The 'Towards a Sugar-Free Future' Challenge

Honey_Bear

Thanks Paspatur for that.  I'm not absolutely certain about this latest development but it's amazing being painfree today when I would normally have had chocolate yesterday and not realised the link.  It's so helpful to know that there are other people who have found unusual solutions that work for them.

Making,the first time I came across the Change One Thing idea was a Bo0ts new year resolution promotion about 25 years ago and it made perfect sense but I didn't do anything about it - I was far too busy working, drinking and smoking to do anything healthy!  I've heard Dr MM on tihe Beeb and he's clearly doing a lot of good promoting healthy living ideas but what I'm after is stopping pain, retraining my tastebuds, getting a bit fitter and eventually losing a bit of middle aged spread but in that order, whereas mostly he's working on the lose weight and get fit end of the spectrum first.  He's doing a lot of good though.

Honey_Bear

Good luck with it Tim Synths.  It's good to know someone's out there doing it so full on!

Makingabobor2

Well done @TimSynths. I love to walk early mornings, but tend to only do it in summer at that time of day. I really don't like the cold.

Honey_Bear

I caved last night and had quite a few of my homemade chocolate Brazil nuts.  Other than that I've been sticking to the sugarfree thing and it's going okay, although I find that once I start craving chocolate it doesn't seem to go away completely.  Most of the time I'm fine, but last night's indulgence was the culmination of two days of wanting something sweet to eat.  Fruit just wasn't cutting it, which is unusual for me.  Hey ho.

How's everyone else doing?

Makingabobor2

I have had 3 good days and then spoilt it by having biscuits (quite a few) and 3 squares of dark chocolate, which I was saving to only have 1 at weekend. I'm sure your choc brazils were more healthy than I my biscuits @Honey_Bear .  But it has proved to me just how bad for me it is, as I feel quite bloated and yuk compared to how I felt the last couple of days.   So I'm hoping that the next few days will be good ones. Its all a matter of will power I think. 
Hope everyone else is doing ok. 

Honey_Bear

Well done on the three good days, Making.  This is a tough challenge at the best of times so three days is an achievement to be celebrated.  We all spend far too much time thinking about the 'biscuit and chocolate incidents' and not enough about the three days that preceeded them, so congratulations on that. 

I had similar cravings again yesterday and had a little sixpack of those cocoa and raspberry protein balls and felt incredibly full and satisfied after them.  They're sweetened with grape juice which is, I know, very high in sugar but at least it's notionally better than the pure white and deadly stuff.  I say notionally because at the end of the day no matter what it's called it's all sugar and I should be avoiding it, but there's only so much resistance in me.  What I learned from it, however, was that they knocked all the cravings on the head completely - when I feel that full I really don't want anything else to eat at all for hours. 

We're all just doing the best we can, and that's 100% better than doing nothing.

Honey_Bear

Caved again last night and had another very big handful of homemade chocolate Brazils.  I have enough left for another binge and then I'm out of them, so that will take care of that.

Today I discovered that crumpets are not really worth bothering with if you can't have something sweet on them.  I tried both peanut butter and marmite - on another one, not together, obvs - and neither was satisfactory.  Just butter made me crave something sugary like my lemon curd or homemade apricot jam, which is what Belovéd had. 

Attempting to go completely sugarfree is much tougher than I thought it would be, but not so tough that I want to knock it on the head just yet.

~FlowerPot~

Well done honey bear, you are an inspiration, im not coming in here as much as I should because it's not going great. But actually reflecting on it, it's not going to bad either. Just now dh bought me a coffee up in bed and the dreaded rich teas! . He and the dog shared some, but I didn't. Yey!! 
I just thought I would wait until I have my toast and jam. And I'm quite content with that.
The other thing is that a week ago i signed up to a 2 week trial at a health club and have been going everyother day with my dd. Im enjoying it and really motivated to not undo the good work in doing in the gym!! They had puzza last night and i had salad! 
Just need to decide in a week what to do about the membership as its v expensive

Have a good Sunday all 
Flowers x

Honey_Bear

Well done on the resisting of rich teas and the like FlowerPot.  What have you decided about the gym?  It's worthwhile if you keep going, and the more you do the more you'll be motivated to resist sugary things.  I admire anyone who can make themselves go - the hardest part is actually making the decision to go.  After that it all falls into place, although being strictly honest gyms are not my kind of place. 

I've still got the exercise bike and will use it more than I have over the past couple of months now that I'm walking the dog again, but it was really, really useful in the early days of the ankle being out of the plaster.  My leg muscles are pretty much back to where they were before the break but the tendons, muscles and ligaments around the ankle will take another six months to heal as much as they're going to.   When I overdo it, I can feel it in the area where the plates are - in the early days it was on the outside of the ankle and it's now on the inside instead.  Either way, it's coming on.

I haven't been doing 100% brilliantly on the sugar-free front, but I'm pleased with most of it.  On top of the stuff I've already confessed to I was fully aware that we had some m@gnums in the freezer and they were burning a hole there.  They are no more.  I'm not going to buy any more until they're on special offer in Morribunds, and as I don't go there very often any more that could be a long time coming.  If they're in the freezer they call to me, and when I started this Challenge I was having one every single day and that's not good.  A few years ago I couldn't finish one they seemed so big, now I can polish one off in no time at all.  I managed to resist them all the way through Lent but last Sunday I just couldn't any more.  Anyway, that temptation is now gone, as are all the Brazils.  In the grand scheme of things, one m@gnum in two months doesn't seem excessive.

I do find, however, that even while I'm resisting sugar and chocolate most of the time it doesn't reduce my appetite.  I know I eat more than I should, and the foods I crave when I can't have sugar or chocolate are cheese and carbohydrate - bread mainly, and I'm not really that much of a bread eater normally.  I need to find a way to cut down on how much I eat because over the weekend I ate quite a bit more than I should have, really, and I felt a bit bleurgh as a result. 

Honey_Bear

Hopeless.  I'm right back to where I was before I started this Challenge, with the exception of not eating a bar of chocolate every day mid-afternoon because I no longer buy them so I'd have to go out and get one in order to eat it, and I'm

a) too lazy to do that, and

b) aware that would be a very bad idea - I'd stock up the first time I did it and be back to Square 1.

*sigh*

I need to think about how to tackle this again, and have another fresh start.

I'm taking a few days to think it through.