The sugar diet. Heard of it? It is all the rave right now. Some love it and others hate it. Well one large influencer that made an interesting statement the other day. He said “So many people that are knocking this have not even tried it.” Fair point my friend! Fair point indeed. Well I am an individual with my own wits and life so I figured, why not give it a shot. This blog is going to cover my 3 days on the sugar diet. I will discuss the mechanisms behind it, how I did it and the overall results.

First, what exactly is it?

The sugar diet is not like a standard SAD as so many tout. This diet isn’t full of cinnamon rolls, cheeseburgers with a side of fries and a milkshake. Instead this diet aims to almost completely eliminate fat from the diet, tightly control protein intake and you guessed it, bring on the sugar. These sugar sources can not be starchy carbs or fat filled pastries. It really boils down to simple sugars. Low fiber fruits, honey, maple syrup and 0 fat candy if you are feeling frisky. You want to keep protein under 80 grams a day and fat as close to 0 as humanly possible. It's also important to note that this is a WEIGHT LOSS DIET. It should not be done for more than 30 days at a time.

So why does this diet work? There are a few factors at play here. First let's talk about calories. At face value, this diet is really hard to over eat on. Carbs only account for 4 calories per gram, fat accounts for 9 calories per gram and protein for 4 calories per gram. Let's say that you maintain 80 grams of protein a day and 20 grams of fat just to be safe. That is approximately 500 calories. Meaning if you need to eat 1700 calories to lose weight, you would have to eat 300 grams of carbs. Now this may sound easy but when it's not coming from twinkies, it's harder than you think. 300 grams of carbs is almost 2 cups of pure honey or 25 cups of strawberries just to help you understand and coming from just experiencing it, these things get old quick and it's hard to keep eating them. It's really hard to over do it in the calories department.

Secondly cortisol suppression.

I know and have spoken about for years how carbs being strategically introduced to a ketogenic diet can be beneficial for those that are experiencing cortisol dysregulation or adrenal dysregulation. This diet does that on steroids especially at first. People that needed some carbs may notice immediate calming, better sleep etc. This makes it an appealing diet for some.

Thirdly, the hormone known as FGF-21.

This hormone has been shown to increase insulin sensitivity. It's important to note that based on my research, this is more impacted by lower protein intake. However, the thought is, if you are more insulin sensitive due to this environment, it makes sense to raise simple sugars and lower everything else. This upregulates metabolism, lowers fat storage and creates a fat burning machine. So they say. You can read about it here.

Fourthly, abundant energy.

Sugar is quick energy. When you are very active, you body will use these carbs for immediate energy and then glycogen replenishment. These are reasons carbs don't get stored as fat as easily absent of actual fat in the diet. Now again, I am not saying there are not possible negative repercussions to this diet. I'm just laying out the scientific thought into why this seems to work and why it is gaining traction.

My Experience With The Sugar Diet!

Okay so how did I play this diet out? Well as y'all should know, I am not an advocate for candy. So with that being said, I approached this from a much more fruitarian approach. My diet went like this:

Morning until evening - Fruit, honey & maple syrup

Evening - 80g of protein from chicken breast with some kind of sauce

Super simple. Nothing crazy. Now some could argue I had too much fruit and it impeded on results. I really don't know to be honest but I didn't go outside of the diet’s stated guidelines.

Results: So I want to break this up into pros and cons but first let's look at body metrics. I used the HUME body pod every day during this and have the results attached below

Now as you can see… not much changed. The changes to my body composition were negligible at best. Some could argue I did not do it long enough but everyone on the web loves this diet because they lose 5 pounds in the first 3-4 days. I did not see that. Now I could have done it longer but did not want to. I will get into that shortly.

Pros

Easy to eat: Fruit is everywhere and if you take on the candy side of this, even more so. It doesn't matter if you are on a plane, in the middle of nowhere or at work. There is fruit, fruit juice or candy available. Having access to what you need is stupid easy.
Easy to stay low calorie: Again I ate like a madman and only broke 2000 calories once. So that is something to consider.
Constant energy: Now there is a caveat to this but I will get to that in a bit. For now if you are following the diet you will notice you don't really crash. You do want to move around a lot more well because you have a lot of sugar in you.

Cons

No weight loss: Again, no changes. I will also add I am in a cut right now and the previous week I had lost weight on what I was doing and when I went back to my low carb approach, the weight loss continued as it had. The only time I did not see a good response in these past three weeks was the three days I was on that diet.
You have to eat… all the time: Remember me saying there would be a caveat? This is it. If you want to stay above water, you have to eat. Your body does not just use fat well on this diet. It wants the sugar which to be honest was annoying.
Digestion: Late on day two of this I started to have very bad gut distress. Gas and the runs were my life for the following day. It took about 48 hours back on my regular diet to resolve it. For that reason alone I did not like it. No one wants to walk around not trusting their body to not ruin their shorts.

Overall Summary

I was not impressed. I think that for some people it works because it lowers calories even if they are not tracking & it can increase energy and movement. It is important to note that the prominent figures that are doing this are also enhanced. Now that does not mean they dont work their butts off. They most certainly do but it is important to factor in if you decide to try this. To me I think simply keeping fats at a healthy level, protein at your desired body weight and carbs moderate to low along with watching your overall intake will put you in a much better position. Everyone is always looking for the next new thing that lets them eat as much as they want and still obtain the dream of abs and the glorious beach bod. People went to carnivore for that and now they are going to this for that. I hate to say it but extremes never help anyone in the long run. Animal fats, protein and some whole food carbs in a calorie controlled environment and TIME is all you need to see the results you are looking for.

Want to talk about my experience with the Sugar Diet or get some help with finding the right plan for you? Let’s set up a call!

Jon Tackles The Sugar Diet!