The 'Towards a Sugar-Free Future' Challenge

Pollybear

I don't ever remember having a sugar high.  I love the taste of chocolate but all I feel afterwards is guilt.  Maybe I get a sugar low instead!

cookie02

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone has a great year in 2023!  Good luck meeting all your health (and other) goals  .  

Pollybear, I don't remember having a sugar high either but I suspect this might be due to having too much sugar for decades.  If I've had a sugar high, I'm guessing it would have been as a kid, before I ate so much of the stuff that I became immune to it (just a guess).  

cookie02

Good morning!  I'm considering this week as part of the Christmas/New Year celebrations (since we're still within the Twelve Days).  To stop myself from going too wild with the chocolate and cake, I'm going to try and revert to Low-Sugar Days from now until Friday evening.  My Low-Sugar goal will be the same as before: to enjoy whatever cake/chocolate I like but only at one meal.  I know we'll still have leftover cake etc next week but I'm hoping that doing this now will mean that I can try to have at least one proper No-Sugar Day next week and re-start that cycle.  I'm not sure how successful I'll be but I already know I've had less sugar this Christmas/New Year vs last time so this challenge continues to make a difference (thank you ).  

How is everyone?  

Honey_Bear

Morning All.  Happy New Year, and let's hope that 2023 is a good year for all of us.

Thank you Polly and Cookie for the feedback about sugar highs.  I think I'd like to get back to a place in my life when I did get a sugar high which means eating considerably less than I am now!

So, here's my plan, and you and I Cookie will be doing the 12 Days of Christmas together and then I'm cutting right back, which I sort of have already a bit anyway.  I made the chocolate Brazils a few days ago and they really worked for me, but are very moreish, obviously.  I used Lidl's 70% plain chocolate and tempered it, and roasted the nuts before I coated them so they're considerably lower in sugar than the ones available in the supermarkets.  I will be doing them again for High Days and Holidays like Easter but it would be too dangerous to have them about for the rest of the time.  Belovéd's birthday on Friday will bring the festivities to a close as usual so starting from next Monday 9 January I'm back on at least one day a week sugar-free but the sooner I can build that up to a few more, the better. 

I am the heaviest I have ever been - on 1 January I weighed in at 69.4kgs.  I need to do something about that.

cookie02

Those chocolate Brazils sound delicious, Honey_Bear!  I might try and make a batch for my mum as she also loves Lid's dark chocolate and nuts.  

Honey_Bear said:

I think I'd like to get back to a place in my life when I did get a sugar high which means eating considerably less than I am now!

Me too!  I feel like I have made some progress though.  When I started eating dates, I had to keep telling myself it was sweet and it was better for me than the chocolatey/cakey alternatives.  Today, I love how sweet they are and there are certain chocolates that I used to love and where I know that, given the option, I'd choose a date instead (a miracle for me!).  Still no sugar high and I doubt I'm even close to feeling that but things are improving.  

Good luck meeting your weightloss goals, Honey_Bear.  I'm sure this is just a temporary setback due to your leg and that you'll be back on track soon 🍀.  

Sugar-wise, I've managed to stick to my low-sugar goal yesterday and today.  Yesterday, I had a couple of leftover Christmas chocolates and today I had a cookie and small slice of leftover cake.  If I can stick to low-sugar tomorrow, I'll be very happy!

Honey_Bear

Well done Cookie.  I too had a small slice of Christmas cake but that was it - no after dinner m@gnum or chocolate of any kind, which is the first day without chocolate for several weeks I think.  Rather chuffed with that.

I must remember to put a date bar in my bag for tomorrow when I'm out, just in case I need something sweet.

~FlowerPot~

Hello, 
I found this thread yesterday and have read a few pages. 
Giving up sugar is so hard! 
I have tried many times to give it up, but even when I manage a couple of months I never seem to lose the addiction. 
But over the last few months I really have been terrible and the weight is creeping up. Which is definetely down to, to much snacking on chocolate and biscuits. 
The other issues I have is stress (i know we all do!) and mouth ulcers, really nasty ones related to food intolerances including sugar and chocolate, so you would think that would be enough to stop me, but alas no! 
So would i think, if you will have me I would like to join this thread to help me reduce my sugar intake drastically. 
Coming on to admit what I've snacked on all day, might be just the thing to help me reduce it! 

