The 'Towards a Sugar-Free Future' Challenge

Honey_Bear

I need to research this intermittent fasting thing because it may be the answer for me, as you've suggested.  But yes, protein for breakfast, definitely works for me.  Carbohydrates absolutely don't, a lesson I learned years ago.  I was absolutely fine when I woke up, but if I had toast or porridge before I walked the dog I could barely put one foot in front of the other I was so tired.  I make the most excellent bread, too, so that was a real blow, not being able to eat it.  I occasionally allow myself some for lunch but that never ends well, either.

The whole purpose of cocktails now, and mocktails come to that, is sugar it seems to me.  Cocktails, also, a massive hit of booze for a small amount of liquid.  Even in my drinking days I avoided them. P!mms was a totally different matter.  It's one of the few things I really miss, probably more the idea of it now than the reality but I have considered a P!mms and champagne lifestyle, and then binned the idea on the basis that it would be the thin end of a very dangerous wedge in my case.  Eight years tomorrow I've been alcohol free and I now can't quite get my head around drinking at all any more.  The thing I struggle with on this Challenge is how I managed to give up booze and can't manage my sugar intake.  There's something there that I've been pondering on for a while about addiction.

So, goals for this week.  Sugar-free for Monday and Tuesday completely and researching intermittent fasting.  That's enough to be going on with. 

Good luck with yours Cookie. 

Honey_Bear

Does reading Wikipedia's page on fasting, which includes a section on intermittent fasting, count as 'doing research'?  Curiously I've just heard a discussion on Radio 4 which said that intermittent fasting shows good results for men but not so much for women.  I'm doing it, anyway, because it means I eat less, and don't get tempted to snack.

So yesterday was sugar-free and because I started eating later and finished eating earlier there was no temptation to scoff a bar of chocolate.  The same thing has happened today, so I'm easily sugar-free so far, and it's doubtful I'll eat much more at all I'm so stuffed with all sorts of healthy things.  I'm rather keen on this way of eating at the moment.

How's your week going Cookie?

cookie02

Honey_Bear said:

Does reading Wikipedia's page on fasting, which includes a section on intermittent fasting, count as 'doing research'?  

Don't knock it, Honey_Bear - you've made a start and that's what counts!  The amount of information is overwhelming (to me, at least).  I wonder why it has more results for men than women though 🤔.   I've ended up following the 16:8 idea Monday to Friday.  At the weekends, I'm not as disciplined, mainly because Saturdays and Sundays are usually the days when we can breakfast together.  While it means we eat earlier during the week, I've also read that it's good to eat earlier anyway and we've found that we like it as it makes our evenings feel a bit longer.  I'm not exactly sure when I started as I became interested in it after a friend of mine tried it and had similar results to you.  I didn't have a dramatic loss but I have felt much healthier since starting - I think the 'eating window' means that I eat less overall.  It's hard to attribute things to 16:8 as I switched to smaller plates to try and control our portion sizes as well.  I'm pretty sure we were eating more than a day's worth of calories in one meal before that 😬.  That's without factoring all the sugar into the equation...

Monday was good and I managed to stay sugar-free.  

Confession time: I ate cake yesterday  .  I'm a bit annoyed with myself as I broke my own rule of eating it if I really wanted to, or if it was something that I really liked.  Instead, I indulged with a mediocre cake which I knew I wouldn't love but which I felt compelled to eat anyway.  I will try and make better decisions today and stay sugar-free.  

It sounds like your week is going well food-wise, Honey_Bear 🏅.  This week, I'm trying to find some new recipes as I've noticed that my family is starting to buy carb-heavy foods again - I think it's a sign that they've got bored with the current ones.  They like them but we do have a tendency to over-rotate on things we like so I think it's time to change things up again!  I might also see about a recipe for vegan ginger cake as everyone, including extended family, loves ginger cake and you reminded me of this when you mentioned having some during your hols.  

Hope your day is going well and good luck with your research 📚.  

