Childhood Deprivation and Bingeing Sugar
As a kid, my mom didn’t allow sugary cereals in our house, but we had a bowl of sugar on the breakfast table. So naturally, I put copious spoonfuls on my Grape Nuts, Wheaties, Corn Flakes, and Shredded Wheat- the only cereals we ever had in the house. My brother and I longed for Cap’n Crunch or Lucky Charms!
When I earned money mowing lawns or shoveling sidewalks, my friend and I would head straight to the local store and spend every last penny on bags of candy and junk food – all the stuff we didn’t have at home. And I mean every last penny. When I was a kid, you could get Bazooka bubble gum for two cents and hard candy for a penny.
Then I started washing dishes at a restaurant at age 14 and got unlimited free soda, I drank Coke, ginger ale, and 7UP like it was going out of style, bingeing on everything I’d been deprived of as a kid!
Looking back, that period alerted me to the violent mood swings and depression that can result from a big blast of sugar. I didn’t have an explanation at the time for periods of deep despair that I’d go through, but it all made sense later.
Does Sugar Make You Weak?
When I was 15, my chiropractor asked me to bring a container of white granulated sugar to my next appointment. This was the early 1980s – way before clean eating was trending on Instagram or keto was a household word. What happened next changed how I thought about sugar forever.
The chiropractor did applied kinesiology – that muscle testing thing where you hold out your arm and someone pushes down on it. First, he tested my arm strength without the sugar. Then he had me hold the container of sugar in one hand while he pushed my arm down again. The difference was stark. I was dramatically weaker holding the sugar than without it.
This may not be 100% science backed, and could have been a mental trick, but it impacted me deeply.
For a teenage kid who wanted to be strong, this was a real-world demonstration I couldn’t ignore.
From Deprivation to Discipline & Sugar Blues
A few years later, someone gave me the book Sugar Blues by William Duffy, which eloquently details all the negative impacts of processed sugar on our health. That book, combined with the chiropractor experience, sealed the deal.
I went cold turkey in my late teens and never looked back. No cakes, cookies, candy, donuts, sugary drinks- nothing with refined sugar.
The hardest part of making the transition wasn’t the physical cravings – it was the initial discipline required to say no over and over and over. Especially in social settings when everyone else is eating the sugary thing. But the more times I said no or made other choices, the easier it got. It’s like building muscle. Every choice strengthened my resolve.
The Benefits: 40+ Years Later
I’ve been essentially sugar-free for over 4 decades now.
The benefits? I feel more clear-minded, more energetic, and less depressed. Sugar is devastating for depression, especially for an ADD-wired brain like mine. That glucose cycle of empty calories, crashing, then trying to fuel that hole with more sugar is an unhappy merry-go-round.
I have minimal inflammation which means fewer aches and pains than many of my peers.
Absolutely No Sugar?
These days I eat keto, meaning I consume very few carbs (which are just complex sugars that turn to glucose anyway). I find that keto takes being sugar-free to another level. By removing both concentrated sweets and heavy carbs, I avoid glucose spikes and drops entirely. This keeps my mood and energy even.
When I do use sweeteners, it’s erythritol, allulose, or stevia. These are all non-blood sugar spiking options. I even make keto desserts with them that my non-sugar-free girlfriend loves!
Cheat Days?
When I do occasionally cheat and have a little ice cream or a sliver of pie- for example, at my mom’s on a holiday– I make sure it’s on a full stomach with plenty of protein. I am able to do it in moderation after years of abstinence. It’s still very rare because even with a small portion I can still feel some of that bone-deep tiredness, sluggishness and foggy-headedness that comes from recovering from a sugar crash.
It reminds me why I made the choice decades ago.
A Way of Life
For me, sugar free is a way of life. It’s not hard to say no because I know how it will affect me, and I don’t want to lose hours or a full day of feeling good for a few mouthfuls of cake or a donut.
My goal is to be my optimal self each day and to bring my best to the world. Sugar doesn’t serve me to achieve that.
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Post Script–The Hard Science on Sugar: The Crash, The Loop, and The Long-Term Damage
The Short-Term Crash: Refined sugar gives you a massive, rapid hit of empty calories. Your blood glucose skyrockets, giving you a fleeting, fake energy boost. To handle the overload, your body dumps a flood of insulin into your system to pull that sugar out of your blood. The result? A hard, fast crash. That sudden drop tanks your dopamine and spikes your stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline). Biologically, that chemical rollercoaster is exactly what causes the sudden brain fog, bone-deep exhaustion, and violent mood swings you feel an hour after eating a donut.
The Mid-Term Loop (The Upper/Downer Trap): Once you’re on the glucose rollercoaster, your body desperately tries to self-correct. When the sugar crash hits and your energy tanks, you naturally reach for caffeine to artificially spike your adrenaline and force yourself back to baseline. By the end of the day, your cortisol is elevated and you are wired and anxious. So, you reach for alcohol to depress your nervous system and force a wind-down. This destroys your sleep architecture, meaning you wake up exhausted—driving you right back to sugar and caffeine the next morning. It becomes an exhausting cycle of using uppers and downers just to feel “normal.”
The Long-Term Damage: When you consume concentrated sugars, your body also hits the panic button and pumps out inflammatory chemicals. Over time, constantly spiking your blood sugar acts like sandpaper on the inside of your blood vessels. That slow damage is the starting line for heart disease, achy joints, and metabolic issues. Cutting out sugar doesn’t just keep your mood even today—it literally starves the fuel source that chronic disease needs to survive tomorrow.