The end has arrived and with it I find myself writing my last blog and testament! The last 8 weeks has been awful at times (that sugar hangover was something I never need to experience in my life again, and I won't deny it was hard on a number of occasions to say to sweet food, especially homemade desserts - I'm a sucker for homemade desserts, I blame my mother for spoiling us with amazing home-made desserts throughout my life). At the same time, it has been such a great experience and such an eye opener to me about how much sugar I was eating and the effect it had on me without me even knowing.
You may remember when I started this program I had a number of goals I wanted to achieve. One of these goals was related to my digestive health. Well, I am pleased to announce that for the first time in about 9 years my life has not been controlled by my digestive system. Prior to starting this program, my Irritable Bowel Syndrome (ya I know wishy washy term for we have no idea what's wrong with you but your digestive system is broken) was starting to really take over my life, I never knew when it would strike, and when it did it was awful. Over the past 8 weeks I have lived a life predominately IBS free (there was one day when I think I just ate too much which was my own fault really), and if nothing else then that alone has changed my life for the better.
However, there is more. I am unfortunately one of this people who when you cover my face from the nose up looks like a teenager with a big acne covered chin, and when you cover from the nose down look like an old lady with big crow's feet eyes and dark circles under my eyes. Over the past few weeks, for the first time since I was about ten, I have had minimal to no acne on my skin (giving up sugar has been great but not great enough to rid me of the dreaded wrinkles unfortunately). I have noticed that I no longer have those yucky lumpy hidden acne spotty things under my chin, and I have so much fewer break outs on my face it's great! Please don't look too closely at my skin next time you see me though because while it is a big change for me, I still haven't got an amazingly beautiful complexion:)
Over the past few weeks I have also noticed a massive improvement to my energy levels. I find that my energy is steady all the time, and I no longer suffer from the 3pm slump where I feel the absolute need in my life to have something sugary to get me through the final hours at work without dying or yelling at someone. The one disadvantage to this that I have found is that when you are genuinely tired (or hungover as the case may be), you really just have to deal with it without being able to reach for a quick fix like a soft drink or a chocolate bar. In saying that, fruit does seem to semi hit that spot more so than it ever did before.
I guess the one thing that most people will be interested in is related to any weight loss I may have had throughout the program. The day I started the program I took all my measurements, and weighed myself. I am please to announce that I have lost 6cm from my waist, 3cm from my hips and 3cm from my rather large arse. All up I lost 3.5kgs and had a Dexa Scan done pre and post program and have lost 2% of my body fat (which may not seem much but it's 2% in the right direction).
I have to say of all the "diets" I've ever done in my lifelong mission as a female who is unhappy with her shape (isn't that about 90% of us!), this is the easiest, and the one that I really think I can maintain in the long run. When I finished the program on Saturday, someone asked was I going to eat something sweet, and the simple answer was no, I don't actually want to because I feel so good when I have been avoiding sugar. My goal now is to make it to Christmas before I have something sugary, and then to enjoy a nice mince pie, hopefully without then needing to follow that one mince pie with about ten more, and maybe one or two Cadburys Roses without finishing the tin in one sitting!
I have had some really yummy food throughout this program, and think it may be the best $150 I have ever invested into my health. I have learned that sesame seeds make anything more interesting, that olive oil and lime/lemon/ginger is a yummy salad dressing, that greek yogurt and lamb are actually tasty (maybe not together but who knows may I should try it), that avocado and feta is like some sort of amazing combination of breakfast yumminess, and that I can satisfy my dessert stomach without needing to eat a family size bar of chocolate.
When I started this program, I decided to do this blog to help keep me accountable, and I think it really has. There have been a number of times where I have literally wanted to throw in the cards, and then I would see people's support for me on my blog and think, well I can't tell all those people I've failed, and so I kept on keeping on. I would like to thank you all for this support and for reading my blog and keeping me motivated. Here's hoping that I can keep going for the next 7 weeks and reach my goal of getting to Christmas while maintaining my sugar free life style. Thanks for reading and supporting me everybody, you guys rock.
Wednesday 2 November 2016
Sunday 23 October 2016
The Final Countdown
Week 8 - eeeek! I may have mentioned before on a few occasions that I'm not looking forward to this program finishing, and as I sit here writing my second last blog entry I really and truly am not looking forward to it! This week, to prepare myself and eliminate all temptation from the house before the end of the program, I spent some time emptying my cupboard and fridge of everything that contained more than 5g of sugar per 100g. There was a lot!!!! I filled half a bin with bottles of stuff that was over half empty (mayonnaise, salad dressing, tomato ketchup...the list goes on). Then I filled a big bag with everything else and brought it into work because hey I'm sure my work colleagues will love me for sharing my sugar with them - it was like a thank you gift really for putting up with my sugar hangover and annoying conversation over the past few weeks.
One of the hardest things I had to decide to bring in was this AMAZING caramel sauce, which was meant to be used sparingly but pre giving up sugar Morag used to eat it with a spoon straight from the jar (have I mentioned it was amazing), I just had to get it out of the fridge so the temptation wasn't there. I even (this is a big move) gave Adam (my partner) permission to eat the remainder of the Irish chocolate in the fridge which I generally as a rule do not let him touch because he doesn't have a good enough appreciation for how yummy and creamy Irish chocolate is compared to Australian stuff, and it just annoys me!
After emptying the fridge it meant I had to then rebuy some stuff, like mayonnaise, so I went for a half day trip to Coles to read the labels on everything I needed and figure out what products contained the lowest sugar quantities and what had no added sugar. It was hard, and it was long, and I thought they were gonna actually kick me out of the shop for hanging around the mayonnaise section for 2 hours reading every label, but I got there and now pretty much most of everything in my house contains less than 5g of sugar per 100g. I have never been so organised about food labels and food stuff in my life - hopefully it helps:)
Yesterday, I went to a baby shower for my beautiful friend, where we went to a lovely high tea. The reason I'm mentioning this is because there was both myself and another friend of mine who are doing the I Quit Sugar program, and so I wanted to see if they would be able to cater for us with a sugar/fructose free menu. On Wednesday I rang up and tried to organise this, which resulted in a very interesting conversation where the lady ended up telling me that she was sure all the cakes were made with fructose free sugar, and then when we actually got there, the waitress told me that they were fructose free - trust me on this, without knowing the ingredients I knew from looking at these cakes they were NOT fructose free, so I just ate some sandwiches and ignored the scones and cakes - I survived:) It did make me think though that about 5 years ago, if you asked for gluten or dairy free at a restaurant you probably had only one choice, or maybe even none, whereas now there are so many choices for people who are gluten or lactose free. So maybe in 5 years time having "sugar free" options on a menu will be the norm as it becomes more and more apparent that sugar isn't really that good for you!
Last Sunday, we had the most amazing dinner I have had on the program. I am not the biggest lamb fan (I know very un-Australian isn't it - a true sign I will always be Irish to the core and never be able to give that up), but this meal semi-converted me into a lamb lover. It was so yummy. Unfortunately we are not meant to share the recipes with people and I tried to google it to see if anyone else had ever shared it and then technically it's not my fault, but unfortunately they haven't. I did fid someone who had shared a photo of it though so I will share their photo instead (mine wouldn't have won any award for presentation so this one actually looks as yummy as it tasted). It was a Persian slow-cooked lamb with herb and pistachio pilaf, made with "fake rice" (aka quinoa), and it was one of the nicest meals I have ever made (I must add I'm not a very good cook so it may not actually be a proper reflection of how nice the meal was).
One of the hardest things I had to decide to bring in was this AMAZING caramel sauce, which was meant to be used sparingly but pre giving up sugar Morag used to eat it with a spoon straight from the jar (have I mentioned it was amazing), I just had to get it out of the fridge so the temptation wasn't there. I even (this is a big move) gave Adam (my partner) permission to eat the remainder of the Irish chocolate in the fridge which I generally as a rule do not let him touch because he doesn't have a good enough appreciation for how yummy and creamy Irish chocolate is compared to Australian stuff, and it just annoys me!
After emptying the fridge it meant I had to then rebuy some stuff, like mayonnaise, so I went for a half day trip to Coles to read the labels on everything I needed and figure out what products contained the lowest sugar quantities and what had no added sugar. It was hard, and it was long, and I thought they were gonna actually kick me out of the shop for hanging around the mayonnaise section for 2 hours reading every label, but I got there and now pretty much most of everything in my house contains less than 5g of sugar per 100g. I have never been so organised about food labels and food stuff in my life - hopefully it helps:)
Yesterday, I went to a baby shower for my beautiful friend, where we went to a lovely high tea. The reason I'm mentioning this is because there was both myself and another friend of mine who are doing the I Quit Sugar program, and so I wanted to see if they would be able to cater for us with a sugar/fructose free menu. On Wednesday I rang up and tried to organise this, which resulted in a very interesting conversation where the lady ended up telling me that she was sure all the cakes were made with fructose free sugar, and then when we actually got there, the waitress told me that they were fructose free - trust me on this, without knowing the ingredients I knew from looking at these cakes they were NOT fructose free, so I just ate some sandwiches and ignored the scones and cakes - I survived:) It did make me think though that about 5 years ago, if you asked for gluten or dairy free at a restaurant you probably had only one choice, or maybe even none, whereas now there are so many choices for people who are gluten or lactose free. So maybe in 5 years time having "sugar free" options on a menu will be the norm as it becomes more and more apparent that sugar isn't really that good for you!
