Anyone cut our carbs and sugar and had an improvement

I cut out sugar and felt better for it.

Carbs, I still need these in my life

TChallenging and setting an ambitious target for yourself, undertaking it day by day and then the sense of accomplishment once you've done it is always going to feel great, regardless whether it's cutting out sugar/carbs, doing yoga everyday, quitting booze or training for a marathon.

I found it was like emerging from a mental fog when I cut right back on carbs and sugar a few years back. My asthma improved (presume reduced inflammation), and I didn't get the usual peaks and troughs associated with necking half a pack of biscuits in one sitting, after a week or so there was no craving. I can see how there might be MH benefits too, but as noted above, if you're feeling healthier and working towards a goal, that will often make you feel good about yourself.

It is a testament to how much I like biscuits that I slid back onto the sugar/carb comfort mix a while later though.

Currently having another stab as I am a fat bastard right now, and it (and Covid) have ruined my cycling year. Only a week in though so not reaping all the gains just yet.

I tried to cut out sugar.

I thought it would be easy.

Turns out I'm addicted and crumbled after a week.

Much respect for cutting it out for 3 weeks! Taking control of your diet must be quite empowering whatever your mental state.

There will be some significant health benefits down the line for this.

I totally cut them out about 3 weeks ago

In the environment that we all live in now that's awash with sugar, that's impressive. I've recently tried to cut out as much ultra processed food as I can, So I'm still consuming sugar, but it's generally in the form of fruit or dairy products, and not hidden. Lost some weight, which wasn't the goal, but certainly welcome, I can't say if it's made a difference to my mental health.

I've been trying all sorts of dietary stuff for my Long COVID and also AS (which is like arthritis).

I cut out sugar and gluten for a while, and do feel better, and I think that's largely because when you start concentrating on your diet a bit more, you just eat healthier in general. Now I'll eat a salad for lunch, not a big sandwich or XYZ on toast or last night's pasta.

Now I try and keep sugar down to once a week or so (this week I am failing massively) and just generally do 'low' gluten, as much a reminder to stay off the carbs as anything. And I do feel a benefit.  (nb. I didn't cut out fruit! That would be a bigger and much harder step...)

I cut sugar in about October last year. The first few weeks were grim but I'm still feeling the positive effects now. I used to drink a lot of fizzy pop and use chocolate bars, flapjacks etc as energy boosts to get through the afternoon and used to regularly die on my arse.

Now when I'm tired it's normal tiredness and I'm not up and down on an energy rollercoaster. I'm much more consistent through the day with no food or drink cravings. I sleep better, have fewer headaches etc. It's all good really.

I'm sure I haven't cut all sugar from my diet but I'm not trying to. But since October 22 I haven't had a single donut, Haribo, chocolate bar, biscuit, bottle of Coke or anything. I eat my meals and snack on nuts, carrots, hummus and stuff.

Yes I'd say so. More so fasting for 16 hours, I have much better clarity of thought when doing this - far fewer mood swings, if any.

Ive always followed a pretty good diet for years but on being diagnosed with SPMS 5 years ago I made a decision to completely cut out processed sugar and limit carbs to my two slices of homemade Irish wheaten loaf with banana for breakfast, don't eat sweets/biscuits/cakes/processed food of any kind at all, Thankfully I get loads of fresh veg/fruit from a mate with numerous poly tunnels . As to whether or not I feel any better is impossible to quantify as SPMS is a progressive disease and it only gets worse on a day to day basis.

But since October 22 I haven’t had a single donut, Haribo, chocolate bar, biscuit, bottle of Coke or anything.

Given how addictive those things are, that's hugely impressive, well-done!! I wish I could get rid completely, but I have cut down massively, and I think my last Twix was about 6-7 weeks ago now. I didn't eat a lot of biscuits before, so don't feel too bad about those when they're offered around.

Yep.  Did hard keto (<20g carbs) for 8 months to lose weight.   Massive benefits all round.

Eat or imbibe no ultra processed foods of any kind.  If it can't be dug up, picked, killed after running around in a field, then it goes nowhere near our plates.

No fizzy drinks (apart from carbonated water).

Most of what they sell in supermarkets isn't food.  It's edible, but it's not food.

Immesurable benefits, all round.

I feel this, obviously, improved my mental health:

I heavily cut out carbs a few years ago. Was suffering from chronic fatigue. Could barely stay awake during the day despite sleeping like a log.

Within roughly 2-3 weeks, I realised one afternoon I didn’t need to sleep and I wasn’t tired.

it makes a huge improvement. I now just consume carbs around / directly after exercise. And evening meals are mostly vegetables which still provide ‘basic functional life need’ carbs / nutrients

I've thought more than once about giving up sugar. I tried it once and it was bloody hard. I think I lasted about two days!

