Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - What "They" Aren't Telling You About Sugar Withdrawal

Episode Date: April 29, 2019

“Sugar is the new crack cocaine!” Yeah, people are actually saying that these days. They're telling us that sugar is as addictive as cocaine, and the more we eat, the more likely we are to get fat, sick, and, ultimately, dead. It sounds bad. Really bad. How true is it, though? Does every dessert we eat push us a little further down the slippery slope of disease and dysfunction, and make it ever harder to claw our way back to optimal health and vitality? Can we develop a “sugar dependence” in the same way we can become physically dependent on alcohol, cocaine, or heroin? Can it get so bad that we can experience legitimate withdrawal symptoms if we stop eating sugar? Well, the short answer is this: The “addictive properties” of sugar are being grossly exaggerated by many mainstream diet and health "gurus." Yes, it’s tasty and pleasurable, and yes, many people might think they're addicted to it, but as you’ll soon see, that doesn’t make for a valid medical condition. Likewise, most discussions of “sugar withdrawal” are equally bogus. In fact, the absence of genuine withdrawal symptoms, like those seen with hard drugs, is one of the dead giveaways that sugar doesn't warp our brains in the same ways. So, if you’re ready to learn the truth about sugar withdrawal, and what constitutes a real addiction and what doesn't, then you want to listen to this podcast. 4:36 - What is sugar withdrawal? 8:07 - Is sugar withdrawal real? Mentioned on the Show: 10 Proven Ways to Relax Your Muscles and Mind: https://www.muscleforlife.com/ways-to-relax/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, Mike Matthews here, and welcome, welcome to another episode of the Muscle for Life podcast. This time, we're going to talk sugar, and we're going to talk sugar withdrawal, because many people these days would have you believe that sugar is the new crack cocaine. They say that it is as addictive as cocaine, literally as addictive, not figuratively, actually as addictive as cocaine, literally as addictive, not figuratively, actually as addictive as cocaine. And the more sugar that we eat, the more likely we are to get fat, sick, and ultimately dead.

Of course, it sounds bad. It sounds really bad. How true is all of that, though? Does every dessert we eat push us a little bit further down the slippery slope of disease and dysfunction? And does it make it even harder to ever claw our way back to optimal health and vitality? Can we really develop a sugar dependence, quote unquote, in the same way that we can become physically dependent on drugs like alcohol, cocaine, or heroin? And can it get so bad with sugar that we actually experience withdrawal symptoms along the lines of what you

see when a drug addict tries to come off a hard drug? You know, if you stop eating sugar, can it really mess you up that bad? And the short answer to those questions is that the addictive properties of sugar are being grossly exaggerated by many mainstream diet and health gurus. Yes, sugar is tasty. Yes, it is pleasurable. And yes, many people think they are addicted to it, maybe along the lines of a coke head being addicted to cocaine. But as you're going to learn in this podcast, the science does not add up. Sugar addiction is not a valid medical condition in the same way that cocaine addiction or heroin addiction are. And similarly, many discussions of sugar withdrawal are just bogus. In fact, the absence of genuine withdrawal symptoms,

like those seen with hard drugs, is one of the dead giveaways that sugar does not warp our brains, physically and chemically in the same ways. So if you are ready to learn the truth about sugar and supposed sugar withdrawal problems and what constitutes a real addiction, a real physiological addiction and what does not, then you want to keep listening. This is where I would normally plug a sponsor to pay the bills, but I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't

personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm just going to quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically by flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef. Now, this book has sold over 200,000 copies in the last several years and helped thousands of men and women get the bodies they really want, eating the types of food they really love, which is why it has over 700 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know how to build your best body ever without having to follow a boring, bland, overly restrictive bodybuilding diet, and if you want 125 of my personal favorite recipes for building

muscle, losing fat and getting healthy, then you want to pick up the shredded chef today, which you can find on all major online retailers like Amazon, audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google play. Now, speaking of audible, I should also mention that you can actually get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you are not currently listening to audiobooks. I love them myself because they let me make the time that I spend doing stuff like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth into more valuable and productive activities. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free,

then simply go to www.bitly.com slash free T-S-C and that will take you to Audible. And then you just click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to The Shredded Chef for free. All righty. That is enough shameless plugging for now, at least.