Last Sunday, we had the most amazing dinner I have had on the program. I am not the biggest lamb fan (I know very un-Australian isn't it - a true sign I will always be Irish to the core and never be able to give that up), but this meal semi-converted me into a lamb lover. It was so yummy. Unfortunately we are not meant to share the recipes with people and I tried to google it to see if anyone else had ever shared it and then technically it's not my fault, but unfortunately they haven't. I did fid someone who had shared a photo of it though so I will share their photo instead (mine wouldn't have won any award for presentation so this one actually looks as yummy as it tasted). It was a Persian slow-cooked lamb with herb and pistachio pilaf, made with "fake rice" (aka quinoa), and it was one of the nicest meals I have ever made (I must add I'm not a very good cook so it may not actually be a proper reflection of how nice the meal was).
I now plan on spending the week organising all my recipes that I have been given in the 8 week program into yes I like it and no that was awful I will never eat that again. I also bought the book Simplicious, which has a photo of Sarah Wilson looking super amazing on the front and made me think that I too could look super amazing if I buy the book, it is full of some absolutely yummy looking recipes though so hopefully I will be able to maintain a sugar free lifestyle equipped with all these recipes and knowledge, and one day I too will look as glamorous and healthy as Sarah Wilson, I'm sure that's how it works:)
Again, thanks for reading, the next time will be the last blog:)
Tuesday 18 October 2016
Goodbye to the dessert stomach (for now at least)
With that I find myself at the beginning of week 7 of an 8 week program that I was dreading starting and now I'm dreading it finishing. You may find this post a little short and boring compared to any of my other posts (not that I think the rest were amazingly interesting or anything but they probably were compared to this one - apologies), and really that's just because the whole "no sugar" thing has been really easy for me this week, kinda like it's part of my life now, which is what I hoped all along. The reason I am dreading it coming to an end is that I really fear how I will manage when I'm not been told what to eat and when, but I think I should be able to manage.
A few things have happened this week which I will mention. The first was I ate a banana. Now this is something that may seem ridiculously boring to you, but it was not completely boring to me. It was, no word of a lie, the most amazing banana I have ever eaten in my life. If you have been following the blogs then you will know that I have a "mild" obsession with bananas, and it has been probably the biggest struggle of the whole no sugar thing my 4 weeks without an amazing banana. So, all week once we were allowed to eat fruit, I was waiting for the perfect banana eating moment, and this came after I finished work on Sunday and went and bought myself a reward for surviving a day at work (sometimes at 730am I wonder if the whole survival of work thing is possible and when I make it I feel the need for a reward!). It was probably the best reward for surviving a day at work ever (well maybe not ever but at least in the last few months anyways), it truly was as good as I had remembered, if not better:)
The second thing that happened was that I went out to dinner, and had the yummiest dinner which would usually be followed by a lovely dessert in true Morag "I have a second stomach for dessert" fashion. After we were finished dinner (no sauces or added sugars I promise), the waitress came and asked did we want dessert and I didn't even have to think about it, or look at the menu and lust after what I couldn't have or moan about how my life is so hard because I can't have something, I genuinely didn't want dessert. This may not seem a big deal to everybody, but anybody who has ever eaten out (or in) with me will know that dessert plays a massive part in my life, I generally look at the dessert menu before the main course so I can make a truly informed decision, so to not actually want dessert well that is massive I tell you!!!
This week I also received an e-mail from my dad with a link to an article he had read in the paper about what happens when you remove sugar from your diet. This excited me for two reasons, one being that it helped me see that what I was doing wasn't for nothing. This article discussed the research that was done on 43 obese children found that after just 9 days the children's insulin levels dropped and their cholesterol improved. For anyone who is interested in reading the newspaper article here is the link: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/removing-sugar-from-diet-for-just-nine-days-can-have-dramatic-results-new-study-claims-a6710521.html?cmpid=facebook-post.
The second reason this excited me was because it made me really happy to know that my dad was following my journey (at least I assume he is), and that he was also reading a little around the subject. It made me realise a little that my blog may be making people think a little more about their sugar intake, and what impact it may be having on them. I have had a few people say that my blog "inspired" them, which kind of makes me giggle as I don't think I'm a person to inspire anybody, but from everything I have read about sugar, it makes me think that if even half a dozen people who have been reading my blog reduce their sugar intake by a few teaspoons a day then that's just great and it makes me happy! I do know that quitting sugar isn't for everyone though, so don't feel you need to feel guilty about eating sugar, or justify why you want to keep eating sugar to me.
Anyways, I did say it wasn't going to be a very interesting blog, like I say this week has been easy and there's not much to say about it. I intend to enjoy the next two weeks on the program, and hopefully I will be as positive about the whole thing in my last blog in two weeks. Thanks for reading, until next time!
A few things have happened this week which I will mention. The first was I ate a banana. Now this is something that may seem ridiculously boring to you, but it was not completely boring to me. It was, no word of a lie, the most amazing banana I have ever eaten in my life. If you have been following the blogs then you will know that I have a "mild" obsession with bananas, and it has been probably the biggest struggle of the whole no sugar thing my 4 weeks without an amazing banana. So, all week once we were allowed to eat fruit, I was waiting for the perfect banana eating moment, and this came after I finished work on Sunday and went and bought myself a reward for surviving a day at work (sometimes at 730am I wonder if the whole survival of work thing is possible and when I make it I feel the need for a reward!). It was probably the best reward for surviving a day at work ever (well maybe not ever but at least in the last few months anyways), it truly was as good as I had remembered, if not better:)
The second thing that happened was that I went out to dinner, and had the yummiest dinner which would usually be followed by a lovely dessert in true Morag "I have a second stomach for dessert" fashion. After we were finished dinner (no sauces or added sugars I promise), the waitress came and asked did we want dessert and I didn't even have to think about it, or look at the menu and lust after what I couldn't have or moan about how my life is so hard because I can't have something, I genuinely didn't want dessert. This may not seem a big deal to everybody, but anybody who has ever eaten out (or in) with me will know that dessert plays a massive part in my life, I generally look at the dessert menu before the main course so I can make a truly informed decision, so to not actually want dessert well that is massive I tell you!!!
This week I also received an e-mail from my dad with a link to an article he had read in the paper about what happens when you remove sugar from your diet. This excited me for two reasons, one being that it helped me see that what I was doing wasn't for nothing. This article discussed the research that was done on 43 obese children found that after just 9 days the children's insulin levels dropped and their cholesterol improved. For anyone who is interested in reading the newspaper article here is the link: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/removing-sugar-from-diet-for-just-nine-days-can-have-dramatic-results-new-study-claims-a6710521.html?cmpid=facebook-post.
The second reason this excited me was because it made me really happy to know that my dad was following my journey (at least I assume he is), and that he was also reading a little around the subject. It made me realise a little that my blog may be making people think a little more about their sugar intake, and what impact it may be having on them. I have had a few people say that my blog "inspired" them, which kind of makes me giggle as I don't think I'm a person to inspire anybody, but from everything I have read about sugar, it makes me think that if even half a dozen people who have been reading my blog reduce their sugar intake by a few teaspoons a day then that's just great and it makes me happy! I do know that quitting sugar isn't for everyone though, so don't feel you need to feel guilty about eating sugar, or justify why you want to keep eating sugar to me.
Anyways, I did say it wasn't going to be a very interesting blog, like I say this week has been easy and there's not much to say about it. I intend to enjoy the next two weeks on the program, and hopefully I will be as positive about the whole thing in my last blog in two weeks. Thanks for reading, until next time!
Tuesday 11 October 2016
The Amazingness of an Apple
With that I find myself at the beginning of week 6. I have had a lot of people ask if I am looking forward to the program coming to an end, but to be honest I'm not I'm actually very nervous about the whole thing. I have found it so easy over the last few weeks to not eat sugar and to make sure I am just having real food because I am told what to eat for every meal of the day, and I have been pretty strict with eating exactly to the meal plan, except when out for dinner or something. Now the end is drawing near, with it is the knowledge that I will have to take responsibility for deciding what I eat, and making sure I continue with the good habits I have developed, and given my past history with eating I am a bit nervous about it all. I guess only time will tell, but hopefully I will be able to keep it up given I know how good I feel while eating what I am eating at present.
So you may be wondering how I am going. Well, up to this weekend it was going great, and I hadn't had any major sugar cravings for a while, and then came Saturday evening. For a reason completely unknown to be (maybe because I am a woman and it's my prerogative to decide how I feel and when and I don't need any particular reason the reason can simply be "just because"), on Saturday evening I was really sad, and with that sadness came this massive craving for something sweet (because lets be honest, sadness is always cured with sugary goodness isn't it???), and so came a 24 hours long quest to fulfil my sugar cravings and end my sadness.
Firstly, I ate every single piece of cheese in the house, because I'm sure there's some dietary rule about how eating a tonne of cheese can also cure sadness, however this didn't work. So then I turned to my good friend google who suggested a few things such as: Go for a walk - seriously I want sugar, how on earth does walking curb that?; Eat some almonds - ya definitely not the same thing; Try meditation - seriously who writes this stuff? Mediating means all I'm doing is sitting in silence imaging chocolate and how amazing it is. The worst one, and the one that made me just give up on google altogether was to suggest I drink a glass of water, now I don't know what type of water came out of this persons tap, but mine certainly does not curb sugar cravings or cure sadness.
After about 24 hours, I decided to make some "Sweet Potato Protein Balls" which was a recipe that was provided by the program. I don't know why I held out so much hope for these protein balls given I knew exactly what went into them (which was basically some sweet potato and pumpkin puree, coconut flour and oil, and some crushed almonds), but I really did think they would help my cravings. So I made them, and put them in the fridge to set, and then came the moment of truth, finally my cravings would be gone with these amazing protein balls. THEY WERE AWFUL!!!! Why oh why did I think something that had sweet potato and pumpkin would taste the same as chocolate. It was like having dinner for dessert, and it was not pleasant. I know there are people out there that have replaced chocolate with food like this, and I was really hoping I would become one of these, but I failed, it was awful. I do not understand how anyone can enjoy food like this (if there is anyone who has found something extremely tasty and "healthy" please feel free to share your recipe as I still hold out some hope). In the end I drank two glasses of wine and went to bed, my good friend wine didn't let me down, not like my sweet potato protein balls!!!
