We all know too much sugar isn’t good for us. Oh, but why must it taste so goooood???? It’s ok! We understand and we’re here to help. Here are some suggestions for how to cut back on sugar that are actually not terribly difficult!
How to Cut Back on Sugar
I’ll give you a step-by-step. BUT!!! If the order of these suggestions is too difficult for you, don’t give up and walk away! Instead, pick just one thing from the list that you feel is doable and go for it. Then once you’ve mastered that one thing, go on to another one. Put these in any order that works for you!
1. Wean yourself off of sugary drinks.
Are you drinking your sugar? Oooof, guzzling down the sugar in the form of soda or juice can be really hard on your body and your teeth. It’s amazing how much sugar is in just one cup of juice or soda. Work on weaning yourself back. You can do it!
Consider enjoying sugary treats only in the form of food instead of drinks. That way you can enjoy your sweet treats more, but will consume less sugar!
Suggestion: These Javita drinks are delicious, healthy, and help provide a sweet drink that actually benefits your health!! My favorites are the Peach Mango (I drink one every morning to help with digestion), the Defend (I drink one every day to keep my immune system strong), and the Flex (I drink one every day to help with inflammation). I love that they taste sweet and are FUN!!! (Get more details about these drinks here.)
2. Put less sugar in your tea and coffee.
My southern sweet tea drinker friends are not gonna like hearing this one. ;) But what if, when making a gallon of tea, you start gradually cutting back on the amount of sugar you add? Your taste buds probably won’t even notice the difference if it’s just a little bit at a time.
And your coffee? Can you gradually start spooning in less sugar or pouring in less sugary, flavored creamer? If you like your coffee to be creamy and the idea of cutting back on creamer doesn’t appeal to you, I’d suggest still cutting back on creamer, but adding heavy whipping cream or half-and-half to provide the creaminess and even some natural sweetness!
Suggestion: Try adding a squeeze of this Stevia Sweetened Chocolate Syrup, plus some heavy whipping cream into your coffee! From college kid to adult to teen – everyone I’ve made coffee for like this has LOVED it and had no idea there was no added sugar!
3. Only eat candy on special occasions, or work to give it up altogether.
This is a tough one if you have some candy favorites that you consider staples for traveling or game watching or TV watching. But I’ve found that eating candy really ruins a persons desire for real fruit and other naturally sweetened foods. (Right? Who wants a real strawberry after eating licorice?)
Try to cut back on making candy a snack, and maybe only treat yourself on a special occasion here and there. Or stop eating it altogether so you can enjoy other sweet treats that aren’t so high in sugar!
Suggestion: Buy something fun like a box of this variety of Fruit Leather and let it become your “candy.” Now that I’ve stopped eating so much sugar, these really taste like candy to me – but they are 100% fruit!
4. Gradually add less sugar when baking homemade treats.
A few years ago I decided to start experimenting with regular cake, cookie, and muffin recipes to see if cutting back on the called-for amount of sugar would still turn out a good baked good. I have been so pleasantly surprised and pleased with this experiment! It doesn’t take nearly as much sugar as a recipe typically calls for to turn out a delicious cake, cookie, or muffin!
Don’t want your family to rebel against your cookies? Again, I recommend cutting back gradually until everyone’s taste buds have adapted to the lower sugar content. After a while, you’ll find that a treat made with full sugar will taste too sweet! How about that?
Suggestion: Check out this Low Sugar Treat list of recipes we’ve shared here!
- Easy {Low} Sugar Cookies
- Low Sugar Lemon Melt-Away Cookies
- Low Sugar Almond Melt-Away Cookies
- Low Sugar Orange Melt-Away Cookies
- Low Sugar Lime Melt-Away Cookies
- Low Sugar Strawberry Cheesecake Parfaits
- Low Sugar Chocolate Fudge Cookies
- Low Sugar Chocolate Cheesecake Parfaits
- Low Sugar Pumpkin Cheesecake Cups
- Low Sugar Sunshine Cake
- Low Sugar Super Moist Chocolate Cake
- Coconut Fudge Bars
- Low Sugar Lemon Loaf
- Low Sugar Oatmeal Cookies
- Low Sugar Peanut Butter Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting
Why cut back on sugar?
