The 21 Day Sugar Detox
Kate Irwin • January 29, 2020
What Happens When The 21 Days Is Over
When we talk about weight loss, nutritional health and overall well-being it’s important to focus first on the facts and research, then sprinkle in a little common sense. There always seems to be something new and noteworthy in the weight loss industry and recently it’s the “Sugar Detox” a 21 to 30-day program that promises to help you kick the sugar cravings, beat diseases “x, y, z” and lose weight in the process.
I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds pretty great! If you could cut out certain food groups for a month and drop weight and get rid of my sugar cravings, I would call that a win.
So what’s the catch?
“Sugar” has become the demon nutrient that is to be avoided! Consume sugar and you will become addicted.
The funny thing is, not many people are addicted to fruit which is also high in sugar.
This means we need to look at foods as a whole. It’s common among most extremely tasty foods with added sugar that the sugar is typically combined with fats (i.e. in baked goods) which also increases the flavour profile and make them more palatable. While it’s easy to jump in and say sugar is causing all of your weight loss issues, it is more likely that high calorie, low nutrient-dense foods are being over consumed and the focus is not on consuming whole foods.
While this specific strategy is effective at helping people decrease an overall calorie intake, specifically their overconsumption of hyper-palatable foods, it most likely isn’t the answer for hitting nutritional goals. In the end, what you have is a nutritional strategy that is not maintainable for the long run. It’s right there in the name “21 day.”
Then what happens after the 21 days are over? You may have created better habits to avoid the oh so yummy treats at your next few events. But then it’s your birthday, or a big holiday and your will to avoid those foods is gone and you “give in”. When you have the all or none mentality this “giving in” feels like you have failed, and once you fail it gets harder and harder to hit the reset button.
The effectiveness of a sugar detox is in the elimination of certain foods, usually focusing on increased water intake and decreasing your overall calories for the day. While weight loss will follow because of the caloric restriction, slip-ups are inevitable and will eventually lead to ditching the strategy altogether.
On the other hand, switching your focus from complete elimination to moderation is both more realistic and more sustainable. Increasing your knowledge of which foods contain a high concentration of calories for low volumes of food and decreasing your consumption of those foods day to day while increasing your consumption of whole foods can provide both weight loss and increased satisfaction.
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