Seriously - I did it. And if you are thinking 'no big deal' then you need to read the ingredients on everything you eat. In all kinds of foods from whole grain bread to ketchup, there is refined sugar snuck in there somewhere.
One benefit of keeping a daily food journal for a long period of time is that you can see hunger patterns. I probably eat less sugar than most people, and the sweets I eat are not considered 'bad' foods (well except for those Christmas cookies, but that is a different story!). I hardly eat any sugar during the day, but after dinner my sweet tooth takes over. Low fat granola bars or even just plain old cereal. Once I eat something sugary, then it just seems to make me hungrier. I've discovered that my nighttime eating adds nothing but sugar and calories and an increased appetite. So yesterday I decided I was going to go 100% refined sugar free and see how I did. Interestingly, my calories for the day were only at about 1000 and I was not hungry (except immediately after dinner when I had my typical sweet craving which I was able to satisfy with a small glass of fruit and vegetable juice). I also had enough energy to run 2 miles on the treadmill. Who knew?! So what did I eat yesterday? Here it is:
Plain Oatmeal (no flavor) to which I added one spoon of ground flax seed, one chopped up date and 4 chopped up almonds.
Apple
about 1 cup raw broccoli
about 1/2 cup raw carrots
about 1/2 cup raw sugar snap peas
Bok Choy and White Bean Soup (my own recipe, don't ask for it, it was not good but I ate it anyway)
1/2 large Sweet Potato
Small glass of V8 Fusion fruit/veggie juice
A few carrots and about 1 tbs Hummus
3 dates and 12 small almonds (put together and rolled in flax seed - my short cut date-nut poppers)
Lots of water with lemon juice for flavoring
Dr. Fuhrman says, everything other than plant food should be a condiment. Many of my days I have sugar as a condiment, but now I'm confident that I can have more and more sugar free days. Now if I could only get my family on board.........
For the first three weeks of December and the first two weeks of January I was completely sugar-, carb-, and alcohol free. It's hard, you pretty much have to eat only whole foods, nothing pre-made or processed at all, and going out to eat is really hard. At home I just made a side of rice or pasta for my husband and he was fine with it. :) A few years back I read the South Beach Diet book and learned SOOOO much about how your body reacts to sugar and carbs. I didn't follow it exactly this time because I still ate fruit and high-sugar veggies (like carrots, peas, and beets) which are no-nos on South Beach's strictest phase. But it was a great kick-off for my weight loss and a good "de-tox" to retrain my body how to process foods properly. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Cameron and thanks for your comment! Yes, I felt so good that day - couldn't believe I had that much energy on so few calories. I'm going to try to do that a few days/week and just keep low sugar on the others. Hope you are doing well!!
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