4 Foods to Help you Transition off Sugar & Reduce Cravings
Transitioning off of sugar or transitioning off of carbohydrates can be one of the most difficult things when it comes down to starting a low carb lifestyle or going on a keto diet. The fact is, we don’t give enough credit to those that actually kick the sugar addiction. It’s very easy to get addicted to carbs.
It’s even easier to get addicted to sugar, and of course, it all has to do with its effect on the brain, but what I want to do in this video is I want to help you understand exactly what you can start eating and what you can start implementing into your life to get over the hump and to kick the sugar withdrawals and to kick the sugar addiction once and for all. All right, so let’s cut right to the chase.
Let’s get to the good stuff. What’s the first thing that you can start consuming when you’re going through this transition phase? What’s the first thing that you can consume when you’re starting to feel the sugar withdrawal is coming on? Okay, you’re starting to get the headache. You’re starting to get kind of antsy. You’re getting nervous, you’re getting the anxiety, you feel like you just subconsciously want to reach for that sugar. What can you do? One of the things that you can start implementing immediately is drinking some more matcha green tea.
Here’s the thing. Matcha is different from regular green tea. The concentration of what are called catechins is significantly more. See, catechins are different pathways in which green tea activates different enzymes and different receptors within the body, but when we’re talking about matcha, there’s one particular catechin that stands out, and it’s one that you’ve probably heard of before. It’s called EGCG, also known as epigallocatechin-3-gallate.
Okay. EGCG has some pretty profound effects on the body through multiple different pathways, but the one I want to reference here is its effect on what is called CCK, also known as cholecystokinin. CCK is a hormone that is triggered in response to food hitting the upper part of your small intestine.
So as soon as you eat, and you start digesting, and that food hits your small intestine, this CCK is released, and it’s the job of the CCK to communicate with the brain and tell your brain that you shouldn’t have a desire to eat anymore. Okay, maybe you’ve heard of ghrelin before. Ghrelin is another hunger hormone, but that’s a little bit of a different ballgame, and honestly, CCK completely blows ghrelin out of the water when it comes down to its effect on the brain.
So matcha green tea has been shown to increase levels of CCK quite significantly, making it so that even without consuming food, you get that same satiation response. What’s really intriguing is that there are studies that show that subjects that are literally injected with CCK halt their eating at that very moment.
So a subject could literally be eating a meal, and then is injected with CCK, and will just stop eating. It’s like the desire to eat is just completely gone. It’s not a feeling of fullness. It’s not really a feeling of bloated, like I’m full, I don’t want to eat anymore like ghrelin. It’s more of just a psychological thing, like I have zero desire to eat anymore. So since matcha can improve CCK levels, it’s honestly a no brainer.
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