After all that, Monday rolled around, and with it the reintroduction of fruit for the first time in 4 weeks, and boy was I excited! All day at work I was deciding what fruit to have for my first piece, it was a tough choice, I am a bit boring in my fruit eating, so it was a choice of a banana, an apple or some strawberries, but it was still tough. In the end I decided on the apple. I was a bit nervous (who knew eating fruit could be so stressful), in case it was one of those ones that looked good on the outside, and then when you cut into it was all powdery and yuck, but the apple did not let me down (not like the protein balls - think I'm scared for life from those). It was every bit as good as I imagined it, if not better. I actually think I was so vocal about it the neighbours probably wondered what was going on, if only they knew all that noise was over an apple they would have officially tipped me over into the mental health category, but I don't care I loved it. It tasted so sweet and crispy, and definitely satisfied the sugar cravings (in hindsight I should have broken the fruit rule a day earlier and eaten some on Sunday). I still haven't allowed myself to eat my favourite banana as I am a bit fearful it may not taste as good as I remember, maybe that can be tomorrows treat.
On a serious note, did you know today was World Obesity Day. As a result of this I have had a whole heap of stuff pop up on my FB feed about the link between obesity and sugar intake. Some of the interesting facts that have popped up on my feed today include:
So you may be wondering how I am going. Well, up to this weekend it was going great, and I hadn't had any major sugar cravings for a while, and then came Saturday evening. For a reason completely unknown to be (maybe because I am a woman and it's my prerogative to decide how I feel and when and I don't need any particular reason the reason can simply be "just because"), on Saturday evening I was really sad, and with that sadness came this massive craving for something sweet (because lets be honest, sadness is always cured with sugary goodness isn't it???), and so came a 24 hours long quest to fulfil my sugar cravings and end my sadness.
Firstly, I ate every single piece of cheese in the house, because I'm sure there's some dietary rule about how eating a tonne of cheese can also cure sadness, however this didn't work. So then I turned to my good friend google who suggested a few things such as: Go for a walk - seriously I want sugar, how on earth does walking curb that?; Eat some almonds - ya definitely not the same thing; Try meditation - seriously who writes this stuff? Mediating means all I'm doing is sitting in silence imaging chocolate and how amazing it is. The worst one, and the one that made me just give up on google altogether was to suggest I drink a glass of water, now I don't know what type of water came out of this persons tap, but mine certainly does not curb sugar cravings or cure sadness.
After about 24 hours, I decided to make some "Sweet Potato Protein Balls" which was a recipe that was provided by the program. I don't know why I held out so much hope for these protein balls given I knew exactly what went into them (which was basically some sweet potato and pumpkin puree, coconut flour and oil, and some crushed almonds), but I really did think they would help my cravings. So I made them, and put them in the fridge to set, and then came the moment of truth, finally my cravings would be gone with these amazing protein balls. THEY WERE AWFUL!!!! Why oh why did I think something that had sweet potato and pumpkin would taste the same as chocolate. It was like having dinner for dessert, and it was not pleasant. I know there are people out there that have replaced chocolate with food like this, and I was really hoping I would become one of these, but I failed, it was awful. I do not understand how anyone can enjoy food like this (if there is anyone who has found something extremely tasty and "healthy" please feel free to share your recipe as I still hold out some hope). In the end I drank two glasses of wine and went to bed, my good friend wine didn't let me down, not like my sweet potato protein balls!!!
After all that, Monday rolled around, and with it the reintroduction of fruit for the first time in 4 weeks, and boy was I excited! All day at work I was deciding what fruit to have for my first piece, it was a tough choice, I am a bit boring in my fruit eating, so it was a choice of a banana, an apple or some strawberries, but it was still tough. In the end I decided on the apple. I was a bit nervous (who knew eating fruit could be so stressful), in case it was one of those ones that looked good on the outside, and then when you cut into it was all powdery and yuck, but the apple did not let me down (not like the protein balls - think I'm scared for life from those). It was every bit as good as I imagined it, if not better. I actually think I was so vocal about it the neighbours probably wondered what was going on, if only they knew all that noise was over an apple they would have officially tipped me over into the mental health category, but I don't care I loved it. It tasted so sweet and crispy, and definitely satisfied the sugar cravings (in hindsight I should have broken the fruit rule a day earlier and eaten some on Sunday). I still haven't allowed myself to eat my favourite banana as I am a bit fearful it may not taste as good as I remember, maybe that can be tomorrows treat.
On a serious note, did you know today was World Obesity Day. As a result of this I have had a whole heap of stuff pop up on my FB feed about the link between obesity and sugar intake. Some of the interesting facts that have popped up on my feed today include:
- In Australia, we are consuming 22kg of added sugar each year
- There is a direct link between sugary drink consumption and obesity, dental cavities and Type 2 diabetes
- 1 in 3 Aussie children will be overweight or obese by 2025
- Adult-onset diabetes (Type 2 diabetes) is on the rise in children and young people
- Today, 280 Australians will be diagnosed with all types of diabetes
Now I don't know about you, but these stats scare me. It is something that we can do something quite easily to avoid, and yet people don't seem to want to do anything about it (I myself am guilty of this). One interesting thing that did pop up on my feed was about a campaign called "Sugar by Half", which is been established to try and encourage people to cut their added sugar by half in order to improve their health outcomes. Their webpage has a lot of info and support for anyone who may be interested in seeing how this can be done easily i your everyday life, have a look if you are interested, you may learn something:
I will sign off here, I may even go eat some banana who knows. Until next time, thanks for reading:)
Tuesday 4 October 2016
"Sure calories don't count on holiday, do they???"
Without even realising it I have found myself over half way through the 8 week program. Having traditionally counted down the days til I finish every single healthy eating/diet plan/mission to look like a super model by ticking them off on the calendar it actually came as a bit of a surprise when I realised that this was the mid way point. To celebrate my mid way through the 8 week program, I just spent the weekend in Adelaide, visiting wineries with two amazing ladies in my life. To be honest, I have been looking forward to this weekend for so long, for obvious reasons, given some of my favourite things include consuming copious amounts of wine and talking complete waffle with these particular ladies, however, I was also secretly dreading it, as usually weekend away coupled with a lot of wine equals eating a whole heap of crap. I had done 4 weeks of just eating real food, and I was a bit nervous this weekend would throw the whole thing out the window.
My plan for the weekend was to try to eat as healthy as I could for most of the time to make up for all the wine I was consuming. I know that I have previously said that you can have wine on the IQS program as it does not contain fructose, however, this rule probably doesn't run true for the amount of wine I consumed this weekend - it was a one off, I'm usually so responsible as anyone who has ever drunk with me with vouch for, but I was in the home of wine...and when in Rome and all that!! However, it was a real mind game for me to eat healthy all weekend.
One of my favourite sayings while on holidays is "sure calories don't count on holidays", and I generally use this saying to justify my over consumption of ice-cream (usually consumed at least daily), pancakes for breakfast (may have ice cream as a side), and chocolate (which may sometimes be melted over ice-cream) because well I'm on holidays aren't I! So this weekend, I found it really hard to ignore the chocolate shops (which Adelaide has a bout a million of), and say no to the ice-cream (which was made easier by the fact the weather was awful so I didn't actually feel like it was ice-cream weather). I did have one moment though when we were in one of the wineries, and I decided to try some dessert wine, I took on tiny sip and thought it tasted like the sweetest syrup I had ever tasted and couldn't drink anymore, so I think my taste buds must be changing. Apart from this one moment, to the best of my knowledge, I survived the weekend away without consuming any added sugar.
On a different note, I wanted to mention an article I read this morning in the paper about a new type of eating disorder called "orthorexia nervosa", I feel like this is some sort of makey upy term to be honest, but the article did make me think. Basically, this disorder is based on people, particularly young people, who become obsessed with "righteous eating", and refusing to eat foods such as gluten and dairy, and loosing sleep if they eat a small biscuit, etc. which causes psychological distress to the people.
While reading the article, it made me think about my goals of doing this program. I know at the moment I am pretty strict on what I will and won't eat, but that is because I am doing an 8 week program. I think I have mentioned before that I don't want to be that awful friend who comes to dinner and demands my food preferences be met, you know "that" friend (everyone has at least one), the one who never gets asked back because it's too hard to make a whole "fructose free meal". I think overall, after all the reading around the subject I have been doing, my aim is to maintain a kind of 80/20 type relationship with food, whereby for 80% of the time I will eat "real food", so that when needs arise, I can let my hair down and enjoy myself without the risk of "orthorexia nervosa" and loosing sleep because I ate a slice of cake when I went out to commiserate that I am getting older without even trying too hard or something silly like that.
I will sign off now, with a small note about how excited I am that I will be allowed eat fruit next week, that is something that I am truly looking forward to. I hope bananas still taste as good as I remember them! Thanks for reading:)
My plan for the weekend was to try to eat as healthy as I could for most of the time to make up for all the wine I was consuming. I know that I have previously said that you can have wine on the IQS program as it does not contain fructose, however, this rule probably doesn't run true for the amount of wine I consumed this weekend - it was a one off, I'm usually so responsible as anyone who has ever drunk with me with vouch for, but I was in the home of wine...and when in Rome and all that!! However, it was a real mind game for me to eat healthy all weekend.