Honey_Bear

I cannot tell you how helpful I find your contributions, Cookie.  When I'm flagging you always come up with something that I find interesting or that makes me think along new lines. 

Quite apart from the reset of starting with one day a week last week, which is working just fine with Monday and Tuesday safely under my belt, I'm now intrigued by the intermittent fasting thing regardless of whether it works as well for women as not according to people on the radio.  It's working just fine for me - I ate all sorts of rubbish over the weekend, didn't weigh myself on Monday or Tuesday because I knew it would be bad, two days of IF and hey presto - lower weight, markedly so, again. 

The downside, according to what I read yesterday is that apparently when people go back to normal eating hours the weight all goes back on again.  Right now just shifting some, or any, of this spare tyre is such an attractive idea that I'm sticking with it and I'll worry about what happens afterwards when the time comes.  Saturdays won't be a problem because we always eat breakfast much later together anyway, Sunday it depends what time Belovéd makes my boiled eggs and soldiers and it's the only breakfast of the week when we sit at the dining table so I'm not giving that up.  Trying to get Belovéd to change his routines is a little like trying to push water uphill with a needle.  I can't complain, my life was a bit chaotic before he came into it, although no-one would ever have guessed looking in from the outside, but he's given it a structure and I like that very much.  So, Sunday breakfast time may be outside the window but that's fine with me but thinking about the reality of what we do, it may be fairly close anyway.

I am 100% definitely eating less as a result of this regime.  I simply don't get hungry in the mornings, and I've been struggling with the whole 'Breakfast is the most important meal of the day' thing my whole adult life.  I just thought I should eat, so I did.  Not eating anything until much later turns out to suit me really, really well, and then I eat a lovely brunch.  During the week our breakfasts have been at different time for years so that's not an issue, and tea is always at 4.00, nothing special, mostly a cup of tea and a date bar for me, a biscuit for him, and then dinner used to be at 8.00pm but we've brought that forward to 7.30pm because that suits both of us, particuarly while there's sport on TV for Belovéd.  I put off trying to reschedule it for years because he's generally been so wedded to his routine, however, as he gets older (he's 75) he's starting to ease up on his working hours (he's never, ever going to stop working) a tiny bit, so the timing of the change fitted in, thank goodness. 

Just cutting down on sugar didn't work as a weightloss strategy and as I tried that for almost a full year stepping it up with the intermittent fasting is a brilliant adjustment that apparently suits me better than I would ever have thought.  Thank you so much for introducing the concept to me because I would not have worked that out for myself - I avoid anything at all that's referred to as a diet because my mother had a weight problem all her adult life and dieted over and over and over again.  She did the Atkins in the early 1980s before it was fashionable, she did eating on alternate days, she did everything but the weight always piled back on afterwards.  Tragically the only thing that worked completely was Parkinson's, and being in a carehome.  It broke my heart but it taught me that dieting per se is about someone coming up with a saleable idea and not about making real change in eating habits.  If IF works this well for me for a few days that's a permanent change I can easily, easily make, and my sugar consumption is the adjunct that needed to be addressed in a way that I could adapt to suit circumstances. 

So far so good, but I feel a lot more positive about this than I have for months so thank you from the bottom of my heart.

As to the changing up of what we eat day to day, I'm with you on how hard it is to find things recipes that suit other people and feel right for us.  When I look back at what we used to eat and what we eat now in the evenings, I'm struck by how much lighter our food is, how much less traditional our current 'diet' is, so to speak.  Fortunately for me Belovéd wants to cook three or four nights a week (we alternate Thursdays) and I think he also got a bit bored so he expanded his repetoire - he makes a fab ristotto, always has, but has now added his own version of paella,  as well as a vegan stirfry with cashews.  That's helped him retain his enthusiasm for cooking and he's much more likely to buy fresh fish (we live about 200 yards from where the fish is landed in Plymouth) so his cooking nights aren't a problem for me at all.  He's the one who finds the recipes for himself - I found a stack of Jamie Olivers in the kitchen when I got back from the festival so I know he's looking to add another variation to his nights.  I am extremely lucky with all of that, so his resistance to changing lifelong regimes is offset by his enthusiasm for gradual change in other ways.