I gave up caffeine once. It was harder than stopping smoking, I felt like death for about the first fortnight. It was all a bit pointless as I'm back to my normal tea consumption.

I moved to a mostly vegetarian diet a couple of years back and found that I felt much, much better for it both physically and mentally.

I'm tempted to give it a go with quitting sugar again, might tie up nicely with the 100 days exercise 'til Christmas.

What are people eating during/post rides to give you an energy boost?

Trying to get away from things like flapjack and am curious.

To give up sugar, the place to have mental discipline is in the supermarket.

If it's not in the house, you can't eat it.   So don't buy it.

On top of that, if you're really serious, don't buy it when you're out.  Your family will massively undermine you - they are not your friends when it comes to eating.  If you look and do well out of it, they'll try to undermine you even more - because your "betterment" makes them feel like failures.

What are people eating during/post rides to give you an energy boost?

Normal food. Apples, bananas occasionally. I sometimes make a sandwich/roll if I know I'm going for ages, but honestly anything under a couple of hours I normally don't bother. When I'm home, cheese on toast, sandwich; that sort of thing.

I haven't cut out either, but I have dramatically reduced sugar.

It was hard. Turns out I probably have an addiction.

However, I am seeing some positive effects now. I feel like I'm finding it easier to concentrate on things for starters. Work (he says, on STW during work) and learning stuff at home. I don't have the 'Hm, that deserves a biscuit' thing going on all the time. Oddly, I feel better able to deal with problems too. Not always, an not by a really measurable amount, I just have more resilliance.

Most importantly (maybe not) when I do have cake or biscuits I am enjoying them a LOT more.

I cut out sugar and starchy carbs a few years back.

I eat a lot of protein with steamed veg.

I can't think of anything I eat that has added sugar?

I do drink fresh orange juice but use it like orange squash to flavour water.

Lost a lot of weight without extra exercise.

No longer get hunger pangs, I used to head straight for the fridge for some chocolate or similar after getting in for a ride. Never feel hungry like that anymore.

Stopped snoring.

My old shoulder injury doesn't ache in the winter like it used to.

I would recommend it anyone.

It can be hard getting fed when travelling mind. In an emergency, a double whopper with cheese, without the bun can get me by!

To give up sugar, the place to have mental discipline is in the supermarket.

This. ^^^

Your family will massively undermine you –

For fifteen years my family have been pushing me to have their stupid cakes after dinner. Once in a while I'll go oh alright then and have a small piece. It always amazes me why people think it's something so special and 'yummy', such a treat! 😆

I still have the odd energy bar if out on a long ride, but as above it has to be going over the 2hour mark (xc not road) or I can wait 'till I get home for some pate on toast or something like that.

It always amazes me why people think it’s something so special and ‘yummy’, such a treat!

Cake is nice, there's nowt wrong with it, just as long as it's occasional. I won't buy one, but if I want cake, I'll make it and eat it, and it's generally joyous. I don't want to live like a hermit.

o give up sugar, the place to have mental discipline is in the supermarket.

Don't go food shopping when you're hungry, write a list of ingredients for the meals you're going to make, and stick to it.

Well done to everyone above who has managed to change their eating and life habits for the better.

Personally, I struggle internally about food. I can tell others all the benefits or a good diet, balanced everything and even right programmes / courses etc for others.

However, doing it for myself - I am crap!

Don't, can't stick to any diet beyond a few weeks and the biggest problem is I don't like any veg at all - apart from the humble potato.

One thing I did do though, was finally found a zero calorie drink I actually like, rather than one I could just stomach for the sake of it.

I didn't think I drank much pop until I realised I was having around 3 litres of full fat Coca-cola a week. Initially tried to switch to Coke Zero, but it just tastes nasty, so settled on Lemonade - which although had sugar in, is half to amount of Coke.

The tried 7-up zero and low and behold, it tastes good with no lingering aftertaste.

That switch alone must have dialled up my ability to notice sugar content. Now if I eat more than a couple of chunks of chocolate, or something very sweet, like a can of full fat coke, it just tastes like concentrated Haribo!

The net result is that for the first time in a long time (years), I am actually losing weight steadily but not consumin so much sugar. Maybe the knock on effect is not actually wanting it so much but, my message is - If you are struggling with diets and giving up sugar, chances are you will be a drinker of full fat pop. Try and find a zero one you like and make the substitution.

A few weeks of drinking and you'll feel the change - unless you really are consuming huge amount of sugar outside the pop - which may present a more medical approach if diets are not working.

Yes and no.

I'm convinced it does have benefits.

I'm convinced it has massive drawbacks too.

