How To Stop Eating Sugar Without Losing Your Mind
See the full video How To Stop Eating Sugar Without Losing Your Mind
And see the companion video: Is It Possible To Never Eat Sugar?
Transcript:
So in this video, I’m talking about
how do you avoid eating sugary foods
without losing your mind?
And I’ll preface it by saying
that I do not consume any sugary foods.
Now, many have said that Kevin
is some sort of superhuman being,
and as much as I liked being called a superhero,
it’s actually not the case at all.
There are some very concrete steps
that I took over the years to be where I am today.
It didn’t happen overnight
and I’m going to share it with you because I think that
in a world where type 2 diabetes is so prevalent,
and a world also where so many people struggle
with trying to stop eating sugary foods
that to whom much is given much is expected
and I’ve been really blessed by finding a way
and a path to stop eating sugary foods,
a way that I’ve been able to share with my clients
and help them, many of them stop eating sugary foods.
Stay tuned and I look forward to sharing this with you.
So in today’s video,
we’re talking about how do you stop eating sugary foods
without losing your mind?
Now I’m going to start by thanking everyone for tuning in
and do be sure to like and subscribe.
We’ve had a tremendous amount of support
for this channel so far,
and I really appreciate being able to share
all that I’ve learned over the past 30 years of my career
helping others with you.
So getting onto it.
How do you stop eating sugary foods
without losing your mind?
The first step is to be in a place
where you’re not beating yourself up.
The Addictive Effects Of Sugar On Our Pleasure Centers & Why There Is Nothing Wrong With Craving Sugar
Understand you are surrounded, completely surrounded
by what are called hyper-palatable foods.
We figured out through technology
how to take the fiber out of the natural foods that we eat
and create, by adding certain concentrations of sugar,
salts and fats to create products
that are almost addictive.
Keep in mind, the part of your brain
that responds to sugary foods is the same part your brain
that responds when someone uses opioids
or someone uses a drug like cocaine,
it’s called the HPA axis.
It’s a very powerful part of our body
related to what’s called our pleasure centers.
Now that pleasure response
can sometimes make us, as you very well know,
do things that we don’t necessarily always want to do.
It can make us have cravings for things that
intellectually we know we shouldn’t be eating,
but physically it’s almost like
there’s an irresistible force
that makes us keep on eating all these sweet things.
And the important part, to start,
is that there’s nothing wrong with you.
The most important thing of this entire video
is for you to start with the perspective of
there is nothing wrong with you,
and it’s perfectly human for you to crave sweet things.
I want you to even say to yourself,
it’s perfectly normal and human to crave sweet foods.
Now, there’s a reason for that.
And if you understand the reason,
it’s going to stop you from beating yourself up,
and the first thing you want to do
is get to a place where you’re not beating yourself up.
How Our Desire For Sugar Keeps Us Alive
Now, every single one of us have come
from an ancestral background where
if we didn’t have that pleasure center response to sugars,
we would not exist.
How could that be?
Think about it.
An infant, when an infant is suckling,
when an infant is drinking breast milk,
the only reason why that infant knows
that it should be drinking breast milk
is because of an HPA axis response.
When a baby or an infant mammal of any type,
has its first taste of milk,
there are sugars in the milk, not much sugar,
but there are sugars in that milk along with some fats
that really stimulate the HPA axis.
Those pleasure centers fire up and because of it,
the baby keeps on drinking.
Now understand this, before the 20th century,
and the advent of things like baby formulas,
any human baby that didn’t have access
to human breast milk would perish.
There’s no other food that a human baby,
a newborn human baby can consume. [In A Natural Environment]
And so, for our very survival,
we are hard wired with that attachment
to pleasure being associated with sweet foods.
How We Evolved With Foods That Are Not Very Sweet & Why That Makes Us Overreact To Highly Sugared Foods
Now, you may think to yourself that breast milk
or milk in general isn’t that sweet,
but understand in nature,
nothing in nature is sweeter than let’s say a carrot.
What I say in nature, I’m talking about wild foods.
