Comment by adrianggg
9 years ago
A really smart guy said to me once something like, “if you are smart and have money and you don't eat well then you are not smart”. I can't remember the exact quote but the sentiment really stuck with me.
Look I'm no expert but I'm telling you the results are outrageous. Please do your own research as I only really have a school boy understanding of how this affects the body.
My skin cleared up, my ailments all disappeared, I no longer snore, my wife says I radiate energy and my skin glows. People notice that my eyes are white and bright. My thinking is clear and alert.
I run up a big hill occasionally, a massive one, I did it yesterday, I broke a sweat but my body was working and I got to the top in record time with minimal effort. I had been training for years and never could match that performance. It's all SUGAR. I hit the wall because of sugar. I finally cracked the magic code, NO SUGAR.
What do I eat? I will lose some people here, but honestly, whole fruit, salad, no dressing, chicken,steak,salmon and WATER. That's it. I said it was hard but I went 100% zero sugar. Real Food. Nothing in a box nothing processed. I now love this food more than anything.
Why is whole fruit ok? My understanding is the fibre tells your body when to stop eating. It's a natural way to tell you that you've had enough. If the grapefruit it too sweet, don't eat it. Your body is telling you something. Listen to it
Sugar inflames your body, it gives you a rush, then a crash, then it makes you hungry. Sugar makes you eat more. It makes you swing up and down.
Getting off sugar is hard, you will have withdrawals. They are not pleasant.
My appetite and palette has changed for the better, I love food now, I can't even drink a soda, I spit it out as the most disgusting thing imaginable, that's a massive change for me. I eat way less I'm spending less money.
Medically all the little things I was thinking of going to the doctor about have completely gone.
3 months in, a lifetime ahead of positive changes.
sorry if this was long and ranty and a bit smug :-)
And just to show that the other way works as well:
Your diet would be havok for my insides. I simply cannot digest fat from meat very well. I'm mostly vegetarian, and eat a lot of legumes and dairy and grains and bread, vegetables and the occasional fruit. I eat fish (trout, usually) once a week for health purposes. I usually only drink water or black coffee. My main mode of transportation are my feet.
I also generally skip breakfast, possibly have a small snack or two during the day, and eat most of my food late in the day when I'm most hungry. I eat candy occasionally. I cook with butter and cream.
And it is strange that I find much of the same benefits as you. I still snore (obviously not due to weight loss). My skin had no change, but I lost weight. I feel physically better. I now like more 'healthy' foods. Soda is really syrupy most of the time - I can occasionally have some when eating, but not by itself (been like that for years).
I'm years into this lifestyle. It took years to tweak it to where it is now - and each tweak had weight loss. I found you can get over cravings for certain sorts of foods (outside of hormones, that is, but even that gets changed some), and you can learn to like new ones. It is basically exposure, though I still dislike eggplant.
Much luck on your continued success :)
I'm curious, do you have a malfunctioning or removed gall bladder?
As a matter of fact, yes. It was malfunctioning (genetics, not gallstones), then it was removed.
I really like this response and I do truly believe that cutting out or minimizing sugar is a truly beneficial thing.
But when I got to this:
> I can't even drink a soda, I spit it out as the most disgusting thing imaginable
I had a hard time taking the rest of your comment seriously. I can understand it being too sweet to your now adjusted taste buds, but calling it the most disgusting thing imaginable is just plain wrong.
Sounds like you might have an unusual sensitivity to exaggeration. It is a symptom which affects a small percentage of the population, and is treatable. Talk to your comedian or an entertainment specialist about treatment options.
(In fairness, I strongly dislike soda. I can imagine worse things, of course, but in the universe of commonly consumed beverages, bubbly sugar water is pretty close to the bottom of the list for me. Another water, coffee and almost nothing else person.)
I can't believe how long I laughed at this comment. I literally rolled around laughing uncontrollably on the floor at this comment. All my coworkers are staring at me funny now. This is one of the most amazing comments I've ever seen on HN. Well played good sir, bravo.
This happened to me - and weirdly others that have dropped sugary drinks. I completely understand where he is coming from, and the adjustment is that contrasting.
