The 'Towards a Sugar-Free Future' Challenge

RandomOne

Good morning again I know I said I wasn't going to start until after Christmas, but I think I'm going to do it from now til Xmas Eve. I'm eating and drinking a silly amount of sugar and not feeling good about it. I'm always OK until 4pm when the cravings hit really bad. 
I hope it's OK to join now, I don't think I can wait til new year. 

Honey_Bear

You're welcome any time you care to join in, or post, @RandomOne.  If you're getting irresistable urges to eat sugar around 3.30 - 4.00 pm my first suggestion would be to try eating more protein earlier in the day, such as breakfast and lunch.  Doing so has helped me enormously.  If you haven't done so today and you still get those urges, if you can settle for peanut butter on toast instead of sugary things that would be a good way to get round it.  Good luck!

RandomOne

Thank you @Honey_Bear I'll try that tomorrow. This morning I had toast with butter for brekkie and tofu stir fry for lunch. Dinner is pie & mash with carrots & gravy. I know this doesn't sound all that healthy, but it's really important for me that I don't change anything else in my diet apart from reducing sugar, as it will all become too unmanageable.

The cravings have just started to hit now, so I'm eating an apple and trying to distract myself. 

Makingabobor2

@RandomOne, maybe you could try a slightly bigger breakfast. I know if I don't have much for breakfast I am hungry all day. An egg with your toast is good, or sometimes I have oatibix with fruit & honey. 

Pleased to report that no biscuits or chocolate have passed my lips so far today. Just about to have a coffee and may have either a slice of toast of a toasted tea cake. But definitely no biscuits or cake!  Dinner is at 7pm but might end up caving in and having a rich tea biscuit at 9pm with a cuppa....its a long time from 7pm to the following morning when its cold. 

Honey_Bear

RandomOne, you do what suits you, and good luck with it.

Well done Making.  One rich tea wouldn't be the end of the world, would it.  I used to absolutely love them, they were my favourite biscuits if chocolate ones weren't available, but we went to live abroad for a few years when I was about six or seven and by the time we made it back they just didn't do it for me anymore.  I've never known whether they changed the recipe (we're talking the mid-60s) or because tap water wasn't safe to drink I mostly drank fresh lime juice (fabulous but loads of added sugar) or 7up - sugar, obviously.  So that was when sugar started being a major factor in my life, when I was about seven or so.  I wasn't overweight with it, in fact I was never overweight until I gave up smoking about 14 years ago, and I've never considered myself sporty or active so it just goes to show how much you can indulge and cope with up to about the age of 50.  Everything changes around then imho.

I caved.  I am so over-tired I can hardly think straight.  I've been overdoing it for at least two weeks and only stop when I'm exhausted and that doesn't agree with me.  So, feeling perfectly happy in myself but with heavy eyelids and achey legs, and being aware that I have a nine o'clock appointment tomorrow morning I'm dreading having to be up and about and perky with it first thing I've not got a lot of energy to resist.  So, indulgence.  That's irritated me but there you go, these things happen.

RandomOne

Thank you Making, I'll add eggs tomorrow and see how I get on. I managed to not have any of my regular sugary foods today (chocolate etc) so I'm really happy with that. I already have the beginnings of a headache, but that might also be hormonal as its that time of the month. 

cookie02

RandomOne, I've also found Making's idea of a bigger breakfast really helpful and Honey_Bear's tips on protein have made a huge difference for me.  Good luck with your experimenting.  If you experiment with cutting out the sugar, I think your tastebuds will change over the long-term.  I've certainly found this happening to me, although I still love my snacks, I've even had moments where a dessert has just been too sweet for me (something that never happened in the past!).  

Honey_Bear, sorry to hear that your legs are aching again.  I hope your schedule eases soon and that the protein helps.  Pollybear's comment about doing well, becoming a bit over-confident and then ending up binging is actually what I think might have happened to me!  


I was doing fairly well a little while ago and I think I thought I'd shifted my mindset enough to not worry as much, plus I was offline due to work and I really notice the difference in my diet when I'm not posting.  This week, I was working weird hours (due to people being in different timezones) and I wrote my posts but didn't get to posting.  It still helped as I managed to stay sugar-free until midday yesterday.  It is a bit of a false result though as I know that I'll be indulging a lot more than usual this weekend and next week, so I was trying to balance that out.  We have family and friends over and we have quite a few catch-ups planned as well (trains and weather pending) so I expect I'm going to be struggling.  I've decided not to give myself a free pass for the whole time as I struggled so much to get back on track last year.  Instead of repeating that, I'm going to have some 'low-sugar' days (instead of no-sugar ones) and then enjoy the rest as High Days / Holidays.  

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the weekend! 

Honey_Bear

Good to hear from you Cookie.  You're doing so much better than I am at the moment, and we're all doing so much better than we would without this Challenge that while I agree with not giving myself a free pass, I am not feeling guilty about lapses. 

Quite apart from the cold, which until this week I didn't realise was a trigger for eating sugar but it absolutely is in my case at least, and I don't think I'm vastly different from other people, the instability of where we are at the moment with strikes, Christmas coming up with all the prepartions we need for that, inflation etc means it's possible we're all a bit more tense than we were in say August. 

Today I want to marzepan the cake, make some mince pies and fix one of the strings of the outside lights.  Those are all extra jobs I don't need to do for 11 months of year and while I enjoy all the preps for Christmas they all take time and that's added pressure because we still have to shuffle laundry and work etc etc. 

We need to be very kind to ourselves.

cookie02

Thanks for your support, as always, Honey_Bear!  If I'm doing better right now, it is also down to the fact that I don't have the added stress of recovering from surgery etc.  We are all in different places and you are right that we need to be very kind to ourselves and accept that stress, pain, tiredness and sugar are all connected for most of us.  I hope you enjoyed all the baking and cake decorating!  

Looking at my spreadsheet, I am also eating more due to the cold and I guess my indirect sugar intake must have gone up because I do like carbs when it's cold (potatoes being my biggest weakness).  

This challenge definitely makes a massive difference .  Based on my struggle to get back on track last year, I think I'm going to settle for low-sugar days this week (Monday - Thursday) vs trying to do no-sugar days.  I'm going to define a low-sugar day as one where I have a sugary treat at one meal only.  Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be High Days/Holidays and I need to decide what to do after the main Christmas weekend is over.  We have quite a lot of extended family planning to visit, as well as various catch-ups with friends.  I'm a bit worried that I'm going to go into a full sugar-guzzling frenzy which I really, really want to avoid.   Whatever happens, I've decided not to beat myself up over any lapses as that's just unhelpful and it is Christmas after all!  

Pollybear

Chocolate