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.