I got to drinking water most times at a call center mostly because I didn't like warm nor watered-down soda. And one day, the soda tasted weird and syrupy. It was gross. And the longer I went without sugary beverages, the worse it tasted. I can occasionally tolerate it with food. The drinks that have soda water and fruit juice are much better.
Some time later, I had a friend cut down on soda. We went to the local McDonalds on a lunch break (small town), and she ordered soda. She took it back because it tasted funny, but it turned out that it was simply her taste buds had changed. I giggled, she wasn't so happy about buying the drink, though.
It seems like an exaggeration, but it's not. Your taste buds really do adjust over time.
I used to drink soda like water. That's just how we were raised(badly). A two liter a day of coke or mt dew. Tasted awesome to me. I loved it. In high school I decided I was tired of being sick and quit drinking soda.
I drank some of my boyfriend's coke recently just to see how it was. Just one sip. It was utterly disgusting. The weird thing is I can still clearly recall how I used to like it and think it was refreshing. In memory, it tastes good. But now that my taste buds have adjusted, ughhhh. Nasty.
I don't know, I think it is a mental thing. Ten years or so ago I smoked. I finally quit by telling myself that they smelled and tasted disgusting (which, they do but smokers don't seem to mind while they're smoking). After a few weeks of that, one day I told myself, that's it, I'm done, this is gross and I'm not doing it anymore. So, I've not had one sense. But here's the kicker. Sometimes when I'm around smoke now, I want to vomit. I'm pretty sure it's because of the way I quit.
I used to drink soda a lot younger then. I no longer drink them aside from using a can every half a year to do cooking (for the effects, not taste), and that was in 2015.
In fact, if you quit soda (and drastically reduce sugar intake), you'll find sugar and those soda stuff very overwhelmingly. At most a sip. The claim is not hard to resonate with.
I can see where he is coming from. I don't avoid sugar and don't find soda particularly sweet, but I do find it to have an off-putting taste of some sort. I can down it if there is nothing else available, but it is definitely not my top choice.
Interestingly, I did love it in my childhood. I think I lost my taste for it around the time that I reached the legal drinking age. At that time I'd try some different drink choices in the circumstances where I would have previous had a soda, and then after not having it for a while it just didn't taste good to me anymore.
Or... it's an opinion?
How can you say that a statement starting with "I..." is "just plain wrong?"
You really think everyone likes soda? Most sodas besides (diet) ginger ale are sickly sweet to me now.
I can agree entirely with this. I used to drink Snapple iced teas like they were water. After cutting back on sugar, I can't stomach the stuff now. I like sweetness: I'll add a splash of lemonade to unsweetened iced tea. But the presweetened stuff is 10x sweeter than my palate tolerates now.
> I can understand it being too sweet to your now adjusted taste buds, but calling it the most disgusting thing imaginable is just plain wrong.
Try the 'ol "Grandma Test" on it:
If you had served your Grandma (or maybe great-Gramdma) with a glass of fizzy black liquid, that you poured out of a shiny metal container, do you think she would have drunk it?
I mean, honestly, that would be like putting a glass of used engine oil in front of me today and trying to convince me to drink it.
It's clearly not food, and you clearly shouldn't be eating (drinking) it. Your great-Grandma knew it, and your body does too.
People eat fermented shark meat and blue cheese neither of which 'seem like food to me'. I'm not sure the great grandma test is particularly useful other than to reinforce one's preexisting notions.
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Pretty sure my grandma would have consumed a glass of Guinness had it been presented to her ;-)
My grandma drinks quite a lot of cola. .-.
Both would have and did. I never knew my great-great grandmother so who knows, but yes probably.
I don't intake much sugar and I do like the taste of orange soda. I think the difference between now and my former self is my body simply cannot process all the sugar in a can. The idea of drinking a whole can makes me feel a bit sick b/c I know by 2/3rds of the way through I'll be struggling to process it.
>>I can't even drink a soda, I spit it out as the most disgusting thing imaginable
>I had a hard time taking the rest of your comment seriously. I can understand it being too sweet to your now adjusted taste buds, but calling it the most disgusting thing imaginable is just plain wrong.
