Including the previous sentence, how come the past tense "gave" and "look" were used here, while he's talking about the hypothetical situation?
Native speaker’s answer
Rebecca
In this sentence, he actually is not using the hypothetical situation, but he is referencing an actual experience he had where he gave up sugar. So in this case, it is okay for him to use the past tense "gave" and "looked" since this experience of his happened in the past.