OK, it's been six days since I started cutting sugar out of my diet, and so far I'm doing pretty good. I haven't turned into the wild-eyed, desperate lunatic that I thought I would have, so that's a good sign, right?
According to my self-made 3-Step Program, I'm well into Step 1, which is eliminating all the obvious sweets, bakery goods, juice, jams, chocolate, etc, from my diet. I've also been very careful about the sugar contained in the processed foods I'm eating (Step 2). You would not believe what all has sugar in it. Take this test:
Which of the following contains sugar:
a) mayonaise
b) ketchup
c) beef jerky
d) all of the above.
If you chose d) you're right. (By the way, I don't normally eat beef jerky but was at Costco the other day looking for a sugar-free snack food and thought beef jerky would have been a safe bet until I looked at the ingredients list.)
Take a look at the some of the products/condiments in your home and you'd be surprised how hard it is to avoid sugar. If I was the paranoid type, I could come up with this great conspiracy theory about World Domination by Food Manufacturers by getting us all hooked on sugar.
As for Step 3 in my regime, I'm still eating fruit which has natural sugars in it, and I don't think I'll give that up.
Overall, I've felt OK and haven't felt nauseous or had a headache (which is what happened when I tried to go without coffee for 24 hours back in university.... crazy girl). But I still have this vague feeling of not being satisfied even after I've had a big meal. I've been trying to quell my craving for munchies with nuts, so obviously any weight I would have lost by eliminating sugar has been replaced by the bazillion calories in every handful of nuts. But still, I do crave SOMETHING SWEET.
We're going camping for a week on Saturday, and I think (I know) I'm going to fall of the wagon with all of the convenience foods you rely on when you're camping. However, at that point I will have gone a week without refined sugar, so at least my body will have had a break from the 'white poison.'
Hi Kim! If you find yourself hungry when weaning off sugar, try to "up" your fat content for a few days!
ReplyDeleteI've been back on Paleo for a few weeks now and I just feel so much better overall. It takes planning. Basically, if you want it sugar-free you have to make it yourself!