Sugar

"Haven't you had enough sugar for today?". That was the question I asked my girlfriend yesterday when she asked for a can of Coca-Cola. Earlier that evening, we went out to look for a burger but we couldn't find any shop around us that sells it, so we bought barbecued beef instead (suya) and a can of malt drink.

I wasn't in the mood for drinks that night so I didn't buy any for myself. My girlfriend finished the malt drink even before we got home and she bought another one when we arrived him, which she also drank. We were sitting outside with @Talon and having some random discussions when she suddenly said she wants a can of Coca-Cola.

"It's almost 11pm and no store will be opened by now, where exactly do you want to buy the coke from? And besides, haven't you had enough sugar for today?", I asked. Talon and I went on to tell her that she takes sugar a lot and excess sugar in the body is a bomb waiting to explode.

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I have warned her severally in the past about her intake of sugar and I have also stopped her from taking too much whenever I am around, but she still wouldn't listen. This is someone that uses 6 cubes of sugar just to take cornflakes, meanwhile I use only one cube and some people don't even add sugar at all.

When she's making chocolate beverage, she adds up to 3 cubes of sugar, and I am talking about those 3-in-1 chocolate beverages that already have sugar in them. There was a day she prepared golden morn (a form of corn cereal) and when I tasted it, it was a bit bitter, and why was that? Because there was too much sugar in it!

There's a certain level you will add sugar to something and it will become too much to the extent that you will start getting a bitter aftertaste. It reminds me of the day my sister made custard for me but I didn't know she already added sugar, so I added the usual amount of sugar I use for custards and when I tasted it, I had no option than to throw the whole thing away.

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I used to love sugar a lot back when I was a kid and I took a lot of it back then. I told my girlfriend last night that I have already taken all the sugar I needed in this life back when I was a kid 😆 I ate sugar a lot back then and I became very fat that my skin looked like it had water in it and is about to burst.

I conquered my love for sugar after a while and I slimmed down very much, but I got hooked to sugar again after a couple of years, specifically after high school. I was working during that period, so I had a lot of money to indulge myself in all the sugary stuff I wanted but I picked one poison; Coca-Cola

I was so addicted to Coca-Cola drink that I took nothing less than five cans of it in a day (sometimes 6) and I did that from Monday to Saturday. I also took some Coke on Sundays but at a lower frequency (once or twice). I knew what I was doing was bad but I couldn't just stop myself, like I said I was already addicted.

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I continued that way until I got admission into the university and even at that you can never see me walking without a can of coke in my hand. But how did I finally stop my addiction? I ran out of cash 😂 I guess life in the university humbled me and I started thinking about my priorities, of which Coca-Cola isn't one of them.

Now you might ask, why is taking in excess sugar so bad? Honestly speaking, is there anything that is good when taken in excess? Apart from the fact that too much sugar in the body can lead to obesity, it can also lead to a high risk of heart disease but I won't be going into the technicality of this one 😉

Excess sugar can also lead to diabetes, specifically type-2 diabetes (this shouldn't be too surprising). Too much sugar intake can lead to something called insulin resistance (insulin is the hormone that regulates blood sugar levels) and this in turn will lead to a high blood sugar level and subsequent increase in the risk of diabetes.

Excess sugar can also lead to a high risk of kidney disease, depression, and cancer, it has been linked to acne, may accelerate the aging process of your skin, increases cellular aging (translation; you age faster on a cellular level, and trust me it's not a good thing) and it also drains your energy. The funny thing is that the usual culprit in all these I have mentioned is not glucose, it is another form of sugar which is called fructose and it's what is majorly used in soft drinks or sodas.

According to something I found on Healthline;

Just one 16-ounce (473-ml) can of soda contains 52 grams of sugar, which equates to more than 10% of your daily calorie consumption, based on a 2,000-calorie diet.

This means that one sugary drink a day can put you over the recommended daily limit for added sugar, and I used to take 5 a day and my girlfriend wanted to take more than two just yesterday 😀 I found out about all these effects a couple of years ago and since then, I have been trying to reduce my sugar intake (although it's a very difficult battle).

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So, whenever you have the urge to take more than a bottle of soft drink in a day, just remember all these negative effects I have talked about in this article and grab a bottle of water instead, it will do you a lot of good 😉 if you must take soft drinks, then I will recommend not more than two in a week. We should all start telling ourselves the truth and try to cut down on our sugar intake.

Thanks for reading 💖💖💖

Wednesday March 23, 2022