Why I Don't Eat Sugar (And It's Got Nothing to Do With My Weight)
Right, let's get one thing straight before we start. This isn't a “cut the sugar, drop a dress size” post. I couldn't care less what sugar does to your waistline. What I care about is what it does to the rest of you, because for me, it's not subtle at all.
Have some sugar and within an hour or so, my hands ache. Properly ache, like my knuckles have aged twenty years overnight, it’s such a weird achey feeling. That's not me being dramatic, and this isn’t Instagram Science. That's arthritis flaring up, and it happens pretty much every single time I have more than a small amount.
But, I know why now. Sugar drives inflammation in the body, and joints are one of the first places that inflammation shows up. There's research linking higher sugar intake to raised levels of CRP (a key marker of inflammation) and to worse symptoms in people with joint pain, and one large study following women over time found that drinking a sugary soft drink daily was linked to a much higher risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. My hands are basically running their own small experiment on me every time I get talked into a slice of cake, and by “talked” I mean, I decide to eat. Because I’m more than capable of talking myself into it!, and the results are annoyingly consistent.
Then there's also the energy thing, which is almost funny because it's so predictable. The moment I'm tired or stressed, sugar is exactly what I reach for. And it's exactly the wrong thing. Blood sugar and stress hormones like cortisol are tangled up together, so having something sweet when you're already running on empty can push cortisol up further, and once that crashes back down, you're left more tired than when you started. So you reach for something sweet again. It's a proper loop, and I've been stuck in it more times than I'd like to admit.
Now here's the bit I actually think matters more than my hands. It's too late for sugar to do much to my bones (that ship has sailed, thanks to early menopause), but it's not too late for the kids in your life. Somewhere around 90% of your peak bone mass is built by the time you're 20. After that you're not building more, you're just trying to hang onto what you've got. Sugar, especially the fizzy, sugary drink kind, gets in the way of that. It tends to nudge out the calcium-rich foods that actually build strong bones, and there's decent evidence linking high sugar intake in childhood and the teenage years to lower bone density later on, and a higher risk of osteoporosis further down the line. If you've got kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, whoever, in your orbit, that window matters more than almost anything else you'll do for their future bones.
And on the guidelines, for anyone who likes the numbers: the government recommends free sugars (the added stuff, not what's naturally in fruit, veg and milk) make up no more than 5% of what you eat in a day. The most recent UK data we've got shows we're nowhere near that. Adults are averaging around 10% of their energy from free sugars, roughly double the recommended limit, and only about 1 in 5 of us actually hit the target. So, if you're not managing it either, you're in very normal, very good company.
I'm not telling you to never eat sugar. I still do, occasionally and knowingly, and then I spend the next day making a fist and grumbling about it. But I wanted you to know why I'm not one of those “clean eating” strength coaches who bangs on about sugar for the sake of a smaller number on the scale. For me it was never about that. It's about hands that work, energy that doesn't crash, and bones that hold me up for the next fifty years.
Rosie ✌️
Sources
UK sugar guidelines & current intake data (NDNS 2019-2023):
https://www.actiononsugar.org/news-centre/sugar-in-the-news/2025/2025-news-stories/national-diet-and-nutrition-survey-ndns-2019-to-2023-.htmlhttps://www.bapen.org.uk/other-news/national-diet-and-nutrition-survey-report-key-findings/
Sugar, inflammation and arthritis:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/associations-between-free-sugar-intake-and-markers-of-health-in-the-uk-population-an-analysis-of-the-national-diet-and-nutrition-survey-rolling-programme/5808128A46C94FCD6172974D06F2A668
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25030783/
https://ajcn.nutrition.org/article/S0002-9165(23)04764-0/fulltext
Sugar, stress and cortisol:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306453020304856 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306453020300263
Sugar, sugar-sweetened drinks and bone health in children/teens:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12937-021-00698-1
