like fiber, which causes your body's blood sugar level to not rise as intensely, but rather to absorb the sugar. sugar more slowly.

Obviously, yes, taking into account that everything is always treated in moderation. If you start eating your body weight in strawberries every day, it won't end well for you. However, all other sugars, such as those found in donuts, syrups, and even fruit juices, are called free sugars. They are free because they are not inside the cells of the food we eat, that is why fruit juice has sugar which is not good for health. If you're confused, well, we were too at first. But essentially, when you squeeze juice from a fruit, you're breaking down the cell walls, releasing that sugar, but also losing all the other good nutrients you'd otherwise be ingesting.

Not to mention, it's also much easier to have more sugar in juice form than in a whole fruit. 200 milliliters of orange juice, or a little less than a cup, is equivalent to four oranges. Now, you're unlikely to eat four whole oranges in a row, but you can easily sit down and drink a cup of orange juice in one sitting. Not only are you ingesting more sugar by sitting, but it also reaches your bloodstream much faster, and that amount of free sugar can cause many harmful effects over time, such as heart or liver disease. So naturally, when it came time to conduct this experiment, we decided that whole fruits were fair game, but fruit juices, candy, cookies, soda, and anything else with added sugars were a total no-no.

The natural question to follow, however, is about the most unnatural thing I put in my body: Diet Coke. I mean, right there on the nutrition label it says no sugar or added sugars, but those artificial sweeteners in it actually get a similar brain response that regular sugars get. Sugar is a very tasty food that activates our reward systems due to both the caloric intake and the flavor. Very tasty foods, that is, those rich in sugars and fats, can strongly activate these reward and motivation systems, encouraging food intake beyond the necessary energy requirements. This rush of dopamine into the brain makes our body want more of that food, and can even lead to cravings and withdrawal without it, as our brain craves an extra dose of dopamine.

Artificial sweeteners like aspartame are not only questionable for your health, but they also activate those same reward systems in a very similar way. Basically, while our body can tell the difference, our brain can't. So out the metaphorical window goes all those artificial sweeteners. Speaking of our bodies being dumb, we also realize that other simple carbohydrates like flour, rice, or rice flour, also tend to act similarly on the body. This is because things like flour contain chains of simple sugars, which are really just glorified carbohydrates. So when they are absorbed by our body, our blood sugar level rises in exactly the same way, causing exactly the same reactions by our pancreas to release insulin and lower that blood sugar level.

The reason this is bad is because over time, our body can develop resistance to its own insulin, which in turn can lead to diseases like type 2 diabetes. Eliminating these sugars meant eliminating things like pasta, certain breads, cereals. , waffles and pancakes. The list here goes on and on and on. Even before starting the experiment, it seemed almost impossible to truly eliminate all sugars from our diet. We all had to become experts at reading nutrition labels and ingredient lists from top to bottom and sideways to make sure nothing we bought or ate contained any type of sugar. And friends, I feel compelled to say this right now because what we got ourselves into isn't exactly the brightest idea.

This is what is known as a crash diet. And I can't say this enough, but please don't go on these types of extreme diets on your own. Any significant change in what you consume regularly is something you should probably check with a doctor or some other expert. We, however, are dumb YouTubers and just jumped right in. And the consequences are what you are about to witness. So, without further ado, let's dive into it because the results were surprising. Not just how we felt at the end, but how it permanently ruined the dessert for all of us.

I want fruit right now. I want fruit! I know, it's hard to watch. Right off the bat, I have to say that even though I knew this month was going to be pretty tough for me, I knew I was in good company with Steph. Am I a sweet tooth? Are you kidding? I think sugar, if I had to estimate, represents about 80% of my diet. Ash too, very proud of his sugar addiction. I'm like a little sugar demon. It just runs through my veins. I am completely fueled by sugar. Yeah, I... it's not good. Honestly, it seemed like Kai was the only one who wasn't incredibly addicted like the rest of us.

