Going No Sugar

Last month Mike, Trish and I went on a strict no sugar diet. (I hate that the word diet implies a desire to lose weight. I use it to mean "eating plan.")  The rules we followed were fairly strict- no sugar, no added sweeteners, no artificial sweeteners, no honey, no fruit, no starches (bread, flour, potatoes, corn, sweet peas, rice, etc), no peanut butter. It was 21 days of strict eating. We went into it because we all had some poor eating habits, and some dependence of eating something sweet as a pick me up. I honestly thought," this will make me not want candy, but that that's all I (might) get out of it."

I was so wrong. I learned so much about food in general and processed food in specific. It completely changed the way I think about everything I eat. I learned that there is sugar in everything. Every. Thing. All those bottles of condiments, dressings, sauces, soy sauce, salsa, mayo. All of it. There is sugar in roasted almonds. There is sugar in most lunch meat, bacon, sausage, ham, jerky. Most yogurt, even plain yogurt. It was a long 3 weeks of reading labels. We ate a lot of salads and grilled chicken. Some days two meals a day.

I learned that even though  I thought sugar didn't really affect me, that I was so so wrong. That mid-morning "low sugar" shaky crash that I was just attributing to not eating "enough" breakfast? Completely gone. Even if I was hungry, it was just a localized feeling, not a full body faintness. In general, so long as I ate meals, I stayed on a more level keel. Also, I never thought of myself as someone who was regularly bloated or had um, digestive issues, but when I returned to eating sugar, specifically bread and pasta, I was suddenly aware of just how they make me feel and make my body react. While I was following the diet I didn't realize how well my body was working, but it was abundantly clear after eating pizza and cake at the boys' party last weekend.

Things that people said would happen, but didn't: My skin isn't magically glowing and clear. I didn't suddenly feel less tired/have more energy. When it was over and I had some Easter candy, it wasn't disgustingly sweet. I did want much less of it, but it wasn't shockingly sweet to me.

What I really truly didn't expect? That I'd lose 8 pounds. That it would linger, that I'd hold onto a lot of the new habits. That I'd consider doing it full time (with a few modifications, I'll get to that.) That snacking would be SO hard- every snack I ever relied on was out, leaving only nuts, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, carrots, and cottage cheese. These get really old, really fast. Especially if these are also what you eat for breakfast. That I would absolutely cringe when I tried to drink a soda afterwards.

As for doing it again- we are still working out how we want to approach it, but I think all three of us are going back to it, with some modifications. For example, I'm going to allow sweetened coconut milk in my coffee. Small amounts of fruit. Sugar Free peanut butter. Granola with a low sugar content. I'm going to "choose well" at restaurants, but not worry too much about being perfect. I'm going to allow beer. I'm going to look for sugar free options for sauces, but I'm not going to disallow soy sauce for having sugar. I'm not going to eat candy, pastries, fries, pizza, or bread with every meal. I'm going to allow myself a "fancy coffee" if I ever happen to be in a town with a Starbucks. When the local ice cream place has "coconut" for the flavor the day, I'm going to have some. I realize that some people just live like this, which is my goal. I'm realistic. I know I can't maintain it forever, but if I could make it my normal that would be terrific.

Now if I could only get my running routine back...

Why Women Need Fat

At the end of last year I read a really great book called The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, by Kathleen Flinn. While the entire book was excellent, there was one chapter about eating out of the box, about how mixes have taken over for cooking, even though they don't really save that much time. Food out of a box is full of ingredients and preservatives that we wouldn't be eating if we just made those items from scratch. I had just finished that book and was pondering making a lifestyle/eating change when the BlogHer Book Club offered me the chance to read Why Women Need Fat: How "Healthy" Food Makes Us Gain Excess Weight and the Surprising Solution to Losing It Forever. Since I was already in the mood to read more about food, I accepted the title. It arrived during the craziness of Christmas so I didn't start reading until after the new year.

The content of the book was really fascinating, and (as the writers would hope) I thought their argument had merit. Their science made a lot of sense, and I'm more than willing to try their suggestions.  I did find the writing a bit circular and at times a tad (ok, very) dry and hard to focus on, but I found that if I skimmed those bits and came back they would make more sense. Their basic premise is that the addition of so many processed oils, replacing more natural animal fats, have lowered beneficial Omega-3s and raised the more harmful, more fat inspiring, Omega-6s. They'd have you drop processed food and oils. This jibes well with my thinking from the other food reading I've been doing, so I was willing to go along for their ride.

If you want to join the discussion and learn more about how you can add fat and lose weight, you can click through to the BlogHer Book Club page here. The first topic of discussion is "This means I get to use real butter, right?"  I mean, how can you not follow through on that?

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.