I quit eating sugar this week.

 

 

Didn’t that just give you a shiver down your back? Quit sugar? ALL sugar? Surely not! But that’s what I did this week. I. Stopped. Eating. Sugar. If you’d have asked me a couple of weeks ago if I would do it, I’d have shaken my head sadly with a doubtful look on my face. But a few things happened to help me make this move. Let me catch you up.

 

About a year ago, I was finishing up my holistic nutrition program. Throughout the coursework there were many classes that mentioned the dangers of refined sugars. Certainly, some food philosophies are more stringent than others when it comes to the consumption of sugar, refined or not. And I understand the action of sugar in the body. Sugar is highly pro-inflammatory, triggers the release of insulin, and causes us to store fat easily. Burning sugar or carbohydrates for fuel in the setting of a standard American diet that contains lots of fat is a recipe for weight gain. That’s part of the philosophy behind very low carbohydrate diets – eliminate the carbs and the body has only protein and fat to use for fuel. Also, decreasing the inflammation from too much carbohydrate helps the body to release water weight, which is why many people immediately drop a few pounds when they start a low-carb diet.

But just because I knew all that, I still had very serious doubts about my ability (and willingness!) to stop eating sugar. I mean, what about my chocolate?! That was a non starter. I can do without a lot of things, but chocolate? Besides, I like bread and rice and crackers and pizza and cookies all kinds of things that either contain sugar or break down into sugar in the body. But mostly, I didn’t want to give up chocolate or cookies. I was eating those mini sized chocolates every day, and a cookie a few times a week. Not too much, right? So I can’t have a sugar problem, right?

 

 

Wrong. Here was the tip off: Every time I thought about experimenting with eliminating sugar from my diet, I got the willies. I’d figure out some sort of excuse for why it wasn’t a good idea or why I didn’t need to do it. I’d come up with another approach for dealing with the slow creep upward of the scale, though none of them seemed to be working. And I wasn’t eating very much, but I was grabbing a piece of chocolate to get me through lunchtime, or through the 3 o’clock low. That little voice kept piping up in the background, “You know it’s the sugar…” Getting on the scale was becoming such an ordeal, because I was having these wild shifts of weight on a daily basis, which I knew was water weight, but the net result was an overall gain. That doggone voice kept getting louder and louder until I finally got it. I was promoting inflammation in my body with the SUGAR. Did you know that inflammation is the root of all disease in the body? And here I was, nonchalantly adding to the inflammation I already experience because of lack of sleep, stress, chemical exposures, and normal life. That was it. I was tired, aggravated with the scale, and done with encouraging disease in my body.

 

So, HOW did I do it? I had a couple of secret weapons. First, I knew giving up chocolate cold turkey wasn’t going to happen, but I’d found a non-GMO stevia sweetened chocolate almond bar to have if things got rocky. I also Googled a sugar free double chocolate cookie recipe and realized that I had all the ingredients. At the same time, I found a new eating plan that I wanted to try out on myself. I figured that the research that would keep me distracted from the lack of sugar while I was eating other stuff on this plan. I handed off the cookie recipe to my girls and ordered a box of the stevia sweetened chocolates.

 

 

How did it go? It wasn’t as bad as I expected. I thought I would be crazy grumpy, irritable and miserable (that can happen from sugar withdrawal), but I wasn’t. I started eating the meals described every 3-4 hours, so I wasn’t grabbing for chocolate. Don’t get me wrong – I was tempted! But I could let it go by because I had other things to eat. But the proof was in the results. I noticed immediately that I started to drop water weight. Then I started getting really, truly hungry before my next meal was due, which told me that my metabolism was firing up.  And best of all, the scale started creeping down. Every day.

 

It’s been a successful week so far. The cookies were good (too much baking soda, but still yummy!). The sugar-free chocolate has been needed, but not as much as I expected. Overall, I feel good. Accomplished. You know how you feel when you do something you didn’t think you could? Yep, that’s how I feel right now. I had a moment today though.  My auntie was eating one of my special chocolate stash (which I’ve offered her) and I had a sugar panic moment that said “EAT ONE NOW BEFORE THEY’RE ALL GONE”. Then my rational brain kicked in and reminded me that I’d rather not undo the good I’ve started this week. The sugar isn’t in control now. Special chocolates can wait for a special occasion. I’m good!

 

My sugar free chocolate cookies

 

Have you ever tried to quit sugar? How’d it go? What have you done that you never thought you could? Please share in the comments below!