I don't always crave sugar constantly. At least one of us does that. Kai was also alone in his favorite candy, if you can call it that. My favorite sweet is a blueberry Pop-Tart unfrosted and toasted with a little butter. I'll die on the hill with a toasted, unfrosted, buttered Pop-Tart. I see you shaking your head, Josiah. It's S-level. Yes, you're going to be alone in that, Kai. But overall, despite some reservations, we were all excited to start the journey and see how long it would take for us to start feeling withdrawal symptoms. And when I say withdrawal symptoms, that's exactly what they are, because our bodies become addicted to sugar.

It's not addictive in the same way as, say, nicotine or other drugs, but over time, high levels of sugar, like those found in the average American diet, can physically alter our brains and affect dopamine levels. what we are getting. making us crave more sugar. In other words, sugar literally changes our brain chemistry and turns us into zombies that crave less brains and more skittles. Symptoms vary from person to person, but if you ever want to cut out sugar, be prepared for things like anxiety, depressed mood, difficulty concentrating, fatigue, nausea, intense cravings, and changes in your sleeping patterns.

When you say it like that, it sounds like the end of a drug commercial. And I tell you, we have a fair amount of those symptoms. I'm definitely more groggy during the day. I feel like I get more tired throughout the day, but not as much as I thought I would be. Maybe Kai has something to do with those toasted, unfrosted Pop-Tarts, because the rest of us, yeah, definitely felt the symptoms getting a little stronger. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. That's what I feel. I feel a little like I've been hit by a truck. And she wasn't the only one.

Last night I was lying on my couch. Every bone in my body hurt. It hurt me to breathe. I had chills and fever. I felt like I was really sick. Before you start wondering if Ash had the flu or something else, no. They actually went to the doctor and it wasn't COVID or the flu. It was actually the lack of sugar. What Ash was experiencing was something called keto flu, or carb flu, named after the modern ketogenic diet. We were all surprised by the fact that this existed, but basically, when you eliminate virtually all carbohydrates from your diet, your body enters a state of ketosis, where it begins to burn fat in place of the glucose that is no longer coming.

What happens to some people during this process is that they begin to feel a different type of withdrawal than I mentioned before. This faithfully imitates the symptoms of the flu. Stomach pains, nausea, pain, dizziness and mental confusion. And Ash, Ash was definitely feeling all of that. My back, my hips, my legs, my head, everything is killing me and it's so painful, and I would love to curl up in my bed and pass out. But perhaps worst of all is that this was just the beginning. Honestly, once we got through the first few

days

, it got a little easier.

I say a little, because not only did Santi make me give up sugar, but Amy from Style Theory also made me give up caffeine for the first two weeks of the experiment. All the joy I could have had in my life was just, poof, gone. I miss the taste of the things I drink. I want a soda. I want a tea. I want something that has some flavor that isn't just water. I love my bottle of Arup, but retronasal olfaction can only take you so far, people. My tongue craves something more than water. I guess you could say I was starting to feel a little irritable at this point.

Oh please, let me try something. Just something, man. I mean, and now all the comments will be like, Matt, Matt, you know you did an episode about how you can taste the differences in water. I know. I know that water has flavor. I understand. But it also doesn't have the right flavor. Just remember, it's not me. It's sugar, I swear. However, despite that little burst, about a week into it, we started to feel like we had reached some balance. Honestly, I feel pretty good. You know, I feel like I've overcome the main struggle of everything, of all the cravings.

Fortunately, Ash was also feeling better and recovered from the keto flu. I feel good. I expected to feel a lot worse after what happened last week, but to be completely honest, things are fine. The good news was that ourEnergy levels seemed to be returning to normal. However, what really started to affect us in the second week was the foods we could eat. It really seemed like 90% of our

days

were spent planning what we could prepare for our next meal, so it wouldn't taste like cardboard. I went from never thinking about what food I was going to have for the next meal to constantly thinking about it.

You know, is this a butterfly meme? I felt like that. All this worry about food and what I'm eating, is this health? What really took us by surprise were foods we didn't expect to have sugar and then having to cross even more things off the list of things we can eat. Most pasta sauces, many canned vegetables with sugar added for seemingly no reason. Increasingly, it seemed like we had to learn to photosynthesize with the few foods we were allowed to eat. Luckily, we began to find not only individual foods to eat, but also complete meals. Between sugar-free pastas, sugar-free breads, braised steaks, and lots and lots of buffalo sauce, we were able to fill our bellies and we all ended up finding little tricks throughout the week that would help us get through each and every meal.

