One of the
biggest things in my these-are-not-resolutions post was the bit about me not
having had sugar since last year’s Ash Wednesday. That’s actually not just when
but also how it started. My first thought had been, hey, let’s do this Lent
thing and let’s give up sugar for Lent. It stopped cold turkey (which, luckily,
is not a sweet dish) from February 13th onto 14th and
was, thus, gifted a heart shaped box of candy right after having decided not to
eat that kind of stuff anymore. The candy, I mean. Never have or will eat
cardboard boxes.
I was
surprised by how easy it was to give up sugar (which I will define more closely
in a moment/paragraph or two) and therefore decided to switch it up from Lent
to Lent’s-see-how-long-we-can-do-this.
Now,
because I am me and I am always in competition with myself and having to prove
myself over and over to everyone who will listen and constantly accepting
challenges nobody even made (think Barney Stinson on ‘roids)… that then turned
into I can’t stop now or it wins! “It” being the sugar. Don’t ask me how it can
win anything and especially don’t ask me who even cares (aside from me, way too
much), but the game was on. Again, it’s just me playing here.
Recently,
as I also mentioned in the not-resolutions post, I decided to get better at
nutrition in order to become a healthier person. I have a beautiful goddaughter
and an awesome little niece and nephew, so I have to take care of myself for
them so I can be a good madrina and auntie for them for a long time. And one
with energy that can play and have fun with them and not watch from the couch
while they run around… In order to become better at eating, I joined Noom. Not
going into details on that right now except to tell you that as part of that
programme, I’m in a group with like-minded and like-“objectived” people so we
can all help each other with motivation and whatnot. That group is the reason
I’m writing this no-sugar post. Some gals are wanting to do a “sugar-detox” and
I said hey, let me tell you about how I haven’t had candy in a year to help you
with setting ground rules for yourself! Because, while I don’t know many
things, I know about setting myself some rules, oh yeah.
Here goes:
my hopefully comprehensive list of what I decided is cool and what isn’t.
I fully
gave up:
·
full-on
added sugar
This is the
most obvious first step.
I never put
sugar into my coffee or tea, but that’s the most obvious thing to go. Something
else I have never done anyway, but that would fall into this category, is
spoonfuls of sugar added into fresh squeezed juice, yoghurt, onto bowls of
cereal or bowls of fruit. I mean, what? I’ve seen that happen and have had to
(almost literally) fight to get those things without the sugar… Crazy to me,
but normal to many, apparently. This means spoonfuls of granulated white or
brown sugar, sugar cubes, rock candy on a stick to put in your tea, etc
·
healthy
alternatives to added sugar
Yes, all of
these things are not processed white sugar and some of them are low-glycemic,
but they’re still sugar in my book, so they are off limits as well. This is
honey, agave syrup, rice syrup, maple syrup, any kind of corn syrup, date
sugar, birch sugar, palm or coconut sugar, dextrose, molasses, and many more.
While they are healthier alternatives to plain old sugar itself, my personal
goal was to cut out not just glucose, but what “sugar” stands for – sweets and
candy and so-called “treats” and all of that. I’m limiting the explanation,
because it would become too much to read.
·
sweet
foods
I removed
candy (chocolate, candy bars, bonbons, pralines, hard candies, gummies,…), ice
cream and fro-yo, preserves (jams, jellies, marmalades, and compotes), and
baked goods (cookies, biscuits, cakes, tartes, tortes, galettes, pies,
pastries, croissants, bundts, pancakes, crepes, waffles, traditional Austrian
sweet main dishes,…) from my diet completely, whether they are store-bought or
homemade – by whomever (even myself). This also means that when I bake (and I
bake a lot) I do not eat my own food and I also do not try it. I can tell from
smell and touch whether it is how it’s supposed to be and that is enough.
·
sweet
drinks
Sweet sodas
or pops are completely off-limits (think Coke or Fanta or anything like that),
as are iced teas (except when it’s literally me making regular tea and letting
it cool down and putting lemon slices and ice cubes in it, but bye-bye
Arizona), cocoa or chocolate milk or hot chocolate, and juice (because juice,
even fresh, is just fruit-flavored, colored, sugar-water with none of the fibre
or vitamins of the fruit left in it).
·
typical
healthy snacks
There are
alternatives to candy in the healthy snack department, but they are also sweet
and, to me, they are crutches. This means dried and dehydrated fruit like dried
berries, desiccated coconut, dates or figs, raisins, sun-dried bananas, etc –
yes, it’s no longer processed, but it’s literally just empty calories, you’re
munching on fructose. Also in this department are cereals and granolas, and nut
butters.
I greatly
reduced:
·
low-natural-sugar
foods and drinks
While juice
is a no-no, smoothies are fine-ish. Because the whole fruit is in there, you
get everything that whole fruit has to offer in terms of nutrition. However,
they’re still not ideal so I try to stay away from bottled smoothies (such as
innocent or true fruits) in the supermarket and only get fresh-made smoothies
from time to time (from Juice Factory, Omelli’s, or the Rauch Juice Bar, for
example). There’s a kiddie snack I kind of like – from time to time: Quetschis.