One of my favourite sayings while on holidays is "sure calories don't count on holidays", and I generally use this saying to justify my over consumption of ice-cream (usually consumed at least daily), pancakes for breakfast (may have ice cream as a side), and chocolate (which may sometimes be melted over ice-cream) because well I'm on holidays aren't I! So this weekend, I found it really hard to ignore the chocolate shops (which Adelaide has a bout a million of), and say no to the ice-cream (which was made easier by the fact the weather was awful so I didn't actually feel like it was ice-cream weather). I did have one moment though when we were in one of the wineries, and I decided to try some dessert wine, I took on tiny sip and thought it tasted like the sweetest syrup I had ever tasted and couldn't drink anymore, so I think my taste buds must be changing. Apart from this one moment, to the best of my knowledge, I survived the weekend away without consuming any added sugar.
On a different note, I wanted to mention an article I read this morning in the paper about a new type of eating disorder called "orthorexia nervosa", I feel like this is some sort of makey upy term to be honest, but the article did make me think. Basically, this disorder is based on people, particularly young people, who become obsessed with "righteous eating", and refusing to eat foods such as gluten and dairy, and loosing sleep if they eat a small biscuit, etc. which causes psychological distress to the people.
While reading the article, it made me think about my goals of doing this program. I know at the moment I am pretty strict on what I will and won't eat, but that is because I am doing an 8 week program. I think I have mentioned before that I don't want to be that awful friend who comes to dinner and demands my food preferences be met, you know "that" friend (everyone has at least one), the one who never gets asked back because it's too hard to make a whole "fructose free meal". I think overall, after all the reading around the subject I have been doing, my aim is to maintain a kind of 80/20 type relationship with food, whereby for 80% of the time I will eat "real food", so that when needs arise, I can let my hair down and enjoy myself without the risk of "orthorexia nervosa" and loosing sleep because I ate a slice of cake when I went out to commiserate that I am getting older without even trying too hard or something silly like that.
I will sign off now, with a small note about how excited I am that I will be allowed eat fruit next week, that is something that I am truly looking forward to. I hope bananas still taste as good as I remember them! Thanks for reading:)
Tuesday 27 September 2016
I'm not there yet, but I'm getting there!
Well, yesterday marked the start of week 4 of the I Quit Sugar Program, which means I am nearly half way through the 8 weeks. Over the last few weeks I have never had so much support and encouragement from people who are interested in my quitting sugar. Whether this be because they can't wait to see me fail so they can laugh and say "well there you go with your smug attitude about giving up sugar, it's not that easy after all", or whether they are actually are interested in how I'm doing I will never know, but either way I have had a lot of people ask how it's going and a lot of people following me on my journey. This is all great as it has helped me to be accountable. To be honest though there have been many moments in the last few weeks where I have cursed this blog - blogging is hard work! It's probably the hardest thing about quitting sugar (and that's saying something!), it's a big commitment, but like I say it's keeping me accountable, and so are all the people who are asking how it's going (whether this is for support or other reasons), so will keep it up. So let's answer the question then, how is it all going at the start of week 4.
You know those things that flash up on your Facebook or Instagram or something that say things like "It's not a short term diet, it's a long term lifestyle change", up to four weeks ago I used literally look at those and think are you for real. Throughout my adult life I have tried heaps of diets in my ever lasting quest to loose weight and look amazing (I'm a female it's what we do, we are always striving to be something we aren't, don't deny it you know it's true!). Anyways, I always looked at these things after I had spent three whole days eating nothing but plain rice cakes and lettuce and still not fitting into a pair of skinny jeans without a big muffin top hanging over the top and thought "are you for real, this is not a lifestyle change, this is torture, if I can't fit into my skinny jeans by Friday I'm giving up on this rubbish". Generally Friday would role around and with that the diet would be forgotten about because let's be honest it was awful and I was starving and sure I didn't loose 5 kilos in 5 days like the magazine promised so I was gonna quit.
The other day though one of those little quotey things that annoy me so much popped up and I thought, ya I get it I finally get it, I finally think this could be something that I can just see as normal. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I will never eat ice cream or chocolate or drink another cider again, that's just plain ridiculous. I do however think that I can maintain, for the majority of my life, the mantra of "Just Eating Real Food (JERF)" and only eating "naughty" foods on special occasions (which may sometimes end up being a Tuesday because work was rotten and someone made me cry and I just have the worst life in the world so I deserve a chocolate, and sometimes it will be my birthday where I'm sure sugar doesn't count so I can have an ice cream). One thing I have realised in the last few weeks is how easy it really is to just eat "real" food, and how you can make really tasty food without adding any sugar into it, and overall this is what I aspire that by the end of the program I will be able to continue with.
Before I gave up sugar I read some stories about people who said when they quit sugar it felt like the "fog" just left their heads, and I thought, well I'm not crazy I have no fog in my head, just intelligent thoughts all the time! Well it turns out I know exactly what they mean, because the fog has left my head, I feel like I can actually think clearer than I have for a long time and things don't seem to be as much effort as they usually are. I get to 3pm at work and I don't feel like I hit a brick wall, I can keep going. My legs feel lighter (they don't look lighter they just have a bit more energy). I have never been well known for my ability to rationalise, but I feel that I can rationalise ever so slightly better than usual which is probably a bonus and I'm sure people may appreciate this given I usually have a tendency to just speak and act with rationalising first! And my digestive system, which I did promise I would try to limit conversations about, is feeling so much better. Overall I feel good.
Don't get me wrong though, it's definitely not been all plain sailing. At the end of the day, it's only been 3 weeks. I still crave sweet food on occasion. I have sat at morning teas at work, or out with friends who are eating ice cream, or even just sitting at home with the dog on my own, and had moments where I have had to literally use my new ability to rationalise better to help convince myself to keep going and not give in to the sugar. I have dreamt about eating chocolate more than I ever have in my life. I have gone out to dinner and looked at the menu and seen what I would like to eat, and then had a closer look and seen what I can actually eat (note this is never the same thing). I have finished work on a Friday and really really really really wanted a cider (which is my big post working week treat), and just had to say no (FYI Cider has between 3 and 6 teaspoons per bottle bloody hell no wonder I could never loose weight!).
I have to remind myself that I have just started on this journey. I have had 31 years of creating a habit of having so much sugar in my diet, and only 22 days where I have been trying to break this habit. It's early days, and I will persist. For anyone out there who is think it is hard, I won't lie, it is, but it is also worth it, if for nothing else then just to say you are not addicted, you can do it. If you're thinking about it already, give it a go, even if just for a week.
And now for my new mantra:
You know those things that flash up on your Facebook or Instagram or something that say things like "It's not a short term diet, it's a long term lifestyle change", up to four weeks ago I used literally look at those and think are you for real. Throughout my adult life I have tried heaps of diets in my ever lasting quest to loose weight and look amazing (I'm a female it's what we do, we are always striving to be something we aren't, don't deny it you know it's true!). Anyways, I always looked at these things after I had spent three whole days eating nothing but plain rice cakes and lettuce and still not fitting into a pair of skinny jeans without a big muffin top hanging over the top and thought "are you for real, this is not a lifestyle change, this is torture, if I can't fit into my skinny jeans by Friday I'm giving up on this rubbish". Generally Friday would role around and with that the diet would be forgotten about because let's be honest it was awful and I was starving and sure I didn't loose 5 kilos in 5 days like the magazine promised so I was gonna quit.
The other day though one of those little quotey things that annoy me so much popped up and I thought, ya I get it I finally get it, I finally think this could be something that I can just see as normal. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I will never eat ice cream or chocolate or drink another cider again, that's just plain ridiculous. I do however think that I can maintain, for the majority of my life, the mantra of "Just Eating Real Food (JERF)" and only eating "naughty" foods on special occasions (which may sometimes end up being a Tuesday because work was rotten and someone made me cry and I just have the worst life in the world so I deserve a chocolate, and sometimes it will be my birthday where I'm sure sugar doesn't count so I can have an ice cream). One thing I have realised in the last few weeks is how easy it really is to just eat "real" food, and how you can make really tasty food without adding any sugar into it, and overall this is what I aspire that by the end of the program I will be able to continue with.
Before I gave up sugar I read some stories about people who said when they quit sugar it felt like the "fog" just left their heads, and I thought, well I'm not crazy I have no fog in my head, just intelligent thoughts all the time! Well it turns out I know exactly what they mean, because the fog has left my head, I feel like I can actually think clearer than I have for a long time and things don't seem to be as much effort as they usually are. I get to 3pm at work and I don't feel like I hit a brick wall, I can keep going. My legs feel lighter (they don't look lighter they just have a bit more energy). I have never been well known for my ability to rationalise, but I feel that I can rationalise ever so slightly better than usual which is probably a bonus and I'm sure people may appreciate this given I usually have a tendency to just speak and act with rationalising first! And my digestive system, which I did promise I would try to limit conversations about, is feeling so much better. Overall I feel good.
Don't get me wrong though, it's definitely not been all plain sailing. At the end of the day, it's only been 3 weeks. I still crave sweet food on occasion. I have sat at morning teas at work, or out with friends who are eating ice cream, or even just sitting at home with the dog on my own, and had moments where I have had to literally use my new ability to rationalise better to help convince myself to keep going and not give in to the sugar. I have dreamt about eating chocolate more than I ever have in my life. I have gone out to dinner and looked at the menu and seen what I would like to eat, and then had a closer look and seen what I can actually eat (note this is never the same thing). I have finished work on a Friday and really really really really wanted a cider (which is my big post working week treat), and just had to say no (FYI Cider has between 3 and 6 teaspoons per bottle bloody hell no wonder I could never loose weight!).
I have to remind myself that I have just started on this journey. I have had 31 years of creating a habit of having so much sugar in my diet, and only 22 days where I have been trying to break this habit. It's early days, and I will persist. For anyone out there who is think it is hard, I won't lie, it is, but it is also worth it, if for nothing else then just to say you are not addicted, you can do it. If you're thinking about it already, give it a go, even if just for a week.