In terms of sport it felt like you're constantly stuck at 85-90%. Which is fine most of the time, but improving is really hard as however well you can ride for hours just on stored fat, you can't do the higher intensity stuff.

The better option IME was to do the sensible halfway option of cutting out unnecessary sugar. Have an apple, banana, and other stuff you like. Have porridge for breakfast, just skip the syrup, dried fruit, currants, etc. Skip sweet puddings in favor of yogurt. Do still have a bar of chocolate or some sweets on a ride, do still stop for cake, etc. Cutting out all the things that give a high/low. without having to resort to the misery of :

In an emergency, a double whopper with cheese, without the bun

Just order a noodle bowl from Itsu, it's not toxic!

o give up sugar, the place to have mental discipline is in the supermarket.

+1

Your family will massively undermine you

This is where I fall down.

My OH does the "big shop". And she does it badly. There's no meal planning just a scattergun of fresh fruit, veg and salad, some ingredients, and lots of "treats". If I come up with a meal plan and shopping list she'll come back with most of it, and "I got [beige food] incase we decide we don't want [healthy food]" despite the fact that now we have the healthy option we rell should eat it or it'll go in the bin because it's fresh.

So 3 days later the fresh stuff is now going off, and I end up doing small shops every other day anyway.

And the chocolate she buys gets eaten because I have no willpower. "But you don't have to eat it", no, yes, yes I do have to eat it!

Can't really see the point unless you're sure you could keep it up forever, even 12 months of sugar free will do nothing for your life in the long term if you go back to how you were after.

Any diet should be something you can sustain for the long term.

Yes

Less irritability, and like yourself no crazy 30 min comas after a sugar binge

I totally cut them out

So you don't eat any fruit and vegetables?

The issue is that refined sugar and "carbs" are two very different things, I'm T2 diabetic and since developing it following COVID, haven't taken any drugs to control it, i have chosen to do it with diet and exercise.

When first diagnosed i read many Facebook group posts and supposed "advice", everything was keto this and low-carb that.

Carbs aren't the problem, and i have a surprising amount in my diet for a diabetic, the issue is high-GI and/or processed carbs and sugars, that and saturated fats.

So many T2 diabetics follow a really low carb diet, then are happy that they have low blood glucose levels, they follow a keto diet full of saturated fat, so they aren't tackling the problem, they are simply masking it as they get good test results, but they are not tacking the route issue of insulin resistance and not improving.

The body and brain needs carbs to function, especially if you are sporting, but these need to come from steel cut oats, from legumes, veg, nuts and most fruit, ideally pairing them with a high fibre, good quality protein and good fats, so that the absorption rate for the carbs is slowed into the bloodstream.

If you follow a keto or low carb diet, you may well lose weight, but it is because you are consuming less calories and thinking about eating less. If that diet is high in saturated fat, then there is a good chance you will start to go down the path of causing insulin resistance, and further health issues.

Even simple carbs aren't evil, just at the right time, when i cycle, weight train etc, it is giving my body a break from being diabetic, as i am using carbs at a rate that they don't concentrate in bloodstream as they are being used to fuel the effort. So if i doing a long 8-12 hour event, then i will be using simple carbs to fuel the effort, but only just before and during.

That's probably about the most sensible 'diet' post I think I've ever read.

What are people eating during/post rides to give you an energy boost?

If you do proper keto, not much, energy levels are pretty constant unless you're trying to go flat out. I did a 60 miler offroad on some pecans and walnuts, with a bit of jerky/pepperami type stuff. No issues.

But that's a bit extreme, if you just cut out 'bad' sugar stuff that gives you spikes, you might be surprised how your body adapts to switch efficiently between the slower release carbs you had for breakfast and stored fat during a ride.

I'm unconvinced that absolute abstention on a food group is necessarily the way to go (says the vegetarian). Rather, moderation.

I had a Snickers the other day, it's probably a month or two since I last had something similar. The problem comes when people like one of my ex's decides that she's fat (she wasn't), gets miserable about it and decides to make herself feel better about being "fat" by comfort-eating an entire half kilo slab of Dairy Milk in a sitting.

Keto isn't supposed to be a long-term thing. The whole point of living off red meat and butter is to throw your body into ketosis so that it starts burning fat more aggressively, a kick-start if you will.

As for the OP's question. I'm the opposite of keto. I live off carbs, pasta and suchlike, I probably don't get enough protein. I struggle to put weight on. One imbalanced diet is as good or bad as another, who knew.

