“How do I get off sugar and junk food? It's so hard!”

In case you feel alone in this struggle — please know that you're not.

In fact, most people don't succeed from mainstream diets, even when they go all out on them.

Why is that? Is it because the diet or lifestyle habits to succeed are not practical?

Or you might be thinking you are not determined enough or simply lazy. Though some of the factors we’ll cover will make you feel low in energy to the point you may feel it’s laziness, but no it’s not.

Here’s the thing, when one is "overweight" or “on a bad diet" there's a lot more going on than just needing to lose weight, stop eating sugar and grains, lower calories, or whatever else has been suggested.

Most of these diets or plans are based on one or a few pieces of the puzzle. If those are the pieces missing for you then you’ll do great on them. However, if they’re not what’s missing, or if something else is missing, then they won’t work — because you need all the pieces.

For most people, suddenly cutting out sugar or lowering calories or eating the “perfect” food, without addressing any other key factors, is a) almost impossible, b) somewhat destructive to overall health, and c) not very helpful.

When trying to lose weight or get off sugar and junk food there are many different bodily factors to take into consideration:

• • Hormones – both those responsible for energy use in the body and those that control cravings.
• • The type of foods eaten – not just calories.
• • Bacterial and yeast infections that cause sugar cravings and steal the nutrition you do get from food.
• • Age as things change in the body and what is right before 40 often isn’t after 40.
• • Digestive ability – or lack of it.
• • Cellular structure and cellular addiction.
• • Insulin resistance where your cells don’t receive the energy they need from food and demand you eat more.

If we don’t think about all of these, especially if one or more are missing pieces for you, then success will be limited, making it easier to give up.

It’s nearly impossible to “quit sugar” if bacteria in your intestine demands it, you’re insulin resistant, your cells aren’t structured to receive something else, or there’s actually an addiction to sugar that’s as hard to quit as heroin.

This is the first in a series of articles covering what is actually occurring when we try to lose weight and get off junk food.

In a previous series, I discussed a related topic covering: SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth) Causes Gas, Bloating, & Sugar Cravings And Prevents Weight Loss

SIBO is the result of bad bacteria that has entered your intestine because it wasn’t killed off in your stomach, has taken root there, and now demands foods that are high in sugar.

In this previous article, there's a connection to cravings for sugar and junk food, but there’s a bit more to it that’s not covered there.

You see, the type of bacteria in your lower intestine is based on what type of foods you've been eating.

So, while the bacteria may have gotten to your small intestine and taken root there because they weren’t killed in your stomach, they thrive and grow because you’re feeding them what they like.

These bacteria will communicate to your brain the same way your actual body cells do, telling the brain to create cravings for more sugar.

The more you feed them sugar, the more the bacteria grow and the more sugar they demand.

If we stop eating sugar, then life becomes an emotional roller coaster due to the intensity of the cravings because, after all, if they don’t eat then they’ll die. And, they don’t want to die.

Which leads us to the other side. These bacteria, whether "good" or “bad" bacteria, absorb toxins that come through the intestine.

These can be herbicides like glyphosate, plastics, metals, or any of the other thousands of chemicals now present in our water supplies.

Not only do these bacteria demand sugar and make you feel very bad if you don’t provide it, if you were to push through these demands to the point that they did die, then they would release the harmful toxins they’ve been holding onto once dead.

This can then make you feel urges for sugar and also be quite sick until these toxins are cleared out of your system.

This is part of the “Keto Flu” you may have heard of when people come off carbs. It’s real and not fun.

We also need to ensure your detox and digestion pathways are set up for success to quickly rid you of this while at the same time providing your body exactly what it needs to remove cravings fast.