The 'Towards a Sugar-Free Future' Challenge

Pollybear

Well the last few days have been better than the few before, but that's not saying much!   Better is something though.  I'll just keep keeping on and hope I can keep things balanced towards the better side.

Honey_Bear

phillw said:

I went vegan a few months ago, my main issue with Vegan+GF+Sugar free is figuring out a decent custard recipe.

If you even find one that's even remotely satisfying please let me know.  There's a possibility we may be having a vegan for Christmas lunch again.  Last year I was reduced to giving him a jar of cocoa ginger lumps while we all tucked into various Christmas pudding things with cream.  I can hunt down a Christmas pud for him but vegan cream is a bit horrid.

Polly Bear, better is an excellent state of affairs.  We all slip up and it's always hard to get back on track but at least you know you can do it even if it's a struggle and we don't always manage it.  I think we're all struggling at the moment.

I found two boxes of my favourite homemade brownies in the back of the freezers yesterday and I need to create some space in there because I've got some flour that's about to go out of date, all of which I'll use but not just yet.  So, brownies were eaten this weekend and all I can say is I'd forgotten just how lovely they are.  There may be a couple left in the fridge so I'm going to have to see if Belovéd wouldn't mind eating them this coming week.  I don't think I'll get much complaint from him.

Today I have been thinking about protein.  I've been very short of energy for years and realised today that I may have been inadvertently having far too little protein for about 20/30 years which would explain the permanent tiredness.  Over the past ten years or so I've been addressing the lack of energy one thing at a time, but nothing's worked in the way that I'd hoped although every little has helped, and today while listening to a sports nutritionist talk about the subject I realised that by cutting out a lot of meat, and feeling guilty about eating fish, being worried about cholesterol so being careful about cheese, trying to ensure I get at least five fruit and veg a day, and fitting in with Belovéd's preferred foods, I may, inadvertently have been short-changing myself.  I'm going to try a high protein diet for a couple of weeks and see if that helps.  I've been looking at the protein content of all the foods we eat regularly and I have to say it does look very much as though I've only been getting about one third to half the grams of protein I should be eating, but the 'should' number of grams does vary wildly between sources.  Either way, two weeks of consciously increased protein should yield results which would be helpful. 

There are two side effects of protein shortage that I definitely suffer from - cravings for carbohydrates (that'll be the sugar and chocolate) and far, far more painful for me, muscle pain in my legs.

So, today, homemade apricot jam on my toast for breakfast and a homemade brownie, but that's all.  I hope that makes tomorrow easier, although I may have to join Cookie and just go for a two or three days sugar-free this week.  It's started raining every day, the evenings are drawing in, it's grey and windy and cold.  Typical November.  :shudder: 

Makingabobor2

That's really interesting @Honey_Bear. I was wondering recently if I was not eating enough protein, and I have also been getting muscle pain in my legs. I will have to start a food diary I think and see if I can see a pattern at all and maybe count up my protein intake. I do eat fish (salmon 1 or 2 times a week) and we do have meat, but not the best cuts, so maybe not enough protein. I tried to not eat so many eggs as my cholesterol was going up a bit, even though I love eggs. And if craving for carbs is a side effect as well, then maybe this is my problem. Think I need to look into this and see if it helps. Thanks for the tip...

Honey_Bear

Making, what has changed my view about what I eat regarding protein is the fact that a chicken breast, for instance, is not all protein.  I'd always assumed if I had protein once a day I was getting enough but I now know I absolutely wasn't.  100g of chicken breast will contain 29.55g of protein, and if women are supposed to have upwards of 46g of protein a day just for a sedentary lifestyle that means a couple of eggs (12.8g), and at least an inch cube of cheese as well.  Probably.  I'm still figuring this out!  And it should be spread out over three or four meals a day, not all in one hit.  I'd do just about anything to stop the muscle pain in my legs because I've now had to resort to taking ibuprofen every day recently since I started walking again and it's not because of the broken ankle.  I'm aiming for more than 46g a day for the next couple of weeks and hope it works.  I should know fairly quickly.

Eggs, by the way, according to recent research, are not a problem with cholesterol that they were thought to be.  We all thought they were full of the bad cholesterol, but it turns out they're full of the good cholesterol after all so we can eat more than a couple a week.  Just as well as I'm planning on having two for breakfast every day for the next fortnight.  (Just as well I also eat a lot of fruit and veg because I do find they have another side effect I'd rather than have to to deal with ever again.)

Makingabobor2

@Honey_Bear, yes its hard getting enough. I'll have to research more I think. I do like an egg for breakfast, I must admit. Could it even be that too much sugar is depleting our protein from our bodies?  Who knows. Hope we manage to work it out

cookie02

This is fascinating reading about protein, Honey_Bear & Making. I will look into this more as I had no idea and now I'm wondering whether more protein might stop me from eating randomly.  Yesterday, I had cake - it was shop-bought and turned out to be one of those that looked much better than it tasted but I only had a small bit.  I'm going to try and be sugar-free today.

