By now, you’re well aware of the dangers sugar poses to your health. From feeding inflammation in your body, to shutting down your immune system, to ageing your brain; there are a plethora of reasons why you would want to eliminate sugar from your diet.

When you consume sugar, your body releases insulin in response, raising your blood glucose providing you with immediate energy to use. Any unused energy gets stored as fat (typically around your belly, waist, or hips—depending on body type.) After a short time, the energy has been quickly expended leading into a mental and/or physical fatigue. Your body misses the dopamine released from the sugar consumed, therefore craving more sugar and completing the sugar crash cycle.

But rather than sulking about how difficult it is to avoid sweets and all the terrible things sugar does to you, let’s dive into some positive actions you have full control over. I’m going to share with you my top 5 strategies to eliminate sugar from your diet—without feeling hangry or depriving yourself of delicious tastes.

For those who love dessert, indulging in real dark chocolate— (try for 85% cacao or higher) delivers health benefits from the extremely bitter cacao beans. They are packed with micronutrients like magnesium, potassium, iron, plus the bitter taste will help to counter your sugar cravings. If you really want to be adventurous, try substituting chocolate entirely for organic raw cacao nibs and get all the benefits of the cacao bean to decrease your sugar cravings even more. No added sugars allowed!

Every meal you consume—even snacks, should be macronutrient balanced. This means balancing protein, healthy fats, and fibrous leafy greens to reduce blood glucose from spiking from any sugars and carbohydrates you consume. For example, a handful of blueberries could be accompanied with nuts or seeds (alternatively, nut or seed butters) to incorporate healthy fats and protein to the snack. This addition will help sustain energy and avoid the inevitable sugar crash that follows consuming simple carbohydrates and other sweets. If you’re like me and don’t like to waste time, having two or three fully balanced meals in a day eliminates the need to snack throughout the day or eat numerous small meals every few hours.

A big reason why it’s so hard to quit sugar is that it’s been snuck into all our foods over the last several decades. Remember when low fat yogurt didn’t exist? A full fat yogurt with no sugar added keeps you feeling full, satiated, and combats sugar cravings. More solutions include making your own salad dressing with products like MCT oil or extra virgin olive oil, avoiding mystery sauces when eating out, and sticking to tasty staples like grass fed butter, organic virgin coconut oil, and fresh avocado to keep sugar away without compromising taste.

For long term success, following a low carbohydrate, high fat ketogenic diet is the perfect anti-sugar diet and a great way to cut sugar out indefinitely. It works by attaining a state of nutritional ketosis which means transitioning your body from running on glucose for energy to burning fatty acids called ketones for energy. Not only does going keto cut out simple and refined sugars, but it also limits your daily carbohydrate intake to effectively lower insulin spikes and eliminate almost all foods that turn into glucose, sucrose, and fructose when digested.

Challenge yourself to see how long you can go without sugar. Set a deadline by when you want to be sugar free. Start with a goal of one week. Make it a game against your own will power. All of these strategies will make it a fun challenge rather than leaving you feeling deprived or restricted. It may help to categorize sugar in small groups to remove at a time like candies, white table sugar, refined grains, etc. Then move onto limiting yourself to only the natural sugars like 100% pure maple syrup, natural honey, blackstrap molasses, and low sugar fruits like berries.