So, speaking of things with sugar, but things that are allowed to have sugar, I discovered my cheat sheet for this whole challenge. There is one very high sugar food that is still allowed on almost every sugar-free diet you look at, and that is dates. It's a total trick. It's a total hack for this experiment. Finally, it seemed like we were starting to figure things out, but there was still one area where we were all struggling. Despite all the homemade recipes and ingenious solutions to avoid starvation, in the third week, we suddenly faced another obstacle. One that, to be honest, seemed insurmountable.

Go out to eat at restaurants. It's inevitable for Steph and I, especially when we're away on business, because you're not home. You don't have the ability to cook incredibly specific sugar-free meals. Unfortunately, we all had to travel in week three and, man, did we learn the hard way how difficult it is to maintain a sugar-free diet when you're not in the comfort of your home. This is what we should talk about this week, which is me venturing into the restaurant world. Most small local restaurants don't list their ingredients one by one, right? You can't just go on a website and check the nutritional information and see if there are added sugars here or anything that might be related to added sugars.

So that's really complicated. And then if you walk in, you know, it's socially awkward to ask the waiter or waitress to say, hey, do you know what goes on this plate? Steph and I have tried this a couple of times, and they've been incredibly polite about it, but it's also socially awkward, because you're asking them to go further, and in many cases they don't know it. and then they bother the chefs in the kitchen, and that's weird. Pretty much nine times out of ten, the answer you get is, yes, everything has sugar. And then you say, well, I guess I won't eat here then, thank you very much for your time.

It really made it almost impossible to go out to eat anywhere that wasn't a giant franchise. Smaller, independently owned restaurants typically do not have their ingredient lists available. Meanwhile, big chains like McDonald's or even Outback Steakhouse have all of their nutritional information proudly displayed on their website for you to check out. There's not much you can eat at most of these places, but it's possible to find something. Whether you'll be able to enjoy it or not is a completely different topic. I was so excited when Ash came over the other day and said, I discovered a food at Chipotle that you can eat, and I was like, yeah, this is amazing.

Then I walked in and it was tremendously disappointing. So I thought, well, I guess that was a meal that happened today and I held on for another day. The third week also brought back the cravings. It seemed like we were starting to slow them down a bit with our newfound love for fruit in the weeks before, but despite munching on some blueberries, strawberries, and maybe some nuts as a snack, in the third week, when we saw candy, our bodies almost instinctively went. pounced on them. The other day I went to my girlfriend's parents' house. My girlfriend brought some of the Christmas cookies we made there and put them in the freezer so we could have them later, like months later, if we really wanted them.

When I tell you, my girlfriend is a very talented baker and I saw her parents eating these delicious chocolate chip cookies and I knew she couldn't eat them for the purpose of this experiment. A part of me died inside, just a little, just a tiny bit, but it was enough. If anyone, when this is all over, wants to contact me and send me a box of Cinnabon and a boat of sushi, I will love you forever. And for all of us, morale started to drop a little when we realized how difficult it was going to be to be social throughout the experiment.

Doing something like this, no matter how restrictive the diet, really started to affect more areas of our lives than just cooking. The social element of this is the complicating factor. In any type of specialized diet, in quotes, what really influences much more than you think is not the food, but everything that surrounds the food. It's the context of where you're eating, who you're eating with. These diets affect those times, so a lot of it is not about the food, but where the food is eaten, and it turns out that restaurants are full of sugar. All restaurants are dessert restaurants because they put sugar in everything.

Anything with frosting, sauce, butter, cream, you name it, contains sugar. You can bet your bottom dollar. You should have seen the eye rolls and worried looks we had as we paced around trying to find a place where we could actually eat. Of course, we knew there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but doing this for such a long period of time really started to feel impossible by week three. Speaking of the light at the end of the tunnel, we were finally starting to see ours four weeks later, but just when we thought we were in the home stretch and our bodies were acclimated, most of us hit a wall.