Translates to something like “squeezies”, because it’s mushed up fruit in a
squeezable container that you can give your kids to trick them into eating more
fruit and vegetables. A lot of them are very sweet, not because anything is
added (because nothing is, which is awesome), but because fruit simply contains
sugar. But I will allow myself a Quetschi from time to time, if the total sugar
content per 100g is under 10. There’s a wonderful frozen yoghurt place in
downtown Vienna that has plain, natural frozen yoghurt – no sweetness and no
added flavour. I had that once this past summer. Regarding actual food, the
only example I can think of is my recipe for no-sugar spelt’n’almond cookies,
which are delish! At least to me they are, most other people do not like them…
There are also a few other things I can make or bake that wouldn’t have actual
sugar (or healthy alternatives) in the recipe, but I don’t make any of it often
at all. I don’t want to build new bad habits.
·
low-carb
and high-protein drinks
There’s a
bunch of different diets out there and special drinks or meals to match each of
them. I used to like having the odd high-protein drink or cereal bar to make
sure I get enough protein in my diet in general, but as most of those come in
the same flavours as your stereotypical milkshake or frappuccino, I put them on
the no-side of my table. I might have the occasional drink or bar, but this
“occasional” is defined as somewhere around once or twice every three or four
months, so, barely.
·
“sugar
free” and “diet” and “zero calorie” and “light” products
I have
never liked artificial sweeteners, being somebody who can taste aspartame in
drinks and hating it, for example. To me, foods and drinks containing any kind
of artificial sweetener are just even more processed alternatives to already
too processed bad choices. This does not apply to the reduced-fat-content kind
of “light” drinks or foods, I’ll have lean turkey ham or low-fat baby
mozzarella or 1% yoghurt all day every day, thankyouverymuch. But fake sugars,
nope. There are two exceptions in my life at the moment: Diet Coke/Coke Zero
and Red Bull Sugarfree/Zero Calories. Both of those are terrible and I work on
keeping my consumption low, but I’ll be very, very honest here: I drink only
water and coffee on a day to day basis, in varying shapes and forms (think
sparkling mineral water or ice cold tap water and a cappuccino or double shot
espresso). I drink coke sometimes to get a different taste in my mouth (because
it’s not always a tea-moment and I have some pretty disgusting-tasting meds I
have to take every day and nothing else masks the taste well enough) and I
drink Red Bull at work. Because work. Coffee is not sufficient (sorry,
coffee!).
·
the
hidden sugar
Not to
start any conspiracy theories here, but we all know there’s a lot of sugar in a
lot of things where you wouldn’t typically expect it, because, at the end of
the day, oftentimes, carbs equal sugar. Therefore, I try to stay away from
white flour and stick to whole-grain everything – from bread over pasta to rice
and other grains. I also avoid flavoured yoghurts and similar products that are not marketed or intended as a sweet treat, but which still contain a whole bunch of sugar.
·
processes
Naturally
(pun intended!), the more processed a food is, the less nutritious value it has
for you and the more bad stuff is contained in it – including sugar. For me,
this is where cutting out sugar has bled over into turning my diet as a whole
into something a little healthier. The fewer unpronounceable ingredients a food
has, the better. The more visi- and recognizable the building blocks of a meal
are, the better. Less sugar, less weird chemicals, more health, more sanity
(where food logging is concerned, eh, cos that stuff gets complicated!).
What I
haven’t and won’t cut out:
·
fruit
I know
fruit contains sugar, but I’m not diabetic and I’m doing this for me, not a
doctor. Therefore, I continue enjoying all of nature’s goodies!
I learned:
·
Food
is easy, people are not.
At my last
job, I heard the same stupid joke about something containing “no sugar, just
[insert any type of candy]” at least once a week. I’ll polite-chuckle twice,
then polite-smile twice, then ignore it twice, then glare. Because it gets very
old very fast… Everyone also has an opinion and most of those are not at all
helpful. Also, people tend to take this personally. I’m a bad friend because
I’m not making an exception for your cake-mix-cake? I didn’t make an exception
for my nephew’s birthday cake that I worked on for three days and even learned
new techniques for, you egotistical snowflake.
·
Don’t
lean too far the other way.
The first
few weeks, I course corrected a little too hard and replaced the entire tub of
Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream with the entire can of Original
Pringles and the entire cake with the entire loaf of bread. If you’re an
over-eater, quitting sugar won’t help you with anything other than quitting
sugar. Other problems need other solutions and you have to be careful not to
create a new problem (maybe replacing high blood sugar with high
cholesterol..?), which leads to the next point.
·
Trust
the tummy.
The most
important thing is to do this for the right reason. Society doesn’t matter,
trends and fads don’t matter, your health does. Does it feel right to eat or
not eat something? Go for it. Or away from it, whichever it is. Your body knows
what it needs (tummy tells you when it’s full or when it needs more food) and the
better you learn to listen to it, the easier staying healthy will be.
Okay, now I
think I’m done preaching.
Let me know
if I should elaborate on anything else and maybe share your own tips with me in
a comment!
Sehr ausführlich geschrieben, wenn auch als "nicht so gut Englisch verstehender" Mensch, schwierig zu lesen. Man kann sich daran ein Beispiel nehmen, ungesundes gegen gesundes Essen auszutauschen. Mami
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