Let's get to the show. All right. As usual, we shall start at the top. What is sugar withdrawal or what is it supposedly? So let's start with a simple definition of withdrawal symptoms. So those are the unpleasant physical and mental effects that result when you stop doing or taking something, especially a drug that has become a habit. And to understand how this happens physiologically, let's take a look at a highly addictive drug that sugar is often compared to,

cocaine. So cocaine, it interferes with your brain's ability to regulate levels of a chemical called dopamine, resulting in the euphoric high that has made booger sugar so popular. Now, as this high wears off, your brain chemistry remains unbalanced, which can then cause you to feel distressed and desiring another hit of coke. And as you continue to use the drug, your body becomes more resistant to its effects because your body's trying to maintain homeostasis, it's trying to not have floods, huge floods of dopamine. And the chemical imbalances that result from that become larger and more prolonged. And what this means then is you have to take larger and larger doses of the drug to continue to achieve the same effects, which then results in

a higher tolerance to the drug and further aggravates the chemical disturbances, which then of course further aggravates the emotional disturbances that you feel when you are not high. And eventually, if you take it long enough, you're going to need cocaine just to feel normal, let alone high. And once you've gone that far, you will probably be willing to go to great lengths to just feel normal, to feed that addiction. And that dependence cycle, as it's known, is the hallmark of addictive substances. And when people try to quit such substances, cold turkey, they often experience intense physical and psychological pain. Withdrawal symptoms, including anxiety, agitation, muscle aches, insomnia, sweating, extreme fatigue, cramps,

nausea, and vomiting. And you can find videos of this process online if you want to see how intense it can be for people coming off of hard drugs, especially heroin. Now, that's how things work with a drug that we know is addictive like cocaine. What about sugar? Can this simple little molecule ravage our brains in the same way as cocaine or other drugs and eventually force us to endure the same types of withdrawal symptoms? force us to endure the same types of withdrawal symptoms. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say

thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at MuscleForLifeFitness, Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Facebook at MuscleForLifeFitness. Basically, is sugar withdrawal real? Now, many people think that yes, sugar withdrawal is legitimate because they think that sugar addiction is just as real as alcoholism or nicotine dependence or other drug dependencies. These people crave sugar, they struggle to stop eating it, and there is some evidence that it stimulates your brain in a similar fashion to various habit-forming drugs. And hey, I mean, if that doesn't qualify as addictive, what does? Well, there's a problem here because yes, sugar does spike dopamine levels, but so do many other pleasurable things that are most definitely not medically classified as addictive, like driving

a fast car. That can feel good. Listening to good music. That can feel good. Having good sex. That can feel great. Drinking green tea. I love Genmysha tea. I feel good when I drink green tea. And of course, many other just everyday enjoyable activities. You see, anything, anything that you find even slightly enjoyable temporarily changes your brain chemistry, including your dopamine levels. Addictive drugs do this, of course, as well, but they do it in much more powerful and consequential ways. That's the key difference. And in the case of sugar, research shows that it fails this litmus test of addictive substances. Namely, you do not build up a sugar tolerance. You do not have to keep eating more and more sugar to achieve the same pleasurable effects. And you do not suffer physically and psychologically if

you stop eating it. So scientifically speaking, depriving yourself of sugar is no different than depriving yourself of any of life's other little pleasures, no matter how much you might get into those little pleasures. You know, it can be disappointing. It gives less immediate gratification to not eat sugar, but let's not mistake that for the deep and traumatizing level of physical and mental distress that drug addicts experience when they try to stop taking drugs. So if sugar addiction is not quote unquote real, at least in the same way as other drugs that many people think, then sugar withdrawal has to be more fantasy than fact too, right? I mean, really wanting to eat a donut is not a withdrawal symptom. That's called a desire. And that brings us to the heart of the

matter as far as I'm concerned, and that is personal responsibility. Some people like to play the victim. They'd rather blame someone or something for their problems and their shortcomings rather than own up to the consequences of their choices and their actions and change. I understand some people have it better than others. Inherently, they're born into better circumstances. They were taught better things when they were young. They established better habits, but none of that changes the fact that the only way out of a shitty situation is taking responsibility for yourself, picking yourself up by the bootstraps and making something positive happen. Nobody else is going to do it for you. So many of these people who complain that they're so addicted to sugar are really just saying that they are weak-minded and weak-willed. They don't want