And now for my new mantra:
Tuesday 20 September 2016
How on earth do I figure out how much sugar is in my food
Week 3 is here!!!! I have to admit there have been many occasions in the last few weeks where I didn't actually think I'd make it to week 3, but here I am, I have done 1/4 of the time of the sugar free program, I can't quit now! I did have some massive sugar cravings on the weekend. It started on Friday night when, out of the goodness of my heart (and my inability to throw out good food), I found myself making a banana bread that I knew I was going to be able to eat NONE of. When I stood with the banana in my hands I thought, I would give anything in the world to eat this right now. After about 10 mins of an argument between good and bad Morag on my shoulders, good Morag won and I didn't eat the banana (yay me). However, it was the start of 24 hours of imagining literally everything in the whole world was a bloody banana and literally drooling while having conversations with people as I thought they looked so banana like....luckily that passed! Also just realised this was the second time I have discussed my massive love of bananas in a blog.....never realised til now how much of an impact that little bit of yellow amaziness has on my life!!!
Apart from the strange banana cravings in my life, I have to admit it's going really well. I have had so many people say...you've inspired me, but I don't think I could do it. To be honest it's actually not that hard to do, once the first few weeks have passed. I am finding it easier and easier everyday to just eat real food. I even ate plain greek yogurt the other day and thought it tasted good (I usually consider that stuff to be what "healthy" people eat), so my taste buds must be starting to change and I must be turning into one of those healthy people as well.
During the week I was very excited to get a blog request, meant that at least one person was reading my blog and finding it interesting, and it wasn't even my mother. Luckily it's something that I have increased my knowledge ever so slightly in over the last few weeks, and that is figuring out how much sugar is in the food we eat from reading food labels. I say "ever so slightly" because food manufacturers don't want to make it easy for us, so even though I have read more nutrition labels than I ever have in my life recently, it's still very confusing.
I should probably start by telling you how much added sugar (does not include fruit intake) you are recommended to eat per day by the World Health Organisation (WHO) (who are pretty much the world gurus on what we should and shouldn't do to make sure everyone is healthy and happy and living long and fantastic lives across the world). The recommendations state that you should have 6 teaspoons (or 24g) of sugar per day, which isn't really a whole lot considering they reckon they average Irish person consumes about 24 teaspoons a day, and in Australia it's about 18 teaspoons (I blame the rain for the extra sugar intake in Ireland!). At this stage, I would like to set a challenge to you the reader, to track your sugar just for one day to see how close you are to the WHO recommendations. You may be either pleasantly or not so pleasantly surprised, but either way I'm sure it will be interesting.
Right, so back to the complicated nutrition label thing. The guidelines I am currently using are:
<4.0g sugar per 100g, or <6g if it's dairy as there is naturally occurring sugar in lactose which must be accounted for.
I have put an example nutrition label below, no idea what it's from to be honest, lets say some sort of bananay strawberryish milk drink based on the ingredients. The first thing to look at is how much sugar per 100g, which in this case is 12.4g (or 3 teaspoons, which is nearly half your daily recommendations and that's not even for a whole serving size, and lets be honest, knowing my obsession with bananas, whose seriously going to only have one serving of this yummy goodness!).
Last week, in order to see how much sugar was in foods I previously enjoyed regularly, I pulled a few items out of the fridge and had a look, and I was shocked to see how much sugar per 100g was in some of them. My favourite chilli sauce - 65 g per 100g (no wonder it was my favourite, it was like having chocolate on my vegetables), mayonnaise - 21g per 100g, my favourite salad dressing - 26g per 100g (I know I probably wouldn't have put 100g of salad dressing on my dinner, but still even a 25 g serving contains about 2 teaspoons of sugar or something at this rate), Balsamic Vinegar - 15g per 100g. In the end I had to give up looking, it was depressing me! I could not believe how much sugar were in these products that I genuinely did not know about. Again, another challenge, have a look in your fridge, and figure out how much sugar you may be accidentally consuming!!
Now that's the easy part about reading food labels. Now for the complicated part, trying to read the ingredients and from that get an idea of how much added sugar that there is in food. Now that's something I think you literally need a degree in, the food manufacturers do not want to make this easy. As you may be aware, the ingredients are listed from start to finish in order of how much is added. So in the nutritional information above you would see sugar is the third ingredient, and so you can assume that a large amount of the sugar in this product is added (especially given it's listed before the various fruits, which would contain natural sugar).
The ingredient list above is pretty easy to read, but to be super confusing and make sure we have no idea what we are consuming, there are 61 + different names for sugar. Now I don't know about you, but I struggle to remember my own name on a day to day basis, and regularly call the dog my boyfriends name and vice versa, so to remember 61 different names for sugar, that's crazy! That and how on earth does anyone have the time to pull out their list of 61 + sugar names in the shop and read ingredients listed to see what may have been added to your food. No wonder we find it so hard to figure out what to eat!
So, unfortunately, for my first blog request, I have not been able to answer the question asked, as it isn't all that clear on the food labels to begin with. Luckily though there is some work being done by the Food Standards Australia and New Zealand to have some changes made to nutrition labels to include added sugars, so hopefully in the future it will all make a little more sense.
Thanks for reading, until next time:)
Apart from the strange banana cravings in my life, I have to admit it's going really well. I have had so many people say...you've inspired me, but I don't think I could do it. To be honest it's actually not that hard to do, once the first few weeks have passed. I am finding it easier and easier everyday to just eat real food. I even ate plain greek yogurt the other day and thought it tasted good (I usually consider that stuff to be what "healthy" people eat), so my taste buds must be starting to change and I must be turning into one of those healthy people as well.
During the week I was very excited to get a blog request, meant that at least one person was reading my blog and finding it interesting, and it wasn't even my mother. Luckily it's something that I have increased my knowledge ever so slightly in over the last few weeks, and that is figuring out how much sugar is in the food we eat from reading food labels. I say "ever so slightly" because food manufacturers don't want to make it easy for us, so even though I have read more nutrition labels than I ever have in my life recently, it's still very confusing.
I should probably start by telling you how much added sugar (does not include fruit intake) you are recommended to eat per day by the World Health Organisation (WHO) (who are pretty much the world gurus on what we should and shouldn't do to make sure everyone is healthy and happy and living long and fantastic lives across the world). The recommendations state that you should have 6 teaspoons (or 24g) of sugar per day, which isn't really a whole lot considering they reckon they average Irish person consumes about 24 teaspoons a day, and in Australia it's about 18 teaspoons (I blame the rain for the extra sugar intake in Ireland!). At this stage, I would like to set a challenge to you the reader, to track your sugar just for one day to see how close you are to the WHO recommendations. You may be either pleasantly or not so pleasantly surprised, but either way I'm sure it will be interesting.
Right, so back to the complicated nutrition label thing. The guidelines I am currently using are:
<4.0g sugar per 100g, or <6g if it's dairy as there is naturally occurring sugar in lactose which must be accounted for.
I have put an example nutrition label below, no idea what it's from to be honest, lets say some sort of bananay strawberryish milk drink based on the ingredients. The first thing to look at is how much sugar per 100g, which in this case is 12.4g (or 3 teaspoons, which is nearly half your daily recommendations and that's not even for a whole serving size, and lets be honest, knowing my obsession with bananas, whose seriously going to only have one serving of this yummy goodness!).
Now that's the easy part about reading food labels. Now for the complicated part, trying to read the ingredients and from that get an idea of how much added sugar that there is in food. Now that's something I think you literally need a degree in, the food manufacturers do not want to make this easy. As you may be aware, the ingredients are listed from start to finish in order of how much is added. So in the nutritional information above you would see sugar is the third ingredient, and so you can assume that a large amount of the sugar in this product is added (especially given it's listed before the various fruits, which would contain natural sugar).
The ingredient list above is pretty easy to read, but to be super confusing and make sure we have no idea what we are consuming, there are 61 + different names for sugar. Now I don't know about you, but I struggle to remember my own name on a day to day basis, and regularly call the dog my boyfriends name and vice versa, so to remember 61 different names for sugar, that's crazy! That and how on earth does anyone have the time to pull out their list of 61 + sugar names in the shop and read ingredients listed to see what may have been added to your food. No wonder we find it so hard to figure out what to eat!
So, unfortunately, for my first blog request, I have not been able to answer the question asked, as it isn't all that clear on the food labels to begin with. Luckily though there is some work being done by the Food Standards Australia and New Zealand to have some changes made to nutrition labels to include added sugars, so hopefully in the future it will all make a little more sense.
Thanks for reading, until next time:)
Thursday 15 September 2016
Goodbye Post Dinner Sweet Treats:(
So I am going to begin this post my admitting one of my guiltiest pleasures of being an adult, and that is being able to have a sweet dessert after every dinner (I probably have had a sweet dessert after every meal occasionally but only on special occasions!). It's like my reward to myself for eating all my vegetables, I will sit down and have a piece of chocolate or ice cream or even just a plain biscuit, or some fruit like strawberries or watermelon, just anything really no matter how small that just contains sugar. I don't know when in my adult life this ritual started, I just know that I was like a fussy child, rewarding myself every day with a sweet treat for my amazing ability to eat all my veggies.
Last week I was having these super healthy meals and so after every dinner I began a ritual of rewarding myself with a piece of fruit as I wasn't allowed any chocolate or ice cream. However, as part of the I Quit Sugar Program you need to quit fruit and all other sources of sugar whether considered "healthy" or not. I have to admit the biggest struggle I found with this was that I had no reward for myself for eating all my vegetables during my dinner. On occasion as I was eating my dinner I actually thought, well what's the point in eating this healthy food, there's no reward for it all anyways.
