The 'Towards a Sugar-Free Future' Challenge

Honey_Bear

Lovely to hear from you Cookie, and particulalry as neither of us is managing exactly as well as we'd like to be.  A food diary is an excellent idea. 

I'm putting it down to December as much as anything, where the excess of sweet things being pushed on TV and in the supermarkets ramps up more than at any other time of year.  It's everywhere!  I think this will be marginally easier in January when everyone goes on and on and on about their new years resolutions to lose a ton of weight, give up everything pleasurable and *p'tings* their halos.  They usually calm down a bit by the beginning of February when it's cold and dreary and no amount of sugar is going to help cheer us up because what we really want is for it to stop raining and start being sunny, bright and warm.  I hibernate.

Its_time

Hello
I would love to join in with this challenge but realistically I think I had better wait till New Year, or at least till after Christmas.  I am hoping to lose weight this coming year so this thread will be great x

Jazee

No sugar for me today.  Stuck to fruit which I know works but DH has filled the cupboards with Xmas treats so not sure how long I'll last.

cookie02

Its_time said:

Hello
I would love to join in with this challenge but realistically I think I had better wait till New Year, or at least till after Christmas.  I am hoping to lose weight this coming year so this thread will be great x

Welcome Its_time!  The thread will be here whenever you are ready .  I can see why waiting might make sense.  I'm struggling this month but progress is still progress and I am definitely having less sugar than I had last Christmas.   

My goal for this week is four sugar-free days.  If I make it through to Friday and haven't had sugar beyond the advent chocolate, I will be very happy.  Realistically, I think this week might be a washout and I'll probably be indulging beyond just the advent calendar!  Still, I'm going to try and, if I have less sugar this week than I would have done 6/7 months ago, I will be happy.  

Jazee said:

No sugar for me today.  Stuck to fruit which I know works but DH has filled the cupboards with Xmas treats so not sure how long I'll last.

Well done on another sugar-free day, Jazee  .  I hear you re: the Christmas treats, I have a similar situation here.  My plan is to enjoy whatever I eat, try not to go as sugar-crazy as before and then pick back up with proper sugar-free days later.  As Honey_Bear says, this is for the long-term.  Even a few days of indulgence won't hurt as long as we don't let ourselves think that there's no point getting back on track.  There is every point - and I think all of us are having more sugar-free days than before, so something is working.  

Hope all of you are keeping well. 

cookie02

Well, we are halfway to the weekend and my week has been exactly what I anticipated: zero sugar-free days.  In good news, Monday and Tuesday were sugary due to the Advent Chocolate only!  I'm not even trying to avoid it anymore, I'm just enjoying it and I was happy that I didn't eat anything sugary beyond that.  Today is going to be tricky as we have Christmas Cake in the house.  I LOVE Christmas Cake so there's no way I'll even try and resist it today.  Instead, my new goal for today is to get through with only the Advent Chocolate and one piece of cake.  If I make it, I will be happy  .  

How is everyone?  

Honey_Bear

Welcome It's Time, and feel free to join in any time you feel ready.  If I hadn't started this earlier in the year I certainly wouldn't be doing so right now!

Well done Jazee on being so self-disciplined.  I'm the sabotager here with buying things that we could do with a lot less of but if Belovéd were doing so I'd be likely to think he was trying to tempt me to join him.  Once I know they're there resistance is futile because I don't have any at all at the moment.  Mind you, I don't like Christmas cake (or fruit cake of any kind), mince pies or Christmas pudding and Belovéd does, so I buy them for him and he's much more weight conscious than I am - he's good a pressing his Stop Button when he's had an absetemious slice, whereas if I like it (like coffee cake) I kind of vacuum the whole thing up.  Good luck with it.

Cookie you're keeping me motivated if not actually posting.  To be entirely honest I didn't manage Monday sugar-free but rather surprisingly I did yesterday.  Realistically I think this week is quite likely to be more self-indulgent than I'd like it to be ideally but as I'm no longer scoffing a whole bar of chocolate in the afternoon, and turned down a dessert on Sudnay after lunch with friends because there was nothing on the menu that tempted me enough - I'm not beating myself up.  My sugar consumption has dropped so much I'm just not going to feel guilty.  And I'm much less tempted most of the time, but when I am seriously tempted I don't seem to be able to resist.  It's progress, even if it isn't as much as I was aiming for at the beginning just yet.

[Deleted User]

Hi folks, the last few days of work I just gave up on this challange.  The amount of sweets and chocolate in school was collosal and that plus caffine was the only thing keeping me going!  I am going to bow out of this challange for the forseeable but thank you for having me for the short time I was here.  I wish you all the best in reducing/eliminating sugar from your diet in the coming months.