How is everyone?  Hope you are having a good week so far! 

Honey_Bear

 I was amazed by the effect basing my meals yesterday on three helpings of protein had on how much else I wanted to eat.  Basically, two boiled eggs, one and a third slices of toast and butter (I just couldn't force myself to eat the rest of the second slice!) meant that I didn't get hungry or even think about food until - surpirse surprise - half past three.  I was toying with the idea of raiding the box of homemade brownies in the fridge and realised that wouldn't help, really, so I settled for half a pouch of curried chickpeas and yoghurt.  That was the end of thinking I could cram anything else into my stomach! 

Later on, I opted for some of the frozen beef and mushroom casserole thing that's been hanging round in the freezer for at least four years and Belovéd fried himself some chicken livers, which we scoffed with rice and bendy veggies from the bottom of the fridge.  In all I think I had about 76g of protein yesterday but that may be out by a bit of a margin.  Even if it is it's about three times the amount of protein I normally eat which would explain quite a bit.

I'm afraid I overdid the amount of walking about and my ankle was giving me gyp in the evening which is my excuse for eating more chocolate than I should have, but a lot less than I used to every day.  It wasn't because I was hungry because I really wasn't.  What was immediately noticeable was that my legs weren't bothering me when I went to bed or when I woke up so I'm hoping that's a sign that I may have found the cause after all these years.

Today' protein calculations are ongoing and looking okay so far but I haven't added up dinner yet so I won't know until later what the total figure will be.

Let's just accept that there are some days at this depressing time of year (the economy, looming fuel bills, the grey skies, the cold, the wind and the rain to name just a few issues) we may not be as sugar-free as we'd like to be.  I refuse to give in and abandon this Challenge because I know it's working overall for me but it really is hard at the moment.  I totally get why you had that small slice of cake Cookie.

Makingabobor2

That's interesting and excellent news that you are seeing an improvement in your legs already.  I once read in a self help book that we should say we are "aware of a pain", rather than say "we have a pain", that way we are acknowledging that it exists and just letting it go, rather than "owning" it and therefore worrying and thinking about it, which makes it worse.  

I had a good start to the day with boiled egg & gluten free toast, as I find too much gluten just makes me bloated and bread seems to be the worst culprit. But then I missed lunch as I was busy and just had a toasted teacake...which isn't too bad, except I put apricot jam on it. And have to confess to having a biscuit with my coffee as well. 
I agree about the horrible winter weather making us worse. I sometimes think I really suffer from SAD syndrome, which certainly won't help. I'm keeping going though, and I will cut down the sugar eventually

Honey_Bear

Making, you're doing exactly what the rest of us are doing at the moment - a bit of comfort eating.  I absolutely love apricot jam and I discovered masses of slightly under-ripe apricots in Morribunds a couple of years ago and bought the lot.  My version of apricot compote as a dessert didn't work particularly well but the jam was out of this world.  We're still munching our way through it on the weekends, and we gave loads away because we didn't need that much.  I think it was the first jam I made with my new thermopen and I wish I'd bought one years ago.  It's a marvellous little thing and makes jam-making a doddle.

There's no doubt that skipping a meal and feeling hungry leads to me indulging in sugary things unless I can be really stern with myself, and have pretty much instant access to something savory which isn't always possible if you're out and about or busy.  I don't have those excuses at the moment.

As for the issue of how to manage pain, I've been living with this leg pain intermittently for 30 years and I'm just tired of it.  I've worked out some of the things that make it worse, I can make it a bit better myself by stretching assiduously, but the reality of it is that if it's keeping me awake at night I'm not sanguine about it because I don't see why I should be.  All I've ever wanted to do is get to the bottom of what's causing it and if it's lack of protein I'd be delighted.  I'm not delighted by having to eat a lot of meat, but it's the fastest way to work out if it's the cause right now and there's quite a bit in the freezer that's been hanging round for a long, long time so I'll be using it over the next couple of week and creating space in there.  Win:win.

Honey_Bear

I resisted chocolate all day and last night which isn't surprising given how full I feel cramming all this protein into my system I now beginning to realise.  Goodness it's filling.  While I was rummaging about in the freezer I found a box of baked nectarines, pulled them out and defrosted them to have three halves each with yoghurt as dessert last night.  It's another box of food that's been in there years.  They were originally baked with white wine with a sprinkling of brown sugar for the whole tray - about 20 nectarines overall - so I probably had less than a teaspoon of sugar last night, but it was another box out of the freezer (hurrah!) with a satisfying dollop of yoghurt on top which is largely why I had the nectarines.  I suppose just having the yoghurt would have been a better option but for some reason that didn't occur to me.  Belovéd can have the rest of them and I'll just settle for the yoghurt as dessert.

I'm not getting any cravings at all for chocolate at the moment while I'm feeling this full.  I just needed to emphasise that because it's a revelation to me.