The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet

A 2009 study by Dr. Serge H. Ahmed, Is Sugar as Addictive as Cocaine?, published in the journal Food and Addiction, proved that sugar was eight times as addictive as cocaine. When I first read this, it was hard for me to believe. But this carefully designed study found that when rats were offered intravenous cocaine or sugar (in the form of artificially sweetened water), they always went for the sugar. Even previously cocaine-addicted rats switched to the sweetened water. When higher and higher doses of cocaine were injected intravenously, just below the amount that would give them seizures, they still went for the sweetened water.

A fourteen-year study of 66,118 women published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (and supported by many previous and subsequent studies) discovered some frightening facts that should make us all swear off diet drinks and products: Diet sodas raised the risk of diabetes more than sugar-sweetened sodas. Women who drank one twelve-ounce diet soda a week had a 33 percent increased risk of type 2 diabetes, and women who drank one twenty-ounce soda a week had a 66 percent increased risk. Women who drank diet sodas drank twice as much as those who drank sugar-sweetened sodas because artificial sweeteners are more addictive than regular sugar. The average diet soda drinker consumes three diet drinks a day. Let me lay out a few more of the evils of artificial sweeteners, just in case you’re not yet convinced: Artificial sweeteners are hundreds to thousands of times sweeter than regular sugar, activating our genetically programmed preference for sweetness more than any other substance. Artificial sweeteners trick your metabolism into thinking sugar is on its way. This causes your body to pump out insulin, the fat-storage hormone, which leads to more belly fat. Artificial sweeteners confuse and slow down your metabolism, so you burn fewer calories every day. They make you hungrier and cause you to crave even more sugar and starchy carbs, such as bread and pasta. In animal studies, the rats that consumed artificial sweeteners ate more food, their metabolic fire or thermogenesis slowed down, and they put on 14 percent more body fat in just two weeks—even if they ate fewer total calories than the rats that ate regular sugar-sweetened food. The bottom line is that there is no free ride. Diet drinks are not good substitutes for sugar-sweetened drinks. They increase cravings, weight gain, and type 2 diabetes. And they are addictive.

Here’s what the detox will do for you: Shut down the insulin surges—and thereby arrest belly fat storage and cravings. Improve your cells’ sensitivity to insulin so you need less to balance your blood sugar, resulting in weight loss and health. Reduce cortisol—the stress hormone that increases cravings for sugar, promotes belly fat storage, and shrinks your brain. Lower ghrelin, the hunger hormone. Improve leptin sensitivity in the brain, allowing your natural appetite-regulating system to begin to work again. Increase the brake on appetite called PYY (peptide YY), the intestinal hormone that makes you feel full after a meal. Increase dopamine naturally and reset your brain’s reward pathways so you can feel pleasure from eating real food. Reset your taste buds so real food tastes good again. Reduce inflammation (the problem at the root of almost all weight gain and chronic disease) by eliminating common food sensitivities, processed foods, and sugar and by including anti-inflammatory foods. Boost detoxification by eliminating toxins from your diet and life and enhancing your body’s ability to get rid of stored toxins that make you fat.

The food plan will introduce healing, anti-inflammatory, insulin-balancing, appetite-regulating, and detoxifying foods to your diet. You’ll be enjoying foods rich in phytochemicals—powerful, natural compounds that remove weight-producing toxins, including pesticides, heavy metals, and other chemicals known as obesogens. You’ll also be indulging in some delightful stress-relieving, self-care activities. This program is not about deprivation, but about abundance.