If you were consuming fruits
that have not been agriculturally developed by humans,
you’re not going to find the sweetness
that we’re so used to in our regular fruits.
Some argue that honey is sweet,
and therefore there are very sweet
naturally occurring foods.
But the problem is that we only have evidence of humans
consuming honey going back to about 8,000 years.
And before that, before the dawn of human agriculture
and our ability to stay in one place
and not have a hunter-gatherer type existence,
humans didn’t really have access to honey.
Even under those circumstances,
going back 8,000 years
and to the dawn of agriculture as well,
honey is used primarily for medicinal purposes
and the amount of honey that you would have available
to our ancestors really isn’t enough to say that
we have evolved alongside with it
to be able to consume really sweet things
and not have any problems, because that’s just not the case.
Our fruits have been modified over centuries of agriculture
to be as sweet as possible.
If you ever have the good fortune, for example,
to eat a fruit that hasn’t been touched by agriculture,
by any type of human intervention whatsoever
and they do exist, not in many places,
but places like, for example, the Amazon,
some parts of Africa as well, you’ll find that like I said,
they aren’t any sweeter than a carrot.
And they also are very high in fiber and very high in bulk.
Now modern fruits are much higher in sugars
because we’ve altered them to be as sweet as possible,
but we’ve evolved eating these fruits and vegetables,
in fairly large quantities.
And so our bodies are adapted to [consuming] them.
And because they are high in fiber
and because they are also high in bulk,
there’s only so much you can eat.
I always give the example of apples.
None of us can eat that many apples,
but all of us can consume a dozen apples easily
by drinking a glass of apple juice.
So processing is all about taking the fiber out
and by taking the fiber out and adding sugar,
we can eat more and the sugar makes us want more
and companies in the food manufacturing sector
spend millions of dollars to create foods
that have that exact “bliss point”
that’s going to make your brain completely overreact.
Now again, our brains and
our bodies are designed to react
only to very small amounts sugar.
So imagine how much of a unstoppable force it can be
when you consume something very sweet.
Kevin’s Decompression Model For Beating Sugar Addiction
Now I say all this to say that
you should not at all be beating yourself up
if you find yourself failing,
because the path that I’m describing is one of
I would say decompression.
So think of it in terms of a diver
who is deep underwater
and needs to get back to the surface.
And I say get back to the surface because taking sweet foods
and sugary foods out of your diet
is actually going more towards your natural self,
eating more like the way that your body
was designed for it to eat.
And so, in keeping with that decompression model
that I’m describing,
as you take one thing out of your diet,
you don’t want to have any extreme adverse effects
so you need to put something back in.
Why You Should Avoid A Keto Diet If You Are Trying To Quit Eating Sugar
So it’s very important
if you’re stopping eating sugary foods
to make sure that you’re not on a low carbohydrate diet.
It’s a huge mistake to try to take sugary foods
out of your diet and at the same time,
restrict your carbohydrate intake.
In fact, we talked earlier about the importance of fiber.
Using High Fiber Complex Carbohydrates & Food Timing To Stop Sugar Cravings
That’s going to be very important
that all your carbohydrate sources are very high in fiber
and the timing is important as well.
Many people who find themselves craving sugar
tend to crave sugar and sugary foods
sometime around three, four o’clock
way over into the evening into the night.
And as the day goes by,
those cravings get stronger and stronger and stronger.
One of the best ways to help deal with those cravings
and not have sugary foods in your life
is to front load your carbohydrates earlier in the day,
and front load was really high fiber carbohydrates.
If you have a good breakfast,
a big breakfast with high fibrous sources,
such as oatmeal or oat bran cereal,
which is one of my personal favorites,
that’s what I eat every day,
along with some [lean] protein,
it’s going to go a long way
because of the high fiber content to fill you up
and also because your body had carbohydrates
earlier in the day,
you’re not going to have the same dramatic response
of a need, an almost addictive need for carbohydrates
later in the day.
Now you will feel it,
but it will be not anywhere near as extreme.