He's not with me on my enthusiasm for pulses but he's always willing to try new things which helps.  I've just found a simple lentil curry I really want to try so he doesn't know it yet but that's defo on the menu for next week.  In the meantime I'm making myself another batch of the onepot lentil and rice thing I adore and that takes care of the next few days.  I've meal planned up to early next week, so I forsee a night of fishfingers if inspiration doesn't strike agian by then.  I'm embarrased to admit we both love fishfingers!

Let me know if you find an excellent ginger cake recipe.  It's an under-rated flavour and I love it as much as I love chocolate, truth be told.  Given the choice on holibobs I chose ginger every time which suprised me, and on the only day it wasn't available I had a vegan chocolate cupcake which was knee-deep in frosting so didn't taste dry at all, which is my normal problem with vegan baking.  I reverted to ginger the next day though, so that must mean something I hadn't thought about before.  Hmm.

As for the indulgence in something that you knew wouldn't be totally fabby but went ahead and ate it anyway - were you a bit bored?  Tiredness is defo a trigger for me, but boredom is the real problem, which happens pretty often when I'm out of the house with people I find a bit tedious, because they've had a few drinks and I'm still stone cold sober.  By and large boredom isn't a factor in my life but that situation isn't always avoidable; being with people whose interests differ substantially from mine can be a tad challenging for me.  I know everyone's interesting if asked the right questions but sometimes I can't find those questions. 

Sorry this post is so long.  I'm thinking out loud.

Onwards and upwards.

cookie02

Honey_Bear said:

I cannot tell you how helpful I find your contributions, Cookie.  When I'm flagging you always come up with something that I find interesting or that makes me think along new lines.  

I'm glad it is helpful, Honey_Bear.  This whole thread is helpful for me so I really appreciate you doing this challenge and persisting with it as it is helping keep me on the straight and narrow and has helped my extended family too - thank you!  I'm always surprised that very few people participate but I guess it is a tough challenge that you have set and cutting out sugar isn't for everyone.  

Honey_Bear said:

Sorry this post is so long.  I'm thinking out loud.

Onwards and upwards.

No apology needed, I love getting into the detail and will respond properly but just wanted to send this now - otherwise, it will be Saturday by the time I finish responding in full!

Sugar-wise, I managed to get a sugar-free day yesterday and I've been sugar-free so far today.  I know there will be temptation later thanks to more cake.  I will definitely let you know if I find a good recipe for the ginger cake.  I'm looking forward to my Friday treat even more than usual as I've had sugar gremlins whispering all week.  I just hope I can hold out that bit longer!  

Hope you have met your goals for the day and that the research is going well ☀️. 

Honey_Bear

Thanks Cookie.  If I had to chose between coffee and walnut versus ginger I'd be stumped.  I love them both, but a good ginger cake recipe or ginger anything really is always welcome here.

I'd love it if more people joined in and we had lots of other suggestions on how to make this easier for ourselves but I also get that this is TOUGH!  I don't blame people for avoiding it but that's not going to stop me.  I'm so glad you're getting something from it too.

I managed Monday and Tuesday, was relatively abstemious on Wednesday and have not been so today.  That's fine, two and a bit days sugar-free is more than I've been managing lately so I'm on track again.  It just so happens I slept really really badly last night so I'm very overtired today, hence the chocolate bar this afternoon. 

I forgive myself.

cookie02

Well done, Honey_Bear!  Two sugar-free days and a very restrained Wednesday is really good, especially after your holidays.  

I am happy with achieving three sugar-free days last week and thoroughly enjoyed my Friday night dessert.  We were with family for most of this weekend and I indulged in quite a few homemade treats.  I think I'm going to find tomorrow tough as I normally try and reduce my sugar intake a bit on Sunday afternoon but that definitely hasn't happened today.  

Honey_Bear said:

I'd love it if more people joined in and we had lots of other suggestions on how to make this easier for ourselves but I also get that this is TOUGH!  I don't blame people for avoiding it but that's not going to stop me.  I'm so glad you're getting something from it too.