to admit that. They want to say it's not their fault, but that is the reality. Because no matter what you're facing in life, once you surrender your sense of personal accountability, everything is lost. That is your only lifeline. That's really the only leverage, you and me and anyone else, that we all have to lift ourselves out of whatever muck we find ourselves in as we live our lives. So does a low sugar diet result in less food-induced pleasure than a sugar-rich diet? Yes, absolutely. And can that make it harder to follow, especially if you have a higher stress, hectic, always-on type of life? Yes, absolutely. And if you haven't been able to do that, if you

have turned to sugar for comfort, for solace a lot more than you would like to admit, that's fine. But don't go looking for a scapegoat chemical or otherwise. Just look in the mirror and ask yourself if you really want to be the type of person that can't even control what they eat. If you really want to be the type of person that can be conquered by a clutch of carbon hydrogen and oxygen atoms by carbohydrate. And if you're thinking that I just don't get it, you're wrong. I do get it. I like sugar as much as the next person. I actually eat a bit every day. I like dark chocolate, which I was eating before it's trendy, I have to say, just to sound hipster. No, but I eat a bit of dark chocolate every day. So I get it. Sugar's great. It's tasty. And if eaten in moderation and if included as a part of an

otherwise nutritious diet, it's really not a problem. But as much as I like sugar and like desserts, I value my health. I value my productivity. I value my happiness more. So I limit my intake. I eat no more than maybe 10 grams of sugar on any given day. Maybe it's a little bit less because dark sugar is relatively sugar-free. But limiting my sugar intake, what a concept. If I can do it, you can do it too. It might be a little bit more difficult for you. You might feel a little bit more drawn towards sugar. You might have been eating it habitually for a lot longer than I have. And so it feels more habitually ingrained. And so that means that for you, it might require throwing away all of those tasty treats in the pantry that you tend to overeat and

struggle to not eat. It might mean learning to drink water instead of soda. It might mean that you have to kind of retrain your palate to like foods that aren't sickeningly sweet, which you can do, by the way. A little aside, years ago, it might've been in a book or it was a documentary. I don't remember. It might've been both actually book or as a documentary. I don't remember. It might've been both. Actually, there was a chef who made a point of eating all the foods that he hated the most. He made a list of the foods that he hated the most. And if I remember correctly, his challenge was he had to eat each food on that list. I want to say 30 times, like over the course of a year. So he planned it out on his calendar to eat these foods he hated. And there were some gross stuff on that list, like monkey brains and I think bugs and

snake and just nasty stuff. And so he ate foods over and over and over. And what he found is that by the eighth time he had eaten whatever it is that he previously hated, he actually came to start liking it. And that has kind of just stuck in my mind as evidence that if he can train himself to actually like eating fried tarantula, I think any of us can train ourselves to like eating some vegetables or some grains or legumes or other relatively unprocessed food. And I experienced that myself with coffee. I never liked coffee. I actually hated coffee so much so that I even hated tiramisu. If anything had the, even the hint of coffee, I really didn't like it, but I saw how much other people liked coffee

and felt like I was missing out. And there are some health benefits to drinking coffee regularly. So long as you are drinking a moderate amount or a low amount. Of course, if you drink too much, it can cause problems because of the caffeine intake. But so long as you keep your caffeine intake generally below 400 milligrams a day, that's the general recommendation, is less than for, let's say up to, let's say 400 milligrams per day would be the highest recommended amount. There are no negative health aspects to drinking coffee or having caffeine regularly. And so I wanted to be able to enjoy coffee. And so I just

made myself start drinking it. And at first it was gross. I didn't even try to make it taste good. I didn't put a bunch of sugar in it. I didn't try to turn it into a dessert. I actually started with just drinking straight espresso. It's like, I'm just going to bludgeon my palate into liking this stuff. And I found that after about a month or so of drinking espresso, maybe not every day, but several days per week, I actually came to start liking it. And now I like it so much that I use a stim free pre-workout, my own, of course, Legion Pulse, shameless plug. So I can have a cappuccino after I work out, which has three shots and I get it dry. So it has a very strong coffee taste. I like the little bit of milk that is added to it. And I put a very little bit

