A funny thing happened about 18 days into my 30 days without sugar – I stopped craving it.

I’m over the hump. The past week has been extraordinarily stressful and not once did I even think of reaching for chocolate. I went for a hike. I drank tea. I took some deep breaths. I hugged my kids.

My husband, a confessed chocolate fanatic, feels the same way.

A funny thing happened about 18 days into my 30 days without sugar – I stopped craving it.

He, I, and by default our three children ages 5, almost 3, and 9 months, have declared November our month without added sugar. No brown sugar, no honey, no maple syrup, no juice, no alcohol. Fruit in its natural form is OK, though.

Related: One Month of No Sugar

Now that we’re in our final stretch, I’m noticing how sweet fruits and vegetables are. Tomatoes, corn, beets, winter squash — sweet. Blueberries, strawberries, and dried fruit taste like candy. The thought of eating a piece of cake right now makes me a bit queasy.

The more we dive into this experiment, the more I’m learning it’s imperative that this carries on after the month is over. Sugar is addictive, and it’s tough to kick.

Added sugar does absolutely nothing for us. In fact, it is the cause of much of what ails Americans today.

Related: Living Without Sugar

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“If sugar had to be approved by the FDA, it probably wouldn’t. Sugar does not do good by us, and yet it’s in everything,” Marcelle Pick told me.

She’s been a nurse practitioner for 30 years. In that time she’s seen dramatic changes in the well-being of her patients, and those changes directly correlate with a shift in what we eat.

Pick noted an increase in heart disease, autism, diabetes, strokes, polycystic ovary syndrome, dementia, and other conditions over the past few decades. She said inflammation is a big contributor to these health issues, and the foods most of us are eating cause inflammation: sugar, carbohydrates, alcohol.

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There is substantial research backing her up. One study has been dubbed Alzheimer’s Disease “Type-3 diabetes.”

Suzanne M. de la Monte, a professor of pathology (neuropathology), neurosurgery, and neurology at Brown University, led a team studying the link between insulin levels in the brain and decreased cognitive functioning. She and her team coined the term “Type 3 diabetes” because all the metabolic and degenerative effects present in Alzheimer’s disease are in Type 1 and 2 of diabetes.

“Excess sugars challenge our pancreas and body in general. All forms of insulin resistance, including diabetes and Type 3 diabetes (Alzheimer’s Disease) are associated with inflammatory states.”

But she said the link between eating some candy and getting inflamed isn’t that simple. It’s a chronic poor diet combined with a lack of activity that promotes inflammation.

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‘Type 3’ Diabetes
So how do we get Type 3 diabetes? De la Monte said eating excess calories, especially from highly processed foods and simple sugars that don’t have much fiber can harm our metabolism and lead to insulin resistance.

Her research is also finding that exposure to nitrosamines can cause metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and dementia. Nitrosamines are found in cured meats like bacon, salami, and ham. They are also used in fertilizer. When you combine those with a high fat diet, she said the effects on the body and the brain are far worse.

Related: The Not-so-Sweet Deal

Inflammation and insulin resistance cause our vessels to degenerate — leading them to scar, narrow, and stop efficiently supplying tissue. This happens throughout our bodies and in our brains.

The past week has been extraordinarily stressful and not once did I even think of reaching for chocolate.

What can we do to reverse the effects of insulin and inflammation in our brains? De la Monte said her team has new research that is being reviewed — something to look forward to in 2016.

Pick, the nurse practitioner, meanwhile, has had success treating some patients with a ketogenic diet. She said she put one woman with Alzheimer’s on the high-fat, adequate protein, low carb eating plan, and her condition has stabilized. The patient’s memory isn’t improving, but it’s not getting worse either.

Living Better
Pick told me not everyone has to go that extreme, though. For most of us, eating healthy 90 percent of the time with a few splurges here and there will give us substantial benefits. She said the biggest challenge is changing our mindset.

“Thanksgiving is a day, not an event. Christmas is a day, not an event,” she said. Patients will come to her in January after eating with abandon since October, and they are feeling terrible. Our bodies are not made to eat that way.

Related: Healthier Thanksgiving Feasts

“Americans, and now many populations across the globe, are hooked on crappy food that ‘tastes good,’ seems cheap, and (seems) convenient,” de la Monte told me.

She said it’s common sense that an apple is a better choice for a child’s dessert than cookies. Yet most Americans are making bad choices.

We all have to eat, Pick said. If you change the way you eat, you can change your liveliness. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s that easy. If we had a drug that could do what healthy eating can do — it would be a bestseller.

I can attest to that. In three short weeks I’ve seen some substantial changes on the scale and in my mood. Next week, I’ll share the final results and some takeaways from our family’s month without sugar.