Honey_Bear

Hi @[Deleted User].  I hope you had a wonderful Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and that the end of term celebrations weren't too over-whelming for you.  I totally get why you've bowed out but you're not the only one who hasn't been able to resist sugar over the past few weeks.  I think I may have managed most Mondays up until today, for which I don't hold out a lot of hope to be honest, but that's probably all I've managed for a few weeks.  It just got tougher and tougher to resist everything all the time with pretty much every second advert on TV showing buckets of Qua1ity Str33t on every flat surface ad nauseam - quite literally!  Should you decide it would be easier to cut back a bit if you're posting here once we get into the new year it would be lovely to see you again so please do come back any time.  You'd be very welcome.

As for me, I've been eating rubbish for several days but despite that I didn't gorge on Christmas Day because I was in the kitchen for most of it and somehow when you're cooking once you've tasted everything there just isn't that same impetuous to overload one's plate, or at least that's what I found.  I don't particularly like Christmas pudding but I did have a small slice, and I can always resist all mass-produced mince pies :shudder: so I didn't over-indulge on the usual stuff.  I did, however, find some organic ginger in cacao and have been eating them like they're going out of fashion so I can't say I've been sugar-free this week at all. 

The good news is that eating three chocolate biscuits now feels as thought I've gorged, so this Challenge is working.  It doesn't stop me eating all three of them, but after three I don't want the rest of the packet.  That's a real win, so I'll be back on the straighter and narrower after 6 January and in the meantime I'm enjoying a bit of sweet stuff every now and then, but in much, much smaller quantities than I would have a few months ago.  I'm chuffed to bits with that and 100% convinced that it's down to this Challenge, which wouldn't work at all if there was no-one else on the same journey and willing to post.  Thank you everyone who's contributed to it so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing if anyone else wants to join us in the New Year.  I hope so.

cookie02

Good morning!  I hope all of you have had a lovely Christmas break (and if you're in a job where you've had to keep working, thank you, and I hope you get a break soon).  

[Deleted User] said:

Hi folks, the last few days of work I just gave up on this challange.  The amount of sweets and chocolate in school was collosal and that plus caffine was the only thing keeping me going!  I am going to bow out of this challange for the forseeable but thank you for having me for the short time I was here.  I wish you all the best in reducing/eliminating sugar from your diet in the coming months.

This month has been as difficult as I thought it would be and I'm not even in the office - the temptation has been far worse for you, Allie23, and I can only imagine how stressful your work is right now.  As Honey_Bear says, there is no pressure - if you want to re-join later, the thread will be here .  In the meantime, don't beat yourself up about all the sugar - whatever you eat, enjoy and know that you can cut back or cut out the sugar at whatever point you are ready.  

Personally, I have continued to struggle this month and didn't have any sugar-free days last week.  Instead, I've gone back to counting sugar-free meals and snack times (small wins still count and this is as far as I'd got before I found this challenge).  Honey_Bear, I wish I didn't like mass-produced mince pies.  That would have cut down my sugar a fair bit over the last few days.  It is amazing how convincing some of them taste after a few minutes in the oven!

Honey_Bear said:

The good news is that eating three chocolate biscuits now feels as thought I've gorged, so this Challenge is working.  It doesn't stop me eating all three of them, but after three I don't want the rest of the packet.  That's a real win, so I'll be back on the straighter and narrower after 6 January and in the meantime I'm enjoying a bit of sweet stuff every now and then, but in much, much smaller quantities than I would have a few months ago.  I'm chuffed to bits with that and 100% convinced that it's down to this Challenge, which wouldn't work at all if there was no-one else on the same journey and willing to post.  Thank you everyone who's contributed to it so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing if anyone else wants to join us in the New Year.  I hope so.

Thank you for the challenge, Honey_Bear, and thanks to everyone else here. I hope everyone is doing well.  Despite all the sugar, I have also had far, far less than in the past.  My sugar consumption across a day, is probably less than it was in one mealtime last Christmas - scary but true and one of the big reasons for changing things up this year.  

For this week, I've scrapped my sugar-free days and am aiming to have 6 sugar-free mealtimes between now and end of Sunday.  I think this is a more realistic goal than trying to do any sugar-free days this week.  For next week, I'm still deciding what to do.  I would like to try and get at least two sugar-free days in next week (possibly Weds/Thursday) before going back to 4 and 3/4 days from 10th Jan.  This might be over-ambitious for me but I will see how this week and next week go and make a decision after that.  

Take care and I hope everyone is having a good week!

Its_time

I planned to start my healthy eating plan on 1st Jan, but felt so unwell I started it today.  
Today I have only had sugar in fruit, possibly in some salad cream and 1 tsp in 2 coffees.  That's a far cry from all the biscuits, cakes and chocolate I've been eating over the last few months.  I am really, really hoping I have to willpower to do this.