of sugar in it. Probably not even necessary. It's probably so little that I don't even really notice a difference, but I feel like it makes a slight difference. And so I've sacrificed my pre-workout caffeine so I can have three shots of espresso after I work out and that's it for my caffeine intake for the day. So, you know, I'm somewhere 150 to 180 milligrams per day, which is well within the healthy range. And so anyway, as the point is, is I trained my palate to like coffee when I started hating it. And so you can do the same thing with probably any food, really. And while eating less sugar might be annoying at first, and you might feel the psychological draw or the emotional draw of really wanting to sit down at night with the bowl of ice

cream or the candy or whatever, just know that if you get rid of it, if you get it out of your house so it's not even available, and if you don't rebuy any of the junk, and then if you find a suitable replacement, something else that can satisfy your sweet tooth instead of sugar, it can be something maybe naturally sweetened with stevia or with Rital, or it could be fruit. Some people like to freeze grapes, for example, or they'll freeze strawberries or raspberries or blueberries or bananas, which you can freeze and then blend into an ice cream of sorts. If you put some, I guess it's cacao powder. And if you want to add a little

bit of sweetness, you could add some stevia or with Rital can be really good. It almost tastes kind of like an ice cream. So those are all things that you can do to still give yourself something pleasurable, give yourself something sweet and tasty while eliminating or bringing your sugar intake down. As far as beverages go again, I think it's best to just drink water and get into that habit. But if you want to add a sweetened beverage, how about a naturally sweetened soda? How about something like a Zevia, I think it's called. So all ways to cut down on sugar without experiencing any withdrawal symptoms. And despite the fact that too many people out there eat far too much sugar and find it far too hard to stop eating sugar, it is not addictive in the same way as

drugs are, hard drugs. And I guess including alcohol, alcohol wouldn't, I don't think it would be called a hard drug, but it is truly addictive. It has truly addictive properties because again, it causes physiological changes that cause you to physically crave more alcohol to alleviate. And because of that, sugar is not hard to quit in the same way as drugs. Now, I understand that stories about how addictive sugar is and how hard it is to stop and how sympathetic we should be to people who are addicted to it, stories like those are music to millions of people's ears because, of course, that stuff absolves people of their dietary sins. It allows them to breathe a resigned sigh of relief because they can go, oh, it's just my faulty brain chemistry and it's not my flabby

willpower. I just am physiologically compelled to eat sugar. And no, that's a lie. Research shows clearly that while sugar is pleasurable, it does not impact our physiology nearly as significantly as truly addictive drugs. So the bottom line here is comparing sugar to hard drugs is like comparing creatine to steroids. Yeah, they're in the same universe, but they are galaxies apart. So if you are currently struggling to reduce your sugar intake, don't buy into the siren song of sugar addiction and victimhood. Just acknowledge that you are probably choosing to eat it because it makes you feel good and you can choose to not eat it. You can choose to substitute it for something that is healthier it. You can choose to substitute it for something that is healthier. And you can also learn to look elsewhere for a pick-me-up. There are other coping strategies that can be used if the underlying

issue is, for example, stress. There are other things you can do to relax. I believe I have a podcast on it. If I don't, I do have an article on it over at Muscle for Life. You search for relax. if I don't, I do have an article on it over at muscle for life. You search for relax, or if there are emotional issues that lead you to eat sugar, there are other coping strategies that you can use more healthy, productive, positive coping strategies like exercise. For example, that's a really good one. All right. Well, that's it on sugar addiction. I hope you have found this podcast informative and I hope you don't feel like I'm attacking you. I'm not, I am trying to help, but I do think a little bit of tough love is what's needed for this type of situation. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and

helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it And if you did and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show,

then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself, and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously, though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in, so instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you

about something of mine, specifically by flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef. Now, this book has sold over 200,000 copies in the last several years and helped thousands of men and women get the bodies they really want eating the types of food they really love, which is why it has over 700 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know how to build your best body ever without having to follow a boring, bland, overly restrictive bodybuilding diet, and if you want 125 of my personal favorite recipes for building muscle, losing fat, and getting healthy, then you want to pick up The Shredded Chef today, which you can find on all major online retailers like Amazon, Audible,

iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can actually get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you are not currently listening to audiobooks. I love them myself because they let me make the time that I spend doing stuff like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth into more valuable and productive activities. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, then simply go to www.bitly.com slash free T S C. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just click the sign up today and save button, create your account and voila, you get to listen to the shredded chef for free.