5 days without sugar

The holidays are far off enough, why am I still eating like it is Christmas time? After licking my fingers of buttercream icing and nursing my bellyache from all the sugar from last weeks post, I decided I would go for 5 days without sugar, added sugar that is, real or artifical. This seemed fairly easy… at first. I thought this would be the extent of it:

On Sunday, the day before this no sugar thing started, Adam and I got into the car to go grocery shopping. I keep gum in my car to chew while driving and normally take a piece during times like these until he ruined the moment by saying “this means you can’t have gum!” And sure enough aspartame is added into the gum as well as a bunch of other ingredients I can’t pronounce. So that crosses gum off of my somewhat daily routine, no biggy.

5 days without added sugar - mentos gum — Mentos Spearmint Gum ingredients. Click on the picture and try to find the misspelling on their website!

But then we got to the grocery store. 2 of the 5 meals I had planned for the week we realized I couldn’t have. This meant perogies and vege burgers were out due to added sugar in the pre-made frozen meals. Instead I would have a regular potato in place of perogies (although I did find that the Classic Onion Mrs. T’s perogies do not have added sugar, but the Feta & Spinach do) and an actual burger in place of the vegetarian option (Morningstar vege burgers contain added sugar). I also put “look up homemade vege burger recipe” on my to-do list.

I even found that the mayo I use in my tuna salad has sugar in it!

I substituted lemon, olive oil, salt, and pepper instead.

There are a lot of no sugar diets I found on the internet. Some are paid and some are free. I believe that you should not have to pay to not eat sugar. Here are a few of the more popular ones.

The 21-day sugar detox cuts out all fruit except lemon, lime and you can have green apples sometimes. You have to pay to participate in this one.
The 10-day no added sugar challenge allows a glass of wine here and there. My kind of plan… short and sweet (enough).
The I Quit Sugar 8 week program was the longest challenge I found. They cut out fruit completely then gradually add it back into the diet by the end. Oh and you have to pay for this one too.
My favorite challenges were by Skinny Ms. She has a 30-day no sugar challenge and a 7-day sugar detox and she allows naturally occurring sugars, which are found in wine! If I follow those rules I could probably make it 30 days! And its free.

There are also a lot of great articles about how bad sugar is for our bodies. Just on Facebook during my no sugar week one of my friends posted this article on “Too much sugar may be as damaging to the brain as extreme stress or abuse.” Here are some other interesting articles:

Day 1

I woke up and immediately wanted my coffee mocha with cream. So much for that Monday motivation. I had eggs for breakfast so that kept me full, but I felt anxious by 9am and again around 2pm for sugar and peanut butter. I was at my parents house and they had chocolate chip cookies and angel food cakes, but I resisted the urge. They made me take some home for Adam though, so they came with me. To haunt me.

Dinner: Salmon, mixed vegetables and rice. Adam realized that the salmon seasoning he uses contains sugar (I assume that’s what makes it taste soo good) so we used Emeril’s Original Essence instead.

Day 2

I want my coffee! Today I found out my breakfast smoothie puts me over my recommended sugar consumption on MyFitnessPal app, so I decided from now on I will have eggs for breakfast instead. The breakfast smoothie contains ice, a banana, berries, spinach, flax seed and unsweetened almond milk.

berry smoothie — My normal breakfast smoothie. Too much sugar I guess.

Dinner: Greek salad with olive oil and vinegar dressing.

Day 3

Today was #nationaldrinkwine day and since wine is a natural sugar I put it back on the list of things I could drink. I also got my first ClubW box today so that made me super excited for wine. It is included in some of the other no sugar diets so why can’t it be in mine. WINE IS IN!!!

Both hands are taken! National Drink Wine Day

Dry wines are the best way to go to avoid extra carbs. Making a spritzer using club soda instead of half of the wine decreases the sugar even more!

Dinner: Fried spaghetti and green beans.

Day 4

I was worn out on this day. I just remember feeling defeated. I just wanted my dark chocolate, but my go to brown paper bag popcorn snack was there to save me… and Zoey too.

Dinner: Potato with onion, sour cream (instead of Perogies)

Day 5

TGIF. Tomorrow I can have my coffee! I decided to make an awesome sugar free breakfast omelet with spinach, feta cheese and kalamata olives! It was so good, even with my last day of morning tea.

Dinner: Burgers, baked sweet potato fries and brussel sprouts

What saved me: LaCroix, Organic coconut water, Water, Frozen fruit, paper bag popcorn, 1 glass of wine midweek

What I will take away from this:

Natural food and less sugar is so much better for my overall health and left me feeling good about myself
I would rather do sugar free Sunday-Thursday vs. Monday-Friday, so as I continue with this I will change it to these days instead.
Reading the labels on food is soooo important. I was reading them before, but not as in depth as I am now. People really need to get educated on this.
I am going to try to stay away from refined sugars from now on. I made healthy banana bread this morning with honey instead of white granulated sugar! Adam said it was the best banana bread he has had.