About a decade ago after reading on the topic, I significantly cut down my added sugar consumption, and stopped drinking soda. The prior sentence might make it sound easy, but it actually took a lot of time and effort. Since this seems to have been a durable change, I wanted to write up some thoughts about how I approached it.

Benefits:

• weight loss (about 10 pounds in my case, as an already pretty lean person)
• better metabolic health
• more stable moods and energy due to less blood sugar fluctuation

The general thought that motivated me was that having basically any added refined sugar is not a positive thing, and so I wanted to limit this as much as possible. There is basically no nutritional benefit to added sugars, and it has many negative effects like metabolic dysfunctions, obesity, diabetes, inflammation, and cardiovascular disease. Since my grandfather had type 2 diabetes, this was something that I wanted to avoid.

For a while, I was pretty hardcore about this, and would try to avoid fruits and generally go low/no carb. I have softened to basically eat fruit as it's available or desired, and have been eating rice and bread fairly liberally.

My general approach now is to eliminate the obviously bad, moderate the questionable, and still enjoy treats from time to time.

Soda

First, I went for a "cut back on obviously high sugar things, then eventually eliminate more if you want". Also going for reducing daily consumption before focusing too hard on rare things like parties / holidays. We're trying to reduce the area under the curve for sugar.

So soda intake, especially daily soda intake, would be a solid first step.

Soda deconstruction

One important strategy for me was deconstructing / decoupling aspects of soda. What makes drinking Coca-Cola (for example) so desirable / addictive? This drink has the following qualities:

• hydration
• carbonation
• caffeine
• flavor
• routine / familiarity
• sweetness

So if I had a taste for a soda, I might try to figure out why I had that taste. Was I just thirsty? Start by drinking some water. Was I bored? Maybe drink a soda water. Was I low energy? Maybe drink coffee or tea or go for a walk. Like the taste: sometimes there are flavored sparkling waters or try Coke Zero.

This sometimes resulted in me literally deconstructing a drink to try reducing sugar. I'd "triple-fist" at home by having soda water, coffee, and water all next to each other. And then I could reduce how much I was consuming of the soda while getting the other desirable effects.

Not ordering it, not buying it, having substitutes

If you don't have it in your house or available, it's going to be impossible to consume it. So the easiest way to cut back is to not buy it.

You can try drinking things like soda water.

"Free poison"

One thing that tripped me up was restaurants offering a free beverage with the meal. Often this ended up being for a fountain soda machine. I thought: "well, I don't want to waste a chance to get free soda." But then I started thinking: "if they offered me free poison, would I take it?" And my answer to that was "NO!" So this was a helpful framing to avoid consuming something that wasn't in my long term health interests.

Additional tips:

• Sometimes there's a carbonated water button next to the Sprite, great choice
• Freestyle type machines typically have soda water hidden under one of the menus (look for caffeine-free section)
• Sometimes you can do something like an unsweetened tea
• Can just drink water

Sugar in coffee / tea

Consider reducing sugar in your daily coffee or tea.

You can actually add a couple of grains of salt to reduce coffee bitterness (as well as brewing at a slightly lower temperature or higher quality bean). So that's why those salted caramel drinks are popular… (but also high in sugar).

Added sugar in food

After you eliminate the big or daily sources of sugar, if you want to continue, the next thing to go after would be the smaller aspects.

This is challenging but tractable. It just takes time, diligence, and the willingness to change habits / preferences.

Almost anything in the central part of the store is going to contain added sugar. Why? Sugar is a fairly cheap preservative that also increases the palatability of food. Adding sugar to food makes it last longer on the shelves and be more likely to sell. So the food companies are incentivized to add it to make more money.

Generally avoiding grilled meat marinates with sugar since these may produce more free radicals / other things that are carcinogenic.

I'm kind of OK with eating salad dressing with marginal amounts of sugar in a tough food environment if it makes it easier to eat a lot of vegetables. But most of the time at home you'll be able to get or make a vinegar and oil mixture that contains minimal sugar.

What to watch for

Most products marketed at you contain added sugar. No one is advertising broccoli!

I look for products that have no sugar added or artificial sweeteners. I call these "no BS".

This can be quite challenging, since there are certain classes of foods that almost always contain sugar. For example, granola, cereal, bread, condiments (ketchup, BBQ sauce), and salad dressings almost always have some kind of sugar added to it.

Food label warning words:

• "low fat": typically they replace the fat with sugar
• "sugar-free": they might be using a sweetener or artificial sweetener other than sugar
• "no added sugar(s)": might have artificial sweeteners

Even (or especially) the ones marketed as being healthy, often contain a lot of added sugar. Don't be fooled by what I call "health washed" foods:

• "organic": there are organic sugars. Think of this as food source certification, not healthiness
• "all-natural": arsenic is also all natural
• "non-GMO": could very well still contain a lot of sugar

It's easier than it's ever been with online research and shopping online so you're not "that person" in the aisle reading every ingredient label. Then when you find versions you like, can stick with those. It's also easier since the FDA changed labeling requirements to have "added sugars" listed in the ingredient list. Sometimes if you

Get plain versions of things, and add your own fruit / honey to them. This works well for yogurt. Instead of 9 grams of sugar in a fruit-on-the-bottom Greek Yogurt, you can have plain full fat yogurt and add some fruit to it.

Sometimes I found "saving" my sugar intake for a higher quality dessert was a helpful frame. Why eat something junky when I could eat something that was really good?

Artificial sweeteners

I'm not sure whether artificial sweeteners are good or bad. Like – it's not sugar, but it resembles it enough that our brains (and gut bacteria?) are somewhat tricked by it. So I'm not sure what the metabolic effects of it are.

I generally don't like the taste, which makes it easier to spot these when I'm tasting them.

Don't be tricked by things that are alternate sweetener names, or the various names for artificial sweeteners. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/upshot/it-isnt-easy-to-figure-out-which-foods-contain-sugar.html and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4733620/

Desserts

This was probably one that impacted me less than the average person. I typically didn't eat much dessert. But here are some thoughts.

Eventually others know you to be someone who avoids sugar and will start reducing requests for desserts.

Fruit as a dessert. It's also sweet, and is a nice substitute. I like keeping some frozen fruit, which makes for a refreshing evening treat. You can also pair it with yogurt, etc.

Conclusion

Hope this helps someone trying to reduce their sugar consumption. It's definitely a journey, and takes time and effort, but I find the health benefits are worth it.

Nowadays I can typically feel it in my finger joints the next day if I've had a lot of sugar.

Let me know if anything was helpful for you!