Same here - I'm definitely going to keep going.  It is hard but very worthwhile.  

Have a lovely evening and fingers crossed for this coming week!

Honey_Bear

Well done for the three sugar-free days and then your restraint while enjoying the rest of the week Cookie.

I've had an interesting week with the intermittent fasting.  I definitely eat less as a result and although I didn't weigh myself later during the week, I will tomorrow - first of the month, and a Monday to boot.  I hope it goes well but I'm not going to get wound up if it doesn't show a loss.  Just eating less, and eating less sugar, is a win for me. I know I've eaten less sugar because on my sugar-allowed days I haven't been going overboard, and two bars of chocolate is less than I used to eat over the weekend, and that was for the whole week. 

I'm aiming to walk the first stage of The Dartmoor Way tomorrow, 10 miles.  I'm therefore not even thinking of restricting my food in any way, but I've buried the bar of chocolate right at the bottom of my daypack so that I'm not tempted to scoff it as I trundle along but it's there if I need it.  I know I can do 7 miles but 10 might be pushing it but I have been building up to it over the past few weeks and the weather's perfect.  So my sugar-free days are likely to be later in the week this week, all three of them.

cookie02

Honey_Bear said:

Just eating less, and eating less sugar, is a win for me. 

This is exactly how I feel, Honey_Bear!  I don't weigh myself that often as I have the kind of personality where I know I might start obsessing about the number and (for me) that would just create an additional problem.  I know that some people find the number motivating and that's great but I"m definitely not one of those people!

I hope you had a lovely walk.  10 miles is amazing - if the weather was anything like down here, I'm sure you had a great day and definitely earned that bar of chocolate 🏅.  

Yesterday, I ate a brownie!  It was one of those small supermarket ones from a tub and it tasted fine but nothing like a homemade brownie.  I think I was still in weekend-mode as I didn't even realise until much later.  Yes, more 'accidental sugar' 😂.  I'm going to try and stay sugar-free today as I'd also like to get at least three sugar-free days in this week.  

Good luck for today!

Honey_Bear

The habit of reaching for food 'just because it's there' is a toughie to break, and particularly when it's a brownie!  We just take it for granted that we can eat whatever we want once it's in front of us so I totally get why that supermarket tub of them in front of you meant that you didn't even realise you'd done it until later.  Fortunately for me I know those tubs are full of stuff that doesn't do anything for me, but the way I know that is because I've tried so many of them in the past.  They were all, without exception, sweet dry nothingness.  And as for brownies, until shops can come up with one that tastes as good as my own I find avoiding them really easy, thank goodness, but that's a trial and error thing from experience.

I did the full ten miles, but unfortunately two of them were involved getting to the start point, so I've got to start the next leg a couple of miles into the first leg.  I learned masses from it, not least that a tiny bag of liquorice allsorts (with six in it) gets you up the final part of a steep hill, and that if the weather forecast is 19 degrees but it turns out to be 23 degrees it'll be tougher than you thought.  The food I took was just right and I had enough water and at no point did I want that chocolate, oddly.  This morning my hips are telling me they're not used to that amount of walking uphill, and in places over stoney ground, but that's absolutely fine because overall I'm not in pain, which I rather expected to be because I haven't walked that far in one day for at least 50 years.  I've been building up to it gradually over the past three months and I absolutely loved it while I was doing it.  The views were spectacular and I realised how much I love Devon and just how beautiful it is no matter where you are or in which direction you look.  The plan is to crack on with it on Friday to give my body a chance to recover from the shock of it, but honestly - I can't wait!  I was rather frightened of getting started but having checked the forecast, put it in my diary and told people I was going to do it in the end it was all very straightforward.

So, today, tomorrow and Thursday will be sugar-free, I'll be buying another packet of breadwraps for Friday's spinach melts and scrounging a few more of the liquorice allsorts that Belovéd doesn't like, and researching the next leg of the walk.