Why would you want to avoid sugar?
It's not so much avoiding ALL sugars - It's the refined/processed (pure) sugar that they put in so many foods - especially drinks and sweet 'treat' foods such as cakes, cookies etc...
Sugars that occur naturally in fruit and veg, not being so bad....
I was around 295 lbs as I approached 50yrs - then had a blood-pressure scare (stupidly high numbers)
I had basically been 'comfort' eating through most of my 40s due to my marriage being effectively done.
Doc told me I was a walking time-bomb and could basically have a heart-attack and drop dead at any moment if I continued.
He also told me that losing a significant amount of weight would do me far more good than the B-P pills he was giving me....
My diet was FULL of refined/processed sugars at the time, so I dumped it as completely as was practical - I lost 85 lbs in the first 9 months, and went on to eventually lose a total of 110 lbs after getting back into cycling when I got to around 210 lbs.
I had no idea just how much of a lag effect sugar was having on me until I got rid of the refined stuff from my diet.
When losing weight I was worried that I might start to look gaunt, and might be left with hanging skin - like so many who lose a lot of weight suffer from.... It never happened.... I don't even have stretch marks (A friend of mine who lost 80lbs in a year ended up with terrible stretch marks)
I've gone from looking my age, maybe a little older, when I was 50 - to now where I'm regularly told I look early-mid 40s (12-15 yrs younger than I am)
I'm not just lighter and fitter - I sleep MUCH better.... The guy in my pants now responds just like it did when I was 30.....
(Having the physical response of a 30yr-old, combined with the experience and self-control of a 50-something makes a guy a MUCH better prospect for a woman - LOL)
Oh, and a weird, unexpected one.... My hair colour came back. I'd gone almost completely grey during my 40s, but in the first 6-8 months of going no-sugar, my natural 'mouse-brown' colour gradually returned - Even my doctor was baffled by that one.... but the girl who cuts my hair reckons she's seen it a few times in guys who had drastically improved their diet.
Personally, I think the grey could have been yet another result of the lag-effect from processed sugars....
Processed sugar is basically the food equivalent of Satan IMHO.