I know there are some people that are now reading this thinking, "give up fruit, what kind of mentalness is this at all sure isn't fruit good for you!". To be honest when I first realised we had to cut out fruit for 4 weeks of the program I had the same thought. My daily banana for breakfast is another part of my adult life rituals, and I couldn't figure out how I was possibly going to face the day without it, I actually considered going on some sort of bereavement leave from work for the 4 weeks to mourn the loss of bananas from my life.
After reading a little behind about the reasons behind why you need to quit fruit, I understood it a little better, I'm not saying I completely agree with it (mainly because I miss it in my life so much and I have a habit of disagreeing with stuff that I just don't like sometimes just because no other reason), but I do agree with it a little more. The reason the I Quit Sugar Program advocates for cutting all sugar including fruit for four weeks is to give your body a chance to recalibrate, and attempt to break the sugar addiction completely. It also helps your taste buds to adjust to having no sugar, which means when you reintroduce small amounts of sugar and fruit after the 4 week period, you may not actually find you "need" them as much as you used to. Fingers crossed for me this means I will be able to eat a small bit of chocolate and walk away from the fridge without hearing the chocolate continually call out "eat me, eat me, eat me" until I've gone back and finished the block off!
What I have realised this week without my daily post dinner sweet treat is that I actually don't need it it's just something I thought I had to have, something that has become a habit to me, much like a cigarette I guess except people don't seem to view it exactly the same. The first day I was convinced I would starve to death at any second because, despite having just eaten a big plate of salmon and veggies, I just couldn't possibly be full enough to survive til morning because I didn't have my treat. After surviving a few nights with no post dinner treat, I have realised that this treat was something I could actually survive without.
Apart from the lack of sweet treat rewards and morning bananas in my life, overall I am still really enjoying the I Quit Sugar Program. I do still dread the sugar hangover coming back, but so far it hasn't come back, and this week I have felt that my head is clearer than it has been in a long time, like a fog of sugar has lifted from my brain or something. Until next time when hopefully the sugar fog and sugar hangovers will have stayed away:)
Last week I was having these super healthy meals and so after every dinner I began a ritual of rewarding myself with a piece of fruit as I wasn't allowed any chocolate or ice cream. However, as part of the I Quit Sugar Program you need to quit fruit and all other sources of sugar whether considered "healthy" or not. I have to admit the biggest struggle I found with this was that I had no reward for myself for eating all my vegetables during my dinner. On occasion as I was eating my dinner I actually thought, well what's the point in eating this healthy food, there's no reward for it all anyways.
I know there are some people that are now reading this thinking, "give up fruit, what kind of mentalness is this at all sure isn't fruit good for you!". To be honest when I first realised we had to cut out fruit for 4 weeks of the program I had the same thought. My daily banana for breakfast is another part of my adult life rituals, and I couldn't figure out how I was possibly going to face the day without it, I actually considered going on some sort of bereavement leave from work for the 4 weeks to mourn the loss of bananas from my life.
After reading a little behind about the reasons behind why you need to quit fruit, I understood it a little better, I'm not saying I completely agree with it (mainly because I miss it in my life so much and I have a habit of disagreeing with stuff that I just don't like sometimes just because no other reason), but I do agree with it a little more. The reason the I Quit Sugar Program advocates for cutting all sugar including fruit for four weeks is to give your body a chance to recalibrate, and attempt to break the sugar addiction completely. It also helps your taste buds to adjust to having no sugar, which means when you reintroduce small amounts of sugar and fruit after the 4 week period, you may not actually find you "need" them as much as you used to. Fingers crossed for me this means I will be able to eat a small bit of chocolate and walk away from the fridge without hearing the chocolate continually call out "eat me, eat me, eat me" until I've gone back and finished the block off!
What I have realised this week without my daily post dinner sweet treat is that I actually don't need it it's just something I thought I had to have, something that has become a habit to me, much like a cigarette I guess except people don't seem to view it exactly the same. The first day I was convinced I would starve to death at any second because, despite having just eaten a big plate of salmon and veggies, I just couldn't possibly be full enough to survive til morning because I didn't have my treat. After surviving a few nights with no post dinner treat, I have realised that this treat was something I could actually survive without.
Apart from the lack of sweet treat rewards and morning bananas in my life, overall I am still really enjoying the I Quit Sugar Program. I do still dread the sugar hangover coming back, but so far it hasn't come back, and this week I have felt that my head is clearer than it has been in a long time, like a fog of sugar has lifted from my brain or something. Until next time when hopefully the sugar fog and sugar hangovers will have stayed away:)
Monday 12 September 2016
My first weekend without my good friend sugar!
Well, I'm sure everyone has been waiting with baited breath since my post on Thursday to see how if I survived the sugar hangover (well surely there was at least one person out there who had some sort of mild concern anyways!). Good news is - yes I did yay:) I have to admit Thursday and Friday were not great, I was tempted on so many occasions to just have "a small bit of chocolate" you know just the once piece isn't going to do any harm, but I didn't give in and against all odds I lived to tell the tale, and so did everyone else I met on those two days as well so happy ending all round! Having survived that awful two days, I no have a new appreciation for life so if you see me smiling or appearing to be enjoying life more than usual, you know that's the background story for that!
To be honest, I was DREADING the first weekend off sugar. I have mentioned before that every week I start off with great intentions of being healthy and giving up the "crap" food, and then gradually just fall off the bandwagon during the week, until everything I eat on the weekend more than likely cancelled out any bit of lettuce or tomato I ate, and every biscuit I turned down from Monday to Wednesday. The weekends are traditionally my bad time, I am a big fan of saying things like "sure calories don't count on a Saturday anyways", and convincing myself without a shadow of a doubt that next week will be different and then using that "plan" (I say this in inverted commas because I knew deep down it was a plan that would fall apart pretty quickly) to justify my awful eating habits from Friday evening to Sunday evening! Again, don't judge me, I know I'm not alone in this habit:)
So, this last weekend was going to be hard. I had a few social events I had to attend and I really didn't know how I would cope. On Saturday, I caught up with a few friends for lunch, I had looked at the menu before hand to see what I could eat, and decided on a salad without the dressing (boring I hear you say??? well that's exactly what I was thinking, "Salad without the dressing, I'm not some sort of rabbit type species, I like the dressing!"). So I found myself for the first time ordering a salad without the dressing. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it, the salad actually tasted good, and I realised that probably all this time I had been convincing myself that salad needed "taste" when in fact it has plenty of it and that is the taste of yumminess!
As the traditional dessert bringer to any "bring a plate" occasion (you don't get a figure like mine by not being a big dessert fan trust me), so Saturday night found me with another dilemma, what will I bring for dessert. I found a sugar-free (read fructose free as it has rice malt syrup), dairy free, but thankfully not taste free in the end, chocolate cake, which I whipped up. Now either my friends are super polite or it actually tasted good, and it appeared to go down a treat all round. I have shared the recipe, and a not so glamorous photo for anyone who would like to give it a go in the future (it really does taste nice!):
The last thing I found difficult over the weekend was my trip to the supermarket. I remember reading somewhere on some "handy hints for being the healthiest person in the world" link on FB or something that in order to avoid bad food and ensure you eat "real" food, you should only buy food from the outsides of the aisles and not venture into the middle of the aisles. Well, this person had obviously not met the marketing person at my local Coles!!! On Saturday as I walked around Coles, EVERY single aisle edge had some sort of "junk food" on special offer, Tim Tams 2 for $3, 2L of coke for $1.50, a 500g bar of dairy milk for $2, chocolate milk for $1 (meanwhile, as an aside, a cauliflower cost $6 a kilo and 2 avocados were on "special" for $5!!!). I'm not exaggerating, walking to the middle of the aisle to pick up my olive oil I was convinced that Coles had decided to do some impromptu tribe to Gene Wilder by creating their own Chocolate Factory, and then to make matters worse I queue up at the counter only to have 20 different chocolate bars staring me in the face. It really made me wonder how any parent who tried to avoid "junk food" can even face bringing their children into the supermarket and how they manage to come out without having given in and just bought their child something on special - if you're reading this and you have mastered this art hats off to you it can't be easy!
So that's me, one week in, survived the hangover from hell and the first weekend "sugar free", and have come out the other end feeling great! Thanks for reading! Until next time:)
To be honest, I was DREADING the first weekend off sugar. I have mentioned before that every week I start off with great intentions of being healthy and giving up the "crap" food, and then gradually just fall off the bandwagon during the week, until everything I eat on the weekend more than likely cancelled out any bit of lettuce or tomato I ate, and every biscuit I turned down from Monday to Wednesday. The weekends are traditionally my bad time, I am a big fan of saying things like "sure calories don't count on a Saturday anyways", and convincing myself without a shadow of a doubt that next week will be different and then using that "plan" (I say this in inverted commas because I knew deep down it was a plan that would fall apart pretty quickly) to justify my awful eating habits from Friday evening to Sunday evening! Again, don't judge me, I know I'm not alone in this habit:)
So, this last weekend was going to be hard. I had a few social events I had to attend and I really didn't know how I would cope. On Saturday, I caught up with a few friends for lunch, I had looked at the menu before hand to see what I could eat, and decided on a salad without the dressing (boring I hear you say??? well that's exactly what I was thinking, "Salad without the dressing, I'm not some sort of rabbit type species, I like the dressing!"). So I found myself for the first time ordering a salad without the dressing. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it, the salad actually tasted good, and I realised that probably all this time I had been convincing myself that salad needed "taste" when in fact it has plenty of it and that is the taste of yumminess!