This week has been hard. I was thinking that so far in the experiment I would feel better, that my body would be much more accustomed to what I was doing to it, you know, without eating sugar, but it seems that this week that has not been the case. good for

quit

e a few of us. I do not know what happened. I'm hungrier this week. This week I want to eat sweets more. Is rare. It kind of came out of nowhere. I thought I was through the hardest part and yet here I sit and crave literally anything sweet.

My body is just desperate for it. Honestly, it seemed like Ash was the only one who came out unscathed this week. Yeah man, I'm fine. I've reached that phase of balance, you know, nothing too crazy, but I also don't feel, I don't know, very lethargic or anything like that. That's great, Ash. I'm happy for you. I really am. A bit. But overall, it seemed like our cravings were coming back in full force. What made the cravings so intense in week four was not just the fact that our bodies were starving for sugar, but the mental associations we developed around sugary treats.

We condition ourselves to crave sweets through our habits. For all of us at Team Theorist, weeks three and four were exhausting, with lots of traveling and long nights. And historically, we all use sweets to self-medicate, to get over the pain and move on. But without those crutches to lean on, we became hungry and angry. Then our minds joined our bodies and rebelled against us. Week 4 was really about deconditioning ourselves, forcing our bodies to accept that they weren't going to get sugar no matter how big of a tantrum they threw. And fortunately, when we reached the fifth week, it was time to end the experiment.

Let me tell you, friends, there is nothing sweeter in the world than crossing the finish line. Even if the lack of sugar left us with a bit of a one-track mind. Donuts! Donuts! Donuts! Donuts! Can you blame us? I mean, this episode only lasted a couple of minutes, but it was a whole month of all of our lives. We decided that, as a final experiment to see how far our bodies had acclimated to the change in sugar consumption, we would stuff our faces with some donuts as a final reward. But honestly, even though we were all looking forward to the sweet relief of candy, we came out on the other side of this with a whole new perspective.

And that's the most fascinating part of this whole thing. Each and every one of us comes out of this feeling more informed and better equipped to take control of the things we consume in our daily lives. Sugar was such an intrinsic part of my daily life before this experiment, and it's something I never really thought about. But now, I find myself going to the grocery store and actively looking at the nutritional information, analyzing the things I put in my cart, and wondering: is this really something I should be putting in my body? I feel like I'm taking responsibility for my own health in a way that I've never done before, that I've never prioritized before, but as someone who is getting older with the years, it probably makes sense that I would do it more and more.

You're right there with me, Steph. I'm sorry, I hate to break it to you. We did this because it's a trending topic in food, but we also did it before we finished our time on Food Theory because it's necessary. Yes, it's terrible. Our own mortality aside, Steph and I, Ash and Kai also came to a similar point of view. In fact, I feel much the same. I think I'm really proud of myself for making more conscious decisions about what I eat in terms of snacks and also full meals. As if I had eaten so many vegetables, fruits and plants.

I feel like this is an achievement for me. I have included so many different plants and whole grains in my diet and I feel great about it. So I'm really proud of myself for making those calls and getting it done. I'm in the same boat as Ash and Steph and also Matt because I feel very proud of myself. I'm fine, it's fine. I'm proud of myself because I also feel like throughout this month I've definitely consumed more fruits and more vegetables. My snacking habits have completely changed because instead of gorging on an entire bag of Oreos, I had to transition to a bag of grapes, which...

And Kai wasn't alone. All of our snacking habits had changed drastically over the course of this month for the better and in very surprising ways. For my part, an old friend knocked on the door of my stomach. I have to say that Steph and I went to the supermarket last night knowing that today was the last day, right? So we knew we were done and we didn't have to buy any more sugar-free stuff, but we got a lot more sugar-free stuff. And not only that, when it comes to the snacks, I'm like, oh, what can I get?

I chose the salted macadamia nuts. Oh! I did. Yeah, I'm like, you know what? We did an episode about that. They are very healthy for you. Run it again! Macadamia world. It was a strange episode. You have us. But you have us. And now I like macadamia nuts. If you're lost, be sure to check out the episode we did on macadamia nuts and healthy fats. But when it comes to snack cravings, I think Ash finally beat us all. We traveled recently for all the filming we were doing out of state. And at the airport, I was trying to find some kind of snack, something sweet, and I legitimately thought, wow, an apple would suck right now.