I switched to diet drinks years ago not least because of the vast amount of pop I was getting through and wanting to keep my pancreas and what's left of my teeth. It was a shock to the system, it tasted awful... for about two weeks, then it just became normal. You get used to it. I don't take sugar in tea, I take like half a teaspoon in coffee and I've switched to sweetener. If sweetener isn't available then sugar is fine, I don't get special about it. I don't use a lot of sugar in cooking, maybe a pinch of sugar and salt if I'm reducing onions. In supermarket food it's hard to avoid, "reduced sugar" soup or whatever might be reduced by about 5%.

Did it make a difference? Not noticeably. I feel happier about doing it though.

Cutting caffeine did, however. I was perpetually tired, then going to bed and staring at the ceiling for three hours. You know that thing where you fall out of bed like death warmed up going "oh god I need a brew"? That's the caffeine hangover from the day before. I cut out caffeine completely for maybe six months, then eventually switched to one coffee a day in the morning and maybe a tea in the afternoon rather than "oh, my mug's empty, best go fill it back up". I don't even do that every day, I'll do it because I fancy a cuppa rather than because I need one or just out of habit even. The difference was night and day.

im still guzzling tea one after the other. i think i shall look at that next.

I pretty much try to follow the same approach as scud, diagnosed type 2 following Covid, although as my HBa1C was three times higher than normal and I've lost about 50% of my insulin production so I have to have tablets or I just starve to death and lose 3-4lbs per week, my sugars are now in the normal range.

First month after diagnosis I ate no sugar of any sort, I found it really, really hard, now I hardly eat sugar at all, just a bit of nice chocolate here and there, I eat a fair bit of fruit, mostly apples which don't really spike your sugars as the fibre in the skin slows absorbtion, no refined white carbs but will eat anything slow release, wholemeal bread, wholemeal pasta ( occasionally ) etc but in moderation, snack on fruit or nuts, I just try to be sensible, there's loads of keto fanatics on diabetes sites extolling the virtues of never eating a single carb, I just couldn't do it.

I get far fewer energy crashes than I used to when my diet had more white/ processed carbs and sugar, I'd personally say adjusting the type of carbs and sugars you take in rather than cut them out altogether can make a huge difference.

Do we need carbs? No, and once adapted, your recovery is quick just eating protein.

Should everyone be low carb or keto? Definitely not, eat the diet that works for you long term although overdoing combinations of things like fat and sugar at the same time may not end well?!?

There is now a published track record of UK GPs using low carb, whole food approaches with patients with T2 diabetes and the remission rates are good. E.g. David Unwins practice:

https://nutrition.bmj.com/content/early/2023/01/02/bmjnph-2022-000544

But again, that doesn’t mean it’s the best or only approach, it just demonstrates it can be a healthy approach.

I’ve been low carb (10-40g per day), high protein, for several years now and it has worked really well for me from both an autoimmune and type 1 diabetes perspective. My HbA1C is deep into a normal persons range which obviously limits retinal, organ and cardiovascular damage. I did high carb (low sugar) for a long time (healthy whole foods excepting exercise which needed sugar!) and vegetarian for a number of years, neither worked for me but they DO work for lots of people. If we are pushing hard on long rides, I have more energy now, especially later in the ride, I feel perky when fitter friends are dying and desperate for food.

If your diet makes you healthier, it’s a good diet, low fat, high protein, high carb or whatever 🙂

Just to add my n=1 experience:

I tried to cut all refined sugar/carb from my diet a few years ago and it had a negative effect on my mental health. I really didn't enjoy the mindset of restricting my diet and avoiding food that I enjoy. It also sucked all of the joy out of bike riding for me as I like doing hard intervals or racing for 30 signs on a club run.

I eventually found a bit of balance by focusing on getting loads of fruit & veg most of the time and being moderate with my snacking. I'll happily fuel my exercise with utter trash, or enjoy a slice of cake with my kids.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, just be mindful of whether you're acheiving what you want to with it and be kind to yourself if it doesn't work out.

One thing that concerns me is that although I've dropped the sugar, I'm still giving my body placebos, namely sugar-free gum and diet coke. I have a suspicion that it tricks the body metabolism, which is still doing some stuff as if it is getting fed sugar, and that may be offsetting the benefits.

But I like Diet Coke!

One thing that concerns me is that although I’ve dropped the sugar, I’m still giving my body placebos, namely sugar-free gum and diet coke. I have a suspicion that it tricks the body metabolism, which is still doing some stuff as if it is getting fed sugar, and that may be offsetting the benefits.

There's a theory that artificial sweeteners may increase appetite. It's about the only argument against them I've seen which may actually hold water, to my layman brain at least.

But I like Diet Coke!

Caffeine free Pepsi Max is about the best I've found (which I don't really understand as the Max range is their high-caffeine brand).

Of the budget colas, the Lidl one ("Freeway"? maybe) is about the least worst I've come across.