As the traditional dessert bringer to any "bring a plate" occasion (you don't get a figure like mine by not being a big dessert fan trust me), so Saturday night found me with another dilemma, what will I bring for dessert. I found a sugar-free (read fructose free as it has rice malt syrup), dairy free, but thankfully not taste free in the end, chocolate cake, which I whipped up. Now either my friends are super polite or it actually tasted good, and it appeared to go down a treat all round. I have shared the recipe, and a not so glamorous photo for anyone who would like to give it a go in the future (it really does taste nice!):
The last thing I found difficult over the weekend was my trip to the supermarket. I remember reading somewhere on some "handy hints for being the healthiest person in the world" link on FB or something that in order to avoid bad food and ensure you eat "real" food, you should only buy food from the outsides of the aisles and not venture into the middle of the aisles. Well, this person had obviously not met the marketing person at my local Coles!!! On Saturday as I walked around Coles, EVERY single aisle edge had some sort of "junk food" on special offer, Tim Tams 2 for $3, 2L of coke for $1.50, a 500g bar of dairy milk for $2, chocolate milk for $1 (meanwhile, as an aside, a cauliflower cost $6 a kilo and 2 avocados were on "special" for $5!!!). I'm not exaggerating, walking to the middle of the aisle to pick up my olive oil I was convinced that Coles had decided to do some impromptu tribe to Gene Wilder by creating their own Chocolate Factory, and then to make matters worse I queue up at the counter only to have 20 different chocolate bars staring me in the face. It really made me wonder how any parent who tried to avoid "junk food" can even face bringing their children into the supermarket and how they manage to come out without having given in and just bought their child something on special - if you're reading this and you have mastered this art hats off to you it can't be easy!
So that's me, one week in, survived the hangover from hell and the first weekend "sugar free", and have come out the other end feeling great! Thanks for reading! Until next time:)
Thursday 8 September 2016
The Sugar Hangover
So I should probably begin this post by apologising to everyone I've had a conversation with this week, I feel the whole quitting sugar has kind of taken over my conversation topic forum for the week! However, in my defence it wasn't always my fault, a lot of the time it was people asking how it was going, or trying to figure out why I suddenly became mental and gave up sugar.
I have had some interesting moments like trying to explain to a doctor why I was joking about how I was feeling after coming off the cocaine (I think he didn't really understand my link between cocaine and sugar to be honest!), and trying to justify my decision to quit sugar to a dietitian at work who I "think" approves ever so slightly after I told her it wasn't all sugar, mainly just fructose, and I was still eating complex carbs, like grains and sweet potato and dairy, and the likes.
Before the start of this week, I could have sworn I didn't have much sugar in my life. I'm not going to claim I had the best diet as that would be an out and out lie, but I would have easily gone days without eating chocolate or anything sweet, and I drink soft drinks very rarely, I also make a lot of food from scratch. However, this week I became really aware of how much sugar (fructose) is surrounding me every day. I work in a hospital, and no word of a lie every day this week there was some sort of sweet or chocolate or cake on the ward I work on, which I probably usually would have had a sample of (rude not to really when it usually comes from a grateful patient!!!). Then there was brownie for morning tea one day (again I would usually have found it rude not to try some as someone had gone to the effort of making it). So despite my claim that I was pretty healthy, I realised in a few short days that while I may not have intentionally eaten something unhealthy everyday, I probably did so most days unintentionally!
I have to say I found the first few days of this week quite good, I was feeling great, gloating about how easy it was and how yummy the food was, feeling really superior because I had taken the plunge to giving up sugar and three days in I was smashing it...go me!!! Then Thursday came, and with it the dreaded sugar hangover!!!!
As a back story, Thursday was my day 7 at work (now I know there are shift workers and FIFO workers and stuff right now thing suck it up princess, 7 day, piece of piss but this is my blog and it's all about me so if I wanna feel sorry for myself after doing 7 days straight I will). My usually weekly routine is be super healthy for Monday-Thursday (ish), and then slowly fall off the bandwagon and start eating crap until I find myself on Sunday afternoon having eaten half an ice cream shop, 40 chocolate bars and 27 packets of Allens Snakes and pretty much ending the week as a pre diabetic person (before anyone judges my this may be a slight exaggeration). Honestly though, when doing the 7 days straight I usually find that by day 5-7 I am rewarding myself with chocolate at about 3.30pm (I need a reward I haven't killed anyone yet and I've been at work all this time...again go me!). However, this week, I couldn't have the chocolate reward and I couldn't kill anyone either, I had to survive on pure will power, and to be completely honest, it was not easy!!
I woke yesterday morning like any other, felt OK given it was my day 7, went to the gym and into work. Felt average but surviving barely. At about 9am I found myself sitting trying to write in a chart and literally the words were blurring before my eyes, I felt like the worst hangover of my life had hit me and I didn't even have any drunken memories or antics from the night before to laugh about and help me tolerate the feeling I was getting, it was literally my body craving the devil for fructose. Throughout the day I literally dragged myself from pillar to post hoping that soon I would get energy back, and it just didn't come. I began to finally understand why smokers or alcoholics or drug dealers, or even coffee addicts just don't give up, because it's just too hard! I even found myself staring at patients eating the hospital ice cream at luck time (which for reference has never looked appealing to me in the past as it doesn't seem to melt at the usual temperature that ice cream should), I was treating a patient and when I told her she had done enough (mainly because I literally could not see how I could walk another 20metres with her), she was the one who had to encourage me to walk further! It was awful!!!! I wasn't hungry, I honestly have never eaten so much food as I have this week, my body was just on a massive sugar hangover and I finally realised that unbeknownst to me the whole time, "I, Morag Shealy, am a Sugaraholic". There you go, out in the open now, please don't judge me!
Today, I still feel tired, but not as bad as yesterday, I feel proud of myself for not giving in yesterday, despite how tempting it was, and I know that another few days of this I should hopefully be feeling much better. Overall, I am still enjoying the I Quit Sugar Program, and do no regret starting it at all. Before I sign off, I am going to share the recipe for the Paleo Veggie Bread, which as I mentioned in an earlier post I cannot believe I have lived so long of my life without. I have been eating this in the mornings with smashed avocado and fetta and a bit of chilli flakes and it is devine. If you want to do yourself a favour this weekend, cook up a loaf, cut it into 10 slices and freezes in batches of two so you can take out the night before, toast up for breakfast and enjoy with some avocado/fetta smash, I promise you will not regret it! Here it goes (and hopefully a photo with it of mine this morning): https://iquitsugar.com/recipe/paleo-veggie-bread/. Signing off now having successfully lasted 5 days without fructose.
I have had some interesting moments like trying to explain to a doctor why I was joking about how I was feeling after coming off the cocaine (I think he didn't really understand my link between cocaine and sugar to be honest!), and trying to justify my decision to quit sugar to a dietitian at work who I "think" approves ever so slightly after I told her it wasn't all sugar, mainly just fructose, and I was still eating complex carbs, like grains and sweet potato and dairy, and the likes.
Before the start of this week, I could have sworn I didn't have much sugar in my life. I'm not going to claim I had the best diet as that would be an out and out lie, but I would have easily gone days without eating chocolate or anything sweet, and I drink soft drinks very rarely, I also make a lot of food from scratch. However, this week I became really aware of how much sugar (fructose) is surrounding me every day. I work in a hospital, and no word of a lie every day this week there was some sort of sweet or chocolate or cake on the ward I work on, which I probably usually would have had a sample of (rude not to really when it usually comes from a grateful patient!!!). Then there was brownie for morning tea one day (again I would usually have found it rude not to try some as someone had gone to the effort of making it). So despite my claim that I was pretty healthy, I realised in a few short days that while I may not have intentionally eaten something unhealthy everyday, I probably did so most days unintentionally!
I have to say I found the first few days of this week quite good, I was feeling great, gloating about how easy it was and how yummy the food was, feeling really superior because I had taken the plunge to giving up sugar and three days in I was smashing it...go me!!! Then Thursday came, and with it the dreaded sugar hangover!!!!
As a back story, Thursday was my day 7 at work (now I know there are shift workers and FIFO workers and stuff right now thing suck it up princess, 7 day, piece of piss but this is my blog and it's all about me so if I wanna feel sorry for myself after doing 7 days straight I will). My usually weekly routine is be super healthy for Monday-Thursday (ish), and then slowly fall off the bandwagon and start eating crap until I find myself on Sunday afternoon having eaten half an ice cream shop, 40 chocolate bars and 27 packets of Allens Snakes and pretty much ending the week as a pre diabetic person (before anyone judges my this may be a slight exaggeration). Honestly though, when doing the 7 days straight I usually find that by day 5-7 I am rewarding myself with chocolate at about 3.30pm (I need a reward I haven't killed anyone yet and I've been at work all this time...again go me!). However, this week, I couldn't have the chocolate reward and I couldn't kill anyone either, I had to survive on pure will power, and to be completely honest, it was not easy!!
I woke yesterday morning like any other, felt OK given it was my day 7, went to the gym and into work. Felt average but surviving barely. At about 9am I found myself sitting trying to write in a chart and literally the words were blurring before my eyes, I felt like the worst hangover of my life had hit me and I didn't even have any drunken memories or antics from the night before to laugh about and help me tolerate the feeling I was getting, it was literally my body craving the devil for fructose. Throughout the day I literally dragged myself from pillar to post hoping that soon I would get energy back, and it just didn't come. I began to finally understand why smokers or alcoholics or drug dealers, or even coffee addicts just don't give up, because it's just too hard! I even found myself staring at patients eating the hospital ice cream at luck time (which for reference has never looked appealing to me in the past as it doesn't seem to melt at the usual temperature that ice cream should), I was treating a patient and when I told her she had done enough (mainly because I literally could not see how I could walk another 20metres with her), she was the one who had to encourage me to walk further! It was awful!!!! I wasn't hungry, I honestly have never eaten so much food as I have this week, my body was just on a massive sugar hangover and I finally realised that unbeknownst to me the whole time, "I, Morag Shealy, am a Sugaraholic". There you go, out in the open now, please don't judge me!