It’s going to blunt that pleasure seeking response
that usually happens to most of us later in the day.
So very important, like I said, first,
make sure you have carbohydrates in your diet
and also make sure you have a good high fiber breakfast.
Another thing that’s important is to note
that you need to eat carbohydrates
for what you’re about to do.
So, if you’re going to be active more than normal,
you need to have some carbohydrates and again,
always and only naturally occurring high fiber carbohydrates
like yams, sweet potatoes.
and if you’re going to have rice,
try to get that fibrous as possible
by choosing brown rice, if possible,
and think of it as your fuel,
but think of it as your fuel and think of the fiber
as a backup that’s going to help you
deal with any sugar cravings that you get later on.
But if you’re really active
and you don’t add complex carbohydrates
that are high in fiber,
and you’re taking out sugary foods that you were
eating before, it’s going to be too much for you.
You have to balance it off.
As one thing comes out, you have to add something in.
That’s the way it works.
If you want to have a smooth transition
from eating sugary foods to not eating sugary foods.
The Importance Of Not Beating Yourself Up If You Fail From Time To Time
Sounds simple and in practice,
it can be, if you stick with it,
but sticking with it means sticking with it when you fail,
which goes back to my first point and an important point.
You will fail from time to time,
but it’s important to understand that just like someone
who is dealing with a drug addiction,
if you fail and keep on beating yourself up
about your failure,
what you’re doing is you’re reliving the experience
of doing an activity and a behavior
that you want to get out of your life.
The way that you go forward is about forgetting about it.
So the more you’re beating yourself up
is the more you’re actually unconsciously retaining
the experience and thus,
making yourself more likely to repeat the experience.
If you constantly think about that piece of cake
that you had and “messed up” with,
that piece of cake is going to come back into your life
because you’re constantly thinking about it.
You need to forget, you need to let go, and letting go
means forgiving yourself when you “mess up”,
get right back up and keep on going
and what’s going to happen, as well, is that
you’re going to get to a point where it’s not so much
a matter of you’re going to see all these desserts
and use your willpower
and say, “I’m not going to have them anymore”,
but over time when not eating high sugar foods,
that pleasure response get blunted,
and you no longer have the same sensations,
you no longer have the same cravings that you did before.
And our body will always go towards what’s pleasurable.
That’s part of what causes the problems in the first place.
Getting To A Sustainable Place Where Willpower Is No Longer An Issue
And without sugary foods,
you’re going to feel the pleasure of being healthy
and it’s going to feel good
and you’re going to want more of it.
And you’re going to get to a point, which I define
as healthy eating,
which is where you’re eating foods that are good for you
but they are also the foods that you actually want.
You’re not doing it out of willpower,
you’re getting to that place
that very few are able to get to because
most people don’t believe they can, but you can!
And where what you want
and what you should be eating is the same.
Again, like I said at the beginning,
there’s nothing super human about me.
It’s just consistency and anything that I can do,
you can do too.
Thanks so much for tuning it and Excelsior.
Related Articles & Videos:
How I Lost 30lbs And Got Ripped Permanently- A Step By Step Guide
Keto vs Low Carb Diets For Fat Loss
Is It Possible To Never Eat Sugar?
My Budget Home Gym Setup Recommendations
Anyone following along knows that I have a pretty impressive home gym setup, but as nice as it is to have all this equipment, the fact is that you don't need very much in order to make progress if you are training at home.
Which is why my number one recommendation is a pair of dumbbells. Maybe a barbell as well, but that's really all you need.
I trained for about a year during the lockdowns with just a pair of dumbbells and a barbell and was able to make tremendous progress, and to this day I universally recommend and provide dumbbells to my online training clients and they have made some great gains as well.
So if you are thinking about training at home, start small and keep it simple. Thanks as always for watching and as always, Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#homegymsetup #dumbbells #trainathome #trainingathome #naturalbodybuilding #naturalbodybuilder #naturalbodybuildingvideos #homegymlife #homegymequipment #homegymrat #homegymideas #homegym #personaltrainer
High Intensity Training- Negative Leg Extensions!
