What happens to your brain when you give up sugar

I’ve started eating a pinch/handful of leafy greens twice a day, as a sort of medicine-for-the-gut; and while the effect is subtle, I’ve definitely noticed a stability boost to mood and energy, especially while I’m not in ketosis.

You can function just fine for prolonged periods of time without ingesting any glucose sources.

It does take the body a while to adjust and ramp up ketone production, which can lead to feeling drained/low energy and induces sugary-rich food cravings.

But that mostly subsides after a few days.

Nice side effect: it is quite common to get a certain sense of eurphoria and well-being after not getting sugar for a few days. The current hypothesis is that one of the ketone bodies (BHB) might have similar effects on the brain as GHB, which is a psychoactive drug. (they have a similar structure, namely they are isomers)

Personally, I feel much more energetic and healthy when skipping carbs and fruits entirely. Even mentally! At least after the initial adjustment. Sadly it's hard to fall back into eating sugar all the time.

Glucose is needed for some red blood cells though, and the body has ways of producing it in absence of food. Those are insignificant amounts.

No.

In deep ketosis there's gluconeogenisis where the small amount you need will be made for you.

In fact, people on keto or fasting actually report vastly better mental clarity.

- converts carbohydrates to glucose on the way in

- stores glucose as glycogen (fast-release energy mostly in the liver and muscles) or storage fat (slow-release energy mostly in dedicated tissue)

- converts glycogen[0] back to glucose when you need energy to burn

You don't need dietary carbohydrates very frequently. Your body will be fine converting glycogen[0] to glucose at an appropriate rate, and you store about a day of glycogen. The problem with dietary carbohydrates is that they always start as glucose and then get stored. If you dump a bunch of simple sugars into your stomach, they all end up in your bloodstream at once (hyperglycemia), your body releases a lot of insulin to cope with the surplus, and then there's a dip (hypoglycemia) afterwards. Once you're through the dip, though, everything should go back to normal.

I think this is the same as what you're saying, just with more detail on why it works that way.

[0] or other things, like fat and protein, in a pinch

Everyone seems to want to be able to explain every emotion and behavior as the byproduct of a neurotransmitter, e.g. "I'm addicted to the dopamine hits from my phone", "I'm sad because my serotonin is low", "I'm on an endorphin high from that workout", etc. etc.

Besides many of these examples being flat-out wrong, emotions in general are immensely more complex than the simple release of a single chemical in the brain. The belief that everything bad in the brain is just a "chemical imbalance" is a really harmful one IMO, as it turns people away from truly understanding their problems, and replaces any sort of deeper understanding with a desire to simplify everything down to pseudo-scientific brain chemistry quick fixes.

> Table sugar, or sucrose, is a disaccharide made up of a molecule of glucose and a molecule of fructose joined together

The modern day food scene is such, you will end up eating sugar no matter much how you avoid eating it. So this is one thing we don't have to worry about.

Most people are eating way more than they should. Even cutting as high as >50% of sugar will still land them in a safe territory.

Apparently when people are kept on a carb diet, but not given enough carbs, their live would suck quite a bit, they would loose muscle (but gain fat), not be able to think straight, etc. Its all fascinating stuff.

I would suggest trying a full water fast for at least 2 days to see how it goes. For me its much less stressful, and after I get rid of all the carbs (24-48 hours, depending on what I was eating before) I would blissfully operate without any problems, including heavy fitness and programming tasks.

And when I get to a point of too little glucose in my brain, because I had to fix a tricky bug, instead of searching for that chocolate treat, I’ll just sit for a but for 5-10 minutes, and let my body break down some of my fat to make more brain juice to operate normally.

You are right though that people are different and this is a fricking complex stuff, and might not work for you, just wanted to mention that there might be more you can try.

[1] https://youtu.be/APZCfmgzoS0

Its not 'no sugar' diet. More of what you seem to be doing.