Today, I still feel tired, but not as bad as yesterday, I feel proud of myself for not giving in yesterday, despite how tempting it was, and I know that another few days of this I should hopefully be feeling much better. Overall, I am still enjoying the I Quit Sugar Program, and do no regret starting it at all. Before I sign off, I am going to share the recipe for the Paleo Veggie Bread, which as I mentioned in an earlier post I cannot believe I have lived so long of my life without. I have been eating this in the mornings with smashed avocado and fetta and a bit of chilli flakes and it is devine. If you want to do yourself a favour this weekend, cook up a loaf, cut it into 10 slices and freezes in batches of two so you can take out the night before, toast up for breakfast and enjoy with some avocado/fetta smash, I promise you will not regret it! Here it goes (and hopefully a photo with it of mine this morning): https://iquitsugar.com/recipe/paleo-veggie-bread/. Signing off now having successfully lasted 5 days without fructose.
Tuesday 6 September 2016
Fructose = Evil Devil Food
Well.....sugar free has started, I am two days in and I think I am doing OK! I did have a few moments today of wondering if my sugar withdrawals were kicking in and making me more irritable, until a wonderful work colleague informed me that was my usual level of irritability so no sugar withdrawals yet:)
So far I'm really enjoying the food on the "I Quit Sugar" Plan. Had to make some Paleo Veggie Bread on Sunday which I'm having for breakfasts this week with smashed avocado and feta. To be honest I was making this bread and thinking, bloody hell toasted sawdust for breakfast for the week I mean really....the word "Paleo" and "Veggie Bread" just scream out sawdust don't they! Well definitely a case of never judging a book by it's cover, it was so tasty I know wonder how I have survived without it in my life for nearly 32 years. I will definitely post a photo once I figure out how, and share the recipe. So ya 2 days in I'm going great!
Firstly, I have had a few people ask if I am going Paleo. Simple answer is no. I am a firm believer that if Cave Man met a cow and said cow said "Hey man, I'm full of this yummy milky goodness and if you take it out you can drink it, and make it into butter and cheese and stuff" cave man would have been down there in a flash milking that cow. What he wouldn't have done is strip the fat out of the milk and add sugar, which is where the quitting sugar business comes in, it's about eating real food without all the processing.
Second question which I have been asked a few times is "Why is Sugar so bad?", I am going to attempt to answer this question but I am open to correction if I say anything incorrect (please don't blame me Physios are amazing at pretty much everything, but this one thing I can't claim to be an expert on!).
So here goes. There are heaps of different types of sugars including, lactose, glucose, sucrose, maltose, etc., and then there is "fructose"(aka devil evil sugar). Whilst some sugars, for example glucose, are easily broken down by our bodies and use for energy, fructose is almost exclusively broken down by our liver, which in turn means your liver can't do the job it was designed to do. If the liver cannot break down this fructose, it stores it as fat. Fructose also makes us eat more, as it raises a hormone that makes you eat more, and it's been found to be highly addictive. So that's just a brief bit of info which I hope makes sense. To summarise it all though if you don't want to read all those words:
So far I'm really enjoying the food on the "I Quit Sugar" Plan. Had to make some Paleo Veggie Bread on Sunday which I'm having for breakfasts this week with smashed avocado and feta. To be honest I was making this bread and thinking, bloody hell toasted sawdust for breakfast for the week I mean really....the word "Paleo" and "Veggie Bread" just scream out sawdust don't they! Well definitely a case of never judging a book by it's cover, it was so tasty I know wonder how I have survived without it in my life for nearly 32 years. I will definitely post a photo once I figure out how, and share the recipe. So ya 2 days in I'm going great!
So, while I still feel positive, and am at my usual level of irritability I am going to try answer a few questions that people have asked since my big announcement I was quitting sugar. Apologies it's a bit dry but you may learn something you never knew before)
Firstly, I have had a few people ask if I am going Paleo. Simple answer is no. I am a firm believer that if Cave Man met a cow and said cow said "Hey man, I'm full of this yummy milky goodness and if you take it out you can drink it, and make it into butter and cheese and stuff" cave man would have been down there in a flash milking that cow. What he wouldn't have done is strip the fat out of the milk and add sugar, which is where the quitting sugar business comes in, it's about eating real food without all the processing.
Second question which I have been asked a few times is "Why is Sugar so bad?", I am going to attempt to answer this question but I am open to correction if I say anything incorrect (please don't blame me Physios are amazing at pretty much everything, but this one thing I can't claim to be an expert on!).
So here goes. There are heaps of different types of sugars including, lactose, glucose, sucrose, maltose, etc., and then there is "fructose"(aka devil evil sugar). Whilst some sugars, for example glucose, are easily broken down by our bodies and use for energy, fructose is almost exclusively broken down by our liver, which in turn means your liver can't do the job it was designed to do. If the liver cannot break down this fructose, it stores it as fat. Fructose also makes us eat more, as it raises a hormone that makes you eat more, and it's been found to be highly addictive. So that's just a brief bit of info which I hope makes sense. To summarise it all though if you don't want to read all those words:
Frustose = Devil Sugar
Finally, the question everyone keeps asking (I can't quite figure out if this is a reflection on me, or the friends I have gathered around me), "Can you drink wine if you quit sugar?" Apparently those friends who ask me don;t know me too well, because there is no way I could survive 8 week without my best friend wine! The reason you can still drink wine (I am willing to accept this explanation with no questions asked as well), is that wine actually contains minimal fructose. Apparently (and I am willing to accept this explanation with no questions asked), the fructose in grapes is what ferments to become alcohol, and after it is fermented it actually contains less than 1g of sugar per litre of wine. Another reason wine is so amazing, it's cleverness never ceases to amaze me!!!
Well, enough of that boring stuff, before I sign off I am going to attempt to put a link to a YouTube Clip, which was something I saw a few years ago, and started to open my eyes to why low fat isn't necessarily better. Hope it works, otherwise you are now just reading this wondering if my sugar withdrawals have finally kicked in and I am going slowly crazy! Thanks for reading, hopefully next time will be feeling as positive:)
Saturday 3 September 2016
My sugar funeral
So very new to the whole blogging thing...and by very new I mean I literally just finished reading the dummies guide to blogging, so no fancy photos or anything on this first blog....I'll try harder next time I promise!!!
So what's with the decision to start a blog I hear you ask....well apparently according to some lovely people in my life it would be "entertaining" to follow me on my journey to quit sugar (which I have been told is similar to quitting cocaine, haven't had that experience in my life so won't be able to make an exact comparison on that one sorry!!!)
So back to the quitting sugar thing....I have had a lot of people ask why I am quitting sugar, I guess the easy answer is why not. There are actually a few reasons...
1) I don't know how old you, as the reader of my blog, might be, but when I turned 30 someone said to me (literally on that day - nice, happy, chirpy, well-wishing person they were)..."Oh it's all down hill now, metabolism will slow down and you'll just start getting fat by looking at a cake"....I laughed I thought it was funny....little did I know! Apparently, in your 30's you can't just outrun a bad diet, and so something has to change. I have read some good results from the I quit sugar, program and they send me a step by step "what to eat at every moment of the day and how to make it" program, which I love, so that was that!
2) I have some yucky digestive issues (again something which 21 year old me didn't need to worry about!) which nobody wants to hear the ins and outs of really, but again, I have spent some time reading and researching the benefits of quitting sugar, and I'm willing to give it a go and see what happens (I promise to keep mention of any bowel habits etc. to an absolute minimum).
3) A very friendly Uber driver (who I then swapped numbers with because he was so nice and friendly and we had so much in common we should really catch up for coffee some time soon!!!), told me about his PhD he is doing on rats and their addiction to sugar and cocaine. Apparently their response to cocaine and sugar intake is the same, as is their response to the withdrawal from these substances. To be honest, it scared me, and made me think, do I really need this in my life, and how will my body respond to quitting the white stuff!
So, welcome to my journey.....starts Monday....for now I am spending my weekend at a sugar funeral, eating one of everything that I will not be eating for another 8 weeks.....
So what's with the decision to start a blog I hear you ask....well apparently according to some lovely people in my life it would be "entertaining" to follow me on my journey to quit sugar (which I have been told is similar to quitting cocaine, haven't had that experience in my life so won't be able to make an exact comparison on that one sorry!!!)
So back to the quitting sugar thing....I have had a lot of people ask why I am quitting sugar, I guess the easy answer is why not. There are actually a few reasons...
1) I don't know how old you, as the reader of my blog, might be, but when I turned 30 someone said to me (literally on that day - nice, happy, chirpy, well-wishing person they were)..."Oh it's all down hill now, metabolism will slow down and you'll just start getting fat by looking at a cake"....I laughed I thought it was funny....little did I know! Apparently, in your 30's you can't just outrun a bad diet, and so something has to change. I have read some good results from the I quit sugar, program and they send me a step by step "what to eat at every moment of the day and how to make it" program, which I love, so that was that!
2) I have some yucky digestive issues (again something which 21 year old me didn't need to worry about!) which nobody wants to hear the ins and outs of really, but again, I have spent some time reading and researching the benefits of quitting sugar, and I'm willing to give it a go and see what happens (I promise to keep mention of any bowel habits etc. to an absolute minimum).
3) A very friendly Uber driver (who I then swapped numbers with because he was so nice and friendly and we had so much in common we should really catch up for coffee some time soon!!!), told me about his PhD he is doing on rats and their addiction to sugar and cocaine. Apparently their response to cocaine and sugar intake is the same, as is their response to the withdrawal from these substances. To be honest, it scared me, and made me think, do I really need this in my life, and how will my body respond to quitting the white stuff!
So, welcome to my journey.....starts Monday....for now I am spending my weekend at a sugar funeral, eating one of everything that I will not be eating for another 8 weeks.....
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