The negative, or eccentric, phase of any resistance movement creates the most micro trauma and thus stimulates the most growth and strength increases.
As such having someone pushing down in the lowering phase can REALLY up the intensity of your training.
This was my last set and my training partner and Naturally Intense Personal Training Senior Trainer @egcitrin is pushing down as I lower the weight and (and is it just me or is she pushing more and more as I go along?)
But I don't stop there.
On the 12th rep I execute an isometric hold for a count of 5 seconds with Erika actively pushing down before ending with nine punishing final reps!
I think I was sore for at least a full week after this but still training and hope you are too!
And as always, Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#naturalbodybuilding #naturalbodybuilder #highintensitytraining #highintensitytrainingtips #hometraining #homeworkout #fitover40 #naturalbodybuildingvideos #naturalbodybuildingtraining #naturalbodybuildingtips #naturalbodybuildingmotivation #legextensions #legday #legworkout #powertec #legdayworkout
Avoiding Injury As A Natural Athlete- Just Do This!
As a natural athlete, whether your goal is bodybuilding or body transformation, everything happens slowly and over very long stretches of time.
To that end, it is of the utmost importance that you prioritize not getting injured, as an injury can slow if not completely curtail your ability to realize your goals.
That being said, most people, when something hurts, just power through it, as there is this misplaced belief that there are some exercises that you need to do.
Squats, deadlifts, barbell bench presses and the like may be excellent exercises, but if it hurts, don't do it.
Or better yet, do something else to build yourself up to a point where you can do them, but there are times when some of those mainstay movements simply might not be for you.
Now for some, saying everyone can't squat or deadlift is heresy punishable by ridicule, but they won't be with you at the physical therapy sessions, and they will still be training while you are out.
If it hurts, don't do it, even if your favorite influencer swears it's a necessity. There are hundreds of alternatives, and your job is to find what doesn't hurt while recruiting the most muscular activation and sticking with it.
Do that and you'll save yourself a lot of pain and you'll realize your goals much faster as well. Stay safe while training and as always, Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#naturalbodybuilding #bodytransformation #nodrugs #weighttraining #listentoyourbody #avoidinginjury #naturalbodybuildingtips #naturalbodybuilder #fitness #fitnesstips #nosquats #injury #injuryprevention #trainsmart #sustainabletraining #nosteroids #naturalbodybuildingvideos #excelsior #highintensitytraining #fitover40 #personaltrainer #bodybuilding
Why Exercises Won't Get You A 6 Pack!
One of the most common questions I get asked is what exercises I do for my abs and my response of
"Absolutely none whatsoever" is often received with some sense of disbelief, but it's the honest truth.
I don't do any direct exercises for my abs and haven't since the mid to early 1990's because I already had a foundation from years of truly grueling ab work and having a six pack is directly proportional to what I eat, not what exercises I do.
My abs get plenty of work from the squats, rows, deadlifts and other compound movements that I do and I can prove, having not done crunches, leg raises, planks and any of that for the past 28 years or so that it's 100% diet.
If you want to have great abs, the exercise you need to master is walking away from the foods you shouldn't be eating.
My diet is and has been one of precision for a very long time, and it's what I eat and how I eat that allows me to always have a six pack, nothing else.
The good news is that everyone already has a six pack, you just have to get rid of the fat deposits above it for them to show, and if you put your mind to it, stay disciplined and avoid processed foods entirely, it can certainly happen.
So watch what you eat and focus on your diet if you really want that six pack and Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#sixpack #sixpackabs #6pack #6packabs #absmadeinthekitchen #everyonehasa6pack #abs #noabworkout #naturalbodybuilding #personaltrainer #drugfreebodybuilding #naturalbodybuildingtips #naturalbodybuildingmotivation #muscularity #naturalbodybuilder #timededicationsacrifice #excelsior #focusontheprocess #dothework #diet #abs
I Only Train Three Days a Week.
That's right.
