Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and sugar in our bodies share some interesting similarities. They both are natural and they both can be regulated in normal cycles. They can also both go haywire.
CO2, Sugar, And The Slow Creep
On earth, carbon dioxide is expelled into the atmosphere from various sources. We humans do it through respiration and through our activities. But carbon dioxide is also extracted from the air, thanks largely to plants, among other things. The cycle would work well as long as carbon extractors could keep pace with carbon emitters. As we know though, there is more carbon going into the air than coming out currently, and that build-up is a problem.
Sugar in our bodies can be imagined in a similar way. If the amount of sugar that you regularly consume is low enough, your body can process it without major problems. If, however, your consumption is above that level then your body starts having trouble. The excess calories that come with high sugar intake can lead to weight gain. Further, there are associations between excess sugar consumption and unhealthy metabolic changes such as high cholesterol, fatty liver disease, and chronic inflammation.1 The body simply becomes overwhelmed with the chronic exposure.
Reduction Is Do-able, When We Finally Want To
The tricky thing with both of these scenarios is that it is the slow build-up over time that matters, and that build-up is largely invisible. You don’t see the CO2 in the atmosphere and it takes many years for noticeable consequences to occur. The same goes for sugar. The weight gain and the metabolic changes creep up over years. You can go decades (your childhood, teens and twenties) before things start really adding up and changes become visible (your thirties and beyond).
The good news, to finish the analogy, is that these two problems are also similar in their solution: reduce, reduce, reduce. It is not realistic to eliminate either sugar or carbon emissions entirely, but it is also not necessary. There are tolerable limits to both, they just happen to be much, much lower than they currently are. To get them down, we just need a plan.
With sugar, track your food to get a sense of how much is in your typical day. Once you have that information, structure a plan around it. What are the easiest ways to reduce sugar? What are the hard ones? What goals can you reasonably set for yourself and what are the shortcuts to help get you there? Carbon is basically the same. How much do you drive and can it be reduced? How efficient is your home? How about the building where you work? And of course, don’t forget the crown jewel: where do your sugar consumption and your carbon emissions come together? Are you eating a lot of processed foods that are both high in sugar and in environmental impact? Can you switch from the supermarket to the farmers’ market?