Here are my top reasons to encourage a smaller sugar intake every day:
- Sugar kills our immune systems. It’s so much harder to avoid catching illnesses when we’re eating sugar!
- Sugar can make us fat. Boo, I know. Our bodies only need a small amount of sugar each day to help us function properly. After that small amount is used up, any extra we consume has no use inside our bodies, so it goes to our fat reserves. Yuck.
- Sugar wrecks our teeth. But we already knew that.
- Sugar tricks us into not eating other more nutritious foods. As I mentioned before, who wants a real fresh strawberry after you’ve eaten licorice? When we eat sweet treats, we are less hungry for nourishing, whole foods. So our bodies become depleted of nutrients, and we are more likely to get sick (see #1) or fat (see #2).
Well, that wasn’t much fun to read, was it? Never fear…
Cutting back on sugar is possible!
If I can do it, you can do it! Set some small goals for yourself and get started. You’ll be surprised by how one change can lead to another! Ready, set, go!
I can testify to cutting the sugar from recipes. It really does work. I started cutting 1/3 of it and now routinely cut 1/2 to 3/4 the amounts called for and my family doesn’t miss it. Now I see a cake recipe call for 2 whole cups of sugar and assume it’s a typo because, of course, you totally only need 1/2 a cup!
I found it hard to give up juice and soda so I started with making spritzers – half fruit juice with half no-sugar added carbonted water (like LaCroix brand) and that worked too. Now I barely ever want soda or juice and when I do, I have no trouble keeping it to a 3-sip portion. Start small and work your way up – it works!!
I love to read cookbooks. Seriously, I will sit down with them and read them like a novel… I have every edition of the better Homes and gardens new cookbook, the red and white one. I started to notice that the recipes in the older books call for less sugar and even less flour in a lot of the bread and cake/cookie recipes. I used the older banana bread recipe instead of the one in the newest book that I normally used and it actually tasted better! It baked up higher and lighter and actually tasted like banana instead of just sugar. The recipe only called for 1/2 the amount of sugar and 3/4 of the amount of flour. Now I always check the old books for recipes when I need to make something like that.
I gave up sodas years ago and now I can hardly stand even a sip. I’ve never sweetened my tea or coffee and I love fruit. I hide my candy out of sight so I’m less tempted to indulge, and actually buy very little of it anymore. I’m not a bit dessert eater, but when there are cookies in the house, I have a hard time walking by them without taking one.. Because of this, we rarely bake cookies and I never buy them except for a picnic or for travel. I think I’m doing pretty well, but I still feel like I need to cut back even more. I guess I should start tracking all the grams of sugar I actually eat in a day in the food I do consume so I can see where it’s coming from. Thanks for the encouragement.
When I was diagnosed diabetic I was astounded to see how many food products – that aren’t dessert – contain added sugar! Reading nutrition labels is your best bet. Look under the carbohydrates section and compare “total carbs” to “sugars”. If the numbers are very close together (example 18 g total carbs and 16 g sugars) this means that most of the carbs are coming from added sugar. If the numbers are far apart (example 18 g total carbs but 4 g sugars) it means most of the carbs are naturally occurring. It’s the food products with added sugars you need to avoid. Good news though – it may just be a matter of switching brands . It just takes a LOT of reading those labels!
I cut back on sugar two years ago. My taste buds have definitely changed, even a carrot tastes really sweet now! I have seen health benefits too! We have one cheat day a week–Sunday. We bake something on Sunday night and that’s it most weeks. That way we don’t feel totally deprived!
I’ve been cutting back on sugar in the ways so you’ve listed for a quite a few years but there are a few tricky places for me that have a lot of sugar – ketchup, mayonnaise, salad dressings, and store bought breads and snack bars, like granola bars. These are the things I’ve been having such a hard time cutting back on- especially since I don’t automatically think of them a single treats or sweets. Any suggestions?
As much as possible, I make my own salad dressings and such: https://www.heavenlyhomemakers.com/recipes-2/condiments
Here’s our favorite homemade granola bar recipe, so you can adapt how much sugar you include! https://www.heavenlyhomemakers.com/homemade-chewy-granola-bars-without-corn-syrup