Just three days a week with short high intensity training based workouts and it allowed me to compete successfully as a natural bodybuilder, and it's how I have trained and how my personal training clients have trained for the past 30 years.
The biggest problem in training is a lack of dedicated experimenting.
Everyone goes along with the training programs espoused by the most popular, without questioning the fact that the top figures in the fitness industry are all on steroids, and as such their methods may not always be best for natural athletes.
There are many reasons to consider low volume training but most importantly is that it allows for training sustainability.
Three days a week is far more doable long term than 4, 5, 6 or 7 days a week.
And I can tell you for a fact that it has been tested time and time again, and it works if you work it.
So give training less some consideration and as always, Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#train3xaweek #highintensityworkouts #naturalbodybuilder #trainlessexcelmore #trainsmart #sustainabletraining #competeatthehighestlevels #nosteroids #naturalbodybuilding #naturalbodybuildingvideos #naturalbodybuildingtips #excelsior #highintensitytraining
Lever Arm Presses 595 for 28 Reps!
High Intensity Home Training.
The (Titan Fitness) @betitanfit Lever Arm setup on my @roguefitness Monster Lite Rack and my @powertecfitness Utility Bench is a godsend in terms of adding variety to my home training.
It feels very much like a Hammer Strength Machine Press and the best part is that you can not only angle it to get the most out of the pectoral contraction, but that you can put the weight up at a point where it really feels heavy all to but the end of the movement.
For this movement I pyramided up to the most weight I could put on and decided just to go. No plan in terms of reps, just get to that point where it really starts to scorch and then keep going!
I don't think I ever got this many reps in before but I felt strong at the start and what I do know is that I was unnaturally sore for at least a full week afterwards!!!
Still training, hope you are too and Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#naturalbodybuilding #naturalbodybuilder #highintensitytraining #highintensitytrainingtips #roguefitness #betitanfit #UnleashYourTitan #ryourogue #hometraining #homeworkout #roguerack #fitover40 #naturalbodybuildingvideos #naturalbodybuildingtraining #naturalbodybuildingtips #naturalbodybuildingmotivation #leverarms #chestday #chestworkout #powertec
New Video: Why I Stopped Training In Public Gyms!
Click on my bio link to find out why!
In March 2020 after 31 years of training in gyms, I began training at home and have been training here ever since. Which is surprising for someone like me given how much I benefited from training in a gym environment, but over the years things have changed and not necessarily for the best.
Commercial gyms are a far cry from what they used to be and I began to feel over time that training in a public gym was starting to be detrimental to my overall progress.
Yes, it's more convenient to train at home.
Yes, there's no commute involved.
And yes, I can collapse on the floor after a workout and not have to move (which is really nice, by the way!!!)
But that's not the main reason why I stopped going to gyms and I can honestly say that I may never set foot in a commercial gym again.
Click on my bio link to see the full video and find out why!
Thanks as always for taking the time to look at my work and Excelsior!!! #naturallyintense
#gymlife #homeworkouts #fitness #trainathome #gymalternative #nomoregyms #gainsathome #naturalbodybuilding #naturalbodybuilder #naturalbodybuildingtips #fitover40 #naturalbodybuildingmotivation #homegym #hometraining #homegymlife #homegymsetup
How Long Does It Take To Look Like A Natural Bodybuilder?
The journey to get that muscular physique you see on an impressive looking natural bodybuilders isn't easy and it doesn't happen overnight.
It takes years of hard work, dedication, and sacrifice even with good genetics.
It took me well over 12 years to do it myself, but the best part is that YOU CAN DO IT!
You don't need drugs, you don't need supplements, you just need dedication and consistency.
But you have to keep in mind the fact that it won't happen overnight.
So, as I always say focus on the process. do the work and Excelsior! #naturallyintense
#naturalbodybuilding #personal trainer #drugfreebodybuilding #natura;lbodybuildingtips #naturalbodybuildingmotivation #muscularity #naturalbodybuilder #timededicationsacrifice #excelsior #focusontheprocess #dothework #tenyears