I said this in another comment, but he's just humblebragging. It's just like someone saying they don't have a TV. He's showing how cultured and refined he is compared to the rest of us who enjoy sweet foods.
Wrong.
I also cut out most sugars. I literally cannot drink Dr Pepper or Mr Pibb (the only two I can stomache) straight. I have to dilute it with plain soda water (unflavoured, unsweetened).
My wife, who still likes sweet drinks, cannot stand the mix I make, and I cannot stand the mix she likes (as in, as the manufacturer intended).
It isn't humblebragging. It's real. Cut out sugars for a couple of years and try it yourself.
He's being hyperbolic, but once you cut out sugar long enough sweet things really do taste worse. Try it for yourself and see.
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>rest of us who enjoy sweet foods
I'll wager there are more on HN, who cut down or take no sugar.
I left it about 10 months back. And recently in a movie hall, I had to take tea with sugar (as their machine could only serve with sugar, very strange!) . So I grudgingly took it. But when I tasted it, it felt yuck! I could barely finish that. So I can say that the GP was not exaggerating greatly, perhaps slightly.
Here's a rather detailed lecture on the biochemistry (and history and everything) about sugar (and why the sugar in fruit is not problematic).
"Sugar: The Bitter Truth" by Robert H. Lustig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
> I can't even drink a soda
Given that you call it 'soda', you're probably American... in which case, American sodas are disgusting, because they're made with HFCS instead of sugar. :)
It's still 'sugars', but it's not 'sugar' as the public calls it. I'm someone who eats too much sweet, sweet sugar, and I can't drink an American soda.
Well, that isn't really the thing. I started the dislike after cutting them out living in the US. A few years ago, I moved to Norway. Same thing. Even if they taste differently.
Not like I could afford to drink them as often here anyway, but that is besides the point.
You can buy a sugar soda here, though yes most of them are HFCS.
I still can't stand the sugar ones either.
+1 to this. I recently just started toying with the idea of going sugar free and ketogenic... so I started trying foods without many carbs but wasn't even committed to it. All of a sudden I noticed I had lost 5-7 pounds in 3-4 weeks. So I got excited and kept it up... I'm not losing weight at the same rate but now about 2-3 months in and I'm down about 25 pounds. It's ridiculous.
I haven't noticed the energy or clarity improvements in myself and my wife hasn't seen that in me either. That may be due to sleep as I'm going to school full-time, training for the Chicago Marathon, and working full-time. Given all that maybe it's just great that I can function. :)
Either way! The changes have been amazing and dramatic. My biggest problem now is that I need to buy a whole new wardrobe but I can't yet because I think I still have another 15 pounds I'll blow through by Christmas. I finally feel in control of my weight and it's the best.
I'm sold, it's no/low sugar from now on.
off topic: People have reported very similar benefits by quitting masturbation and porn, so imagine what would be like if you quit porn and sugar. You'll be a superhuman!
sorry...
No, man, it's important to share these ideas. My energy levels jumped when I changed my lunches from carbs&protein (pasta, potato etc) to salads with protein.
You can put vinegar, salt and a dash of olive oil as seasoning into a salads - still no sugars.
I have had some pretty nasty neurological symptoms due to invasive intracellular infections of the CNS, and been whole-food paleo-like keto diet for more than 1 year now with no exceptions, and I feel damn great, compared to before that is.
>It's all SUGAR. I hit the wall because of sugar. I finally cracked the magic code, NO SUGAR.
Can't say I agree with this part. If you're doing any kind of intensive cardio work sugars are essential if you want to keep doing it for any long period of time. The harder you're going the quicker you'll want to start eating carbs, be it in gels/fruit (Dates are fantastic for this).
You might actually just have got better, or maybe just might be well rested after a period of over training.
Even with heavy glycolytic training, exogenous carbohydrate intake needs are typically overstated.
Peter Attia (along with Volek and Phinney) has done some fantastic n=1 research in this area [1]
[1] http://eatingacademy.com/how-a-low-carb-diet-affected-my-ath...
You may wanna do some more research on this, it's not as black-and-white, plenty of endurance athletes starting to push less gels: http://lc-triathlete.com/science-behind-fat-adaptation/