A step by step guide to quitting sugar and alcohol and ending the cravings now.
When you think about cutting alcohol or sugar does it leave your filled with stress and anxiety? If it does, you aren’t alone. Sugar is one of the addictive substances out there and alcohol isn’t much different. I think about alcohol like sugar, with a side benefit of social lubricant.
But quitting one or both of these may be one of the best decisions you can make. And, why do it together? Simply put, one is just a replacement for the other. It is no coincidence that, at least in the movies, at the AA meetings they always serve donuts. The simple sugar in the donuts simply replaces that lost from the alcohol and so one addiction is just getting replaced with another. And so, if you really want to see benefit, you probably should eventually try to cut them both out to see how great you can really feel.
Without the right game plan it can be difficult to kick these habits so let’s start with a little incentive. When you quit refined and simple sugars, you can expect to have some withdrawal symptoms. The severity of them depends on how much you are currently consuming but even if you are a social drinker or have only a mild sweet tooth you will most likely have cravings and potentially a little anxiety during your first week or two. But rest assured, these will pass.
But, the positive will far outweigh the negative.
What are the Benefits of Dry / No Sugar January you ask?
Depending on how much you currently drink you may find noticeable improvements in how you sleep, look and feel:
- Better Sleep: While alcohol may make you drowsy, it disrupts REM sleep – the stage most critical for restoration.
- Improved Liver Function: Once alcohol is removed, the liver begins repairing itself almost immediately and enzyme levels often stabilize within the month, and excess fat in the liver may start to decline.
- Clearer, more hydrated skin: Because alcohol is dehydrating, and as we already mentioned, it negatively effects your sleep, your skin often shows all this. Less alcohol leads toa brighter, healthier looking complexion.
- Support for weight management: Cutting out alcohol also reduces empty calories and helps minimize bloating. And let’s be honest here, alcohol decreases your inhibition and so drinking often leads to increased or less attention to the quality of your eating.
- Decrease your risk of certain cancers: This is a scary one, maybe you don’t care about your skin, and maybe a poor sleep isn’t your biggest worry but studies have shown that drinking alcohol raises your risk of developing several types of cancer, especially if you have more than 2 drinks a week.
Tips for Success
- Clean out your cupboards so you don’t have refined sugar or alcohol close at hand.
- Tell your friends or get a support network so you have an accountability structure available at all times.
- Eat proactively to prevent cravings before they start. Do not wait for a craving to hit before you eat, ensure you eat on a regular basis and load up on healthy protein, fibre and fat at each meal. Also keep healthy snacks on stand by if you haven’t had enough earlier. This could be raw nuts and seeds.
- Do not get dehydrated. Be sure to drink at least half your body weight in ounces of water per day. This would be 80 ounces or 10 cups for a 160 pound person.
- Be patient. As I said above, you will feel cravings and that is perfectly normal. You will need up to four weeks before your dopamine levels reset back to normal so stick with the discomfort, it will pass.
