However, the recommended amount for a healthy body is only 6 to 9 teaspoons a day.

So what happens if you eat too much sugar?

When you gain weight, you raise your risk of heart disease and raise your risk of high blood pressure. So, even though you might still be wondering how to quit sugar, the reasons to do so are obvious.

However, you don’t have to go cold turkey. Quitting sugar, or at least lowering your sugar intake, to begin with, is always a good idea.

Here’s how to quit sugar when you’ve tried but failed.

Find A Healthy Replacement

One way to quit sugar is to find a healthy replacement.

Refined sugar is the worst. This is sucrose extracted from raw sugar cane or sugar beets and often added to processed foods and beverages. Refined sugars have been linked to many medical conditions such as obesity, tooth decay, hypoglycemia, diabetes, and more.

So, consider replacing that sugar with a naturally sweet treat. Fruit, such as strawberries, mangoes, apples, and bananas have natural sugar. By eating those, you can help to tame your sweet tooth, and get much healthier food in your body.

Read The Labels On Everything

If you are serious about quitting sugar, make sure you are quitting ALL sugar. Start taking a look at ALL the labels before you buy something.

If you’ve never done this, you might be in for a surprise at the high levels of sugar in food that isn’t sweet. For instance, “low-fat” foods often remove fat, but manufacturers replace that fat with sugar so it tastes better.

Drink More Water

Almost every drink you pull out of the fridge contains a surprising amount of sugar.

This is one of the easiest ways if you’re trying to figure out how to quit sugar. So, remove those from your home.

Instead, stock your refrigerator with water, milk, juicy fruits like watermelon, and more.

Nut milk is okay, as long as it doesn’t have added sugar.

Look for the unsweetened kind. Alcohol is also okay, but read labels.

Drinks like margaritas, daiquiris, sweet wine, and cider all have a lot of sugar.

Don’t Rely On Artificial Sweeteners

You might think that you can get through quitting sugar by relying on artificial sweeteners. However, there is a lot of research that shows these sweeteners are just as bad.

It’s true that drinking diet soda, for instance, doesn’t add calories, but it does other things. There are a ton of chemicals in diet soda, and studies show that just one diet soda a day can lead to obesity.

How To Quit Sugar Gradually

Finally, you should quit sugar gradually. If you are wondering how to quit sugar, the odds are good that you are a “sugar addict.”

So, your body looks at this sugar as a drug. It’s very difficult to quit any drug “cold turkey,” so take a couple of weeks to a month and take small steps.

People who take small steps and cut down gradually might see better success than those who quit suddenly.