Well, it is the 29th day of my 30-day no sugar challenge. Overall I did very well and am now over the initial incessant cravings.
Our office candy pusher
These past couple of days have been almost as difficult as the first few; though not from cravings but because of the pre Halloween goodies hanging about our office. I was not prepared for that. The worst is when someone goes to the goodie table and picks out their treat of choice, then proceed to my desk to unwrap the temptress in front of me, pop it into their gob and proceed to mow down on it while talking to me. By this time I usually have no idea what they are talking about. All I hear is bla bla bla from their mouth while the candy is screaming EAT ME! EAT ME! EAT ME! as the smell of chocolate wafts its way over to my nose.
Over the course of the 29 days though, I once inadvertently grabbed a sample (looked like less than a 1/2 ounce) of some sort of sweetened beverage from the new Nations grocer in Jackson Square and put it in my mouth. There was nowhere to spit it out politely so down the hatch it went. I didn’t even enjoy it! Another day, I put some honey on my toast with peanut butter and that was awesome. On a few days I had more that 1 piece of fruit and yesterday I had not just one, but 2 banana muffins that I made for a meeting I was to attend. So 5 or 6 days out of 30 isn’t too bad and they weren’t major hits of refined sugar so I’m not feeling to (emotionally) disappointed about it.
Physically I feel much better except I’ve been eating more than usual to compensate for the change in my diet. Consequently my clothes are a bit tighter. Thankfully my appetite has stabilized now so the extra weight will be easily remedied as I start eating normally again but without sugar. I have decided to continue to eliminate sugar from my diet. It is so much easier to continue the challenge than to stop and restart. I figure after a year, I will have been exposed to most of the triggers there are. It will become even more engrained and habitual to abstain from eating sugar than it was a habit to eat it.
I’m more than happy to be of support to any other brave bloggers out there who want help kicking a sugar habit. If there are enough people who hop on the wagon with me, perhaps I’ll start a cooking support group so we can all help each other out. The links below would be great resources for you as well.
Related articles
- Dangers of Too Much Sugar in the Diet (guardianlv.com)
- The True Impacts of Sugar on Your Health (mytechnologyworld9.blogspot.com)
- Letting Go Of A Sugar Addiction (abdulrahmanjmail.wordpress.com)
- Sugar Cravings (runsista.wordpress.com)
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2013/10/27/sugar-linked-to-1-trillion-in-u-s-healthcare-spending/ (Forbes)
Creating a Positive Lifestyle 
That’s a good idea. I think I would have a hard time giving up sugar for that long but I would like to try to in the near future. This may have inspired me to do so!
It is so worth it. Food is so much more enjoyable now. The subtle nuances of different flavours are so much more obvious and interesting. Using our sense of sight as a comparison it is like the difference between wearing my glasses and taking them off. Everything is much more defined.