Flowers
X

Makingabobor2

Well, I have been doing a lot of research on something that I suspected for a long time....to much refined sugar can make inflammation in sinuses worse!!   This is something I have suffered from for a long time and only recently did I think that there may be a link. So it is true, that you are what you eat.   I suffer from sinusitis quite often and over the last year or so, whenever I get a sinus problem, the skin round my eye seems to flare up as well.  I am sick of going to the GP and him saying its contact eczma and the skin and sinuses aren't related....they must be as the skin problem only comes up when sinuses are worse. 
So I am going to experiment and see what happens, to see if there is a link with too much sugar.  Its useless trying to ask the Dr's opinion on allergies, they just don't seem to understand at all. If its not something that will respond to a drug, they just thing you are making it up. The Dr's answer to allergies was to use a steroid spray....didn't work at all for me and just gave me nose bleeds.   
So hoping that trying to improve my sinuses, will really give me the incentive I need to cut down on the sugar.  I must admit, the last couple of days have been bad...biscuits and chocolate cake.!!

Honey_Bear

@~FlowerPot~ You are more than welcome!  It's lovely when new people join in and I very much hope you become a regular poster.  I'm really sorry to hear about your mouth ulcers - they sound horribly painful, but it just goes to show that this sugar addiction thing is really powerful.  It's amazing what we'll put up with to satisfy the cravings but we all do it.  As for weight - I'm so with you on that!  If I lost a pound a week I'd be very happy right now.

May I suggest you don't go full tilt at this, because it's highly unlikely you'll be able to just stop sugar completely.  I'm a big believer is slowly slowly working towards big goals, so that we have successes along the way which help us carry on.  Trying to cut it out completely is more likely to result in cravings, and cravings are a real tough nut to crack.  From Monday I'm going right back to basics and just aiming to cut it out one day a week again, and when I'm confident I can manage that I'll rev it up to two days a week again, and so on until I can be sugar-free Monday to Friday again.  If you want to start today, that's a great idea - it'll give you a rough idea of how your body will react to suddenly being denied something that's been a habit for quite a long time, if you're anything like the rest of us.  If going a full day is too much, simply set a target you can reach and work from there, such as no sugar until 4.00pm for one day a week.  My weakest point of the day is 3.30pm, so 4.00 would be I would have a success even if I gave in at 4.00pm.  Small, achieveable steps are the way to do this.

Please let us know how it's going.  We'll be rooting for you.

Making, I'm not a medical person but reading around the allergy issue when I had a terrible rash that covered my entire body I discovered that allergies and rashes are almost impossible for GPs to pin down.  Thinking about that I realised that if we can't figure out what the cause is, how can we give the GP enough information to help them diagnose the cause?  Steroids can suppress inflamation, apparently - the vet told me that this week, while altering the dog's prescription for them so that's probably why your GP suggested it.  However, I think you're much more on the ball in this instance than them, and have figured it out for yourself.  There really is only one way to find out and that's to cut back and see if it helps.

I'm delighted to say I had a sugar-free day yesterday which I wasn't planning on, but happened quite naturally.  I completely forgot to put that date bar in my bag, but I did have a round and a half of ham sandwiches with me when I went about doing what I had to do yesterday.  It was long and hard so by the time I got back home I was buckling, which is normally when I'd indulge big time.  However, I reached for a date bar, a glass of water and two cups of tea and let myself stop completely at 4.15pm, and all of that combined - enough protein, a sugar substitute, enough liquids, and allowing myself to stop worked.  I didn't feel the need for my end of day treat, either - that habitual m@gnum.  I may be getting somewhere.

Today is Belovéd's birthday so anything and everything may be on the menu.  No apologies, it's the final part of our Christmas celebrations. 

Makingabobor2

Well, so far so good today....no biscuits have passed my lips. I have had plenty of protein...egg for breakfast and chicken livers for lunch. Must admit, I never realised how tasty chicken livers are.  Tonight its left over mince pork chilli, on half a large jacket potato. Not sure how much protein there is in the mince pork, but its certainly very filling.    
I do confess to  2 large squares of 85% dark chocolate. According to the wrapper, 2 squares contains 3.4gms of sugar, and according to Google, an adult woman should consume no more than 24grms per day. So think I'm ok there. I don't take sugar in my coffee, and don't use anything like ketchup or sauces with added sugar.  My sinus issue is still there, but I expect it to take a few days to get rid of it. We'll see how it goes. 

Hope everyone else is doing ok.