It's so true! And I was like, Oh my God, look at me! I'm craving fruit! It's amazing! And the discoveries didn't end there. I, for one, have been fructose intolerant for a long time. If I ate a large amount of fruit at someone's table, it was usually bad news for my stomach. However, during this month I have been able to have fruits and manage them very well. It was shocking. Especially since looking into it later, all I could find was that fructose intolerance usually doesn't just go away. But I guess the fact that I was moving away from free sugars and instead leaning toward good, healthier sugars allowed my body to recalibrate, slowly absorbing those sugars into my system, causing less rumble in my stomach.

But before we could finally delve into the donuts, there was one last question I had to ask. You know, by the way, Santi didn't do this. He did not do it? No, he didn't. Why didn't Santi do this? He went on his honeymoon during this and he lived his best life eating sushi in Japan while we sat here and suffered. Santi, that's why you only had 83 HP, Santi. This is exactly the reason. Oh! Wow!Wow! Kai is bringing it all out. That's the tradition. And that's not a

theory

. Santi won't be happy with that. But I think the most notable thing here was that we all planned to try to continue doing some version of this diet in the future.

Just, you know, a more sustainable version. There's probably a better balance to strike here: remove everything from the table and go all in on the sweets. I'm sure, as with everything, it comes down to moderation. But I think it's been proven that we can do it, and I think one of the things that's going to be really useful in the future, and that I know I'm going to implement personally, is like, hey, there's one day of the week where I'm like , okay, I have my dessert day. And then, I know it's something I'm looking forward to, I know that's it, but I know the rest of the week I'll be fine without it.

I think that's one of my lessons. I'm also glad to know that I can balance all of this, I now know how to balance it all in a much more productive and healthy way than just smashing a dozen donuts. So, with all the autopsy done, it was time to make some Dunkin' Munchin'. Health. Bing bing bing. Yes, I'm fine, I think. I want more? I do not think it does. It's interesting. It's not as satisfying as I expected. Oh man. We have ruined sugar for all of us. Really a sad day. We have ruined dessert. But the science behind it really surprised me.

You see, our taste buds, like any other part of our body, follow a certain life cycle. In your case, it is approximately 10 days. That is, a little after 10 days, you will have basically reset your taste buds. And if in those 10 days you have not introduced more sugar, then they get used to the lower levels they received, like the fruits we were eating. And therefore, they develop a new, lower threshold. Not only that, but our brains also become recalibrated to new levels of dopamine because they are not constantly inundated with new sugary snacks. So when we all took a bite of the donuts, which tend to contain between 15 and 20 grams of sugar, our now more sensitive taste buds went into overload and received a lower intensity of sweetness than we were used to.

It got to a point where new taste buds were saying, yeah, enough is enough, we get it, which left us dissatisfied and craving fruit. The sugar that our body had already gotten used to. In that sense, however, even though our taste buds don't really taste donuts, the same can't be said for our bodies. About half an hour after eating the donut, I felt like I had electricity running through my veins. He looked a lot like Flash, ready to go through him like a bolt of lightning. Once my body started digesting that gigantic influx of sugar and that massive rush of dopamine hit my brain, I felt like I could take on the world for about five minutes.

At that moment, my stomach started to hurt. After I stopped feeling the sugar running down my fingertips, all I felt was the donut sitting there like a rock in my gut. It wasn't fun at all and all I wanted was a big bite of carrot. There you have it, my friends. After everything we went through, all we tasted was a huge amount of sugar that honestly left us putting down the donuts after a couple of bites. Plus, we all got stomachaches after a couple of minutes. We had waited for that moment for so long and disappointment.

But you know what wasn't disappointing? There's something amazing about taking control of what you eat, analyzing your snacking habits, and making informed decisions about what you put into your body. Because at the end of the day, taking back control of your life is probably the sweetest reward of all. But hey, that's just a

theory

. A food theory! Enjoy!