David Vanadia

Sugar-Free Challenge: Bold Breakfasts

April 08, 2013 • Comments (2)

For one whole Monday through Friday business week, avoid eating a processed, sweet breakfast.

Sugar in your coffee? Avoid.

Bagels with strawberry cream cheese? Avoid.

Ketchup on scrambled eggs? Avoid.

Huge glass of fruit drink? Avoid.

Several bowls of cereal with a cartoon character on the cover? You know.

Just focus on breakfast. Keep it sugar-free and product free.

If you want to eat sweet, eat natural.

Choose foods that would rot and go bad if you left them out for a week.

Blueberries? Okay.

Strawberries? Yes.

Scrambled eggs? Sure.

There’s plenty of room for exploration and experimentation. Get creative!

Take this challenge any time.

Let us know how you do and what you ate.

Posted in Sugar-Free Challenge on 04/08/13 • Comment

5 Tips to Help You Avoid Sugar

April 05, 2013 • Comments (4)

1. Avoid Stress

Stress leads to eating. Eatings leads to sweets. Eating junk food as an escape makes everything worse. Your problems don’t go away, you feel physically ill, and then you beat yourself up on top of all that. It’s not worth it. Just avoid the stress (as in walk away, don’t get involved, don’t be everyone’s shrink, etc.)

2. Celebrate Without Sweets

When we manage to avoid stress we often end up on the other side of the spectrum—at a party or special dinner and looking to “do something” to celebrate. (Notice how being happy isn’t enough. Why do we have to do something like drink or eat to celebrate?) Next thing you know there’s a dessert tempting you. If you want to get off sugar, you’ve got to stop associating sweets with celebratory happiness.

3. Eat Something Else

If you’ve gone off sweets, chances are that you’re hungry. If you’re hungry, eat something. Starving yourself is one of the fastest ways to eating sugar. Hunger changes your rational thinking into gut thinking. When you’re hungry and your gut takes over, those cookies you have hidden away aren’t going to last very long.

4. Keep Healthy Foods Around

Snack-like healthy foods are everywhere, waiting to be eaten. If you’re hungry or just jonesing for some candy, eat some grapes instead. It’s not the same at first but you’ll come to prefer the fresh foods once you get the processed junk out of your system.

5. Stop Being Sweet

The next time someone wants to get together at a time when you already planned to be doing something for yourself, keep your original plans.

When you want to go to the movies and the others want to go to a concert, go to the movies and let them go to the concert.

If you want to relax on a Friday night and the family wants to go out, stay in and relax while they go out.

Doing what you want to do when you want to do it is the best way to stop being sweet—with food, friends and family. It’s a practice that takes practice and eventually develops into a habit.

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on 04/05/13 • Comment

Sugar Consumption Gone Wild

March 25, 2013 • Comments (2)

Dr. Robert Lustig interviewed by Dr. Sanjay Gupta about whether or not sugar is good or bad for us.

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on 03/25/13 • Comment

Coca Cola Runs Anti-Obesity Commercial in Europe

March 21, 2013 • Comments (3)

Blah, blah, blah! Nah, nah, nah!

If you don’t understand why Coca Cola is part of the problem, check out this Wikipedia page titled Criticisms of Coca Cola. 

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on 03/21/13 • Comment

Judge Stops NYC ‘Soda Ban’

March 15, 2013 • Comments (2)

Regulation on the sale of extra-large sized sugar water was set to begin in New York City on March 12, 2013. However, NY Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling put an end to that.

People are glad that the government can’t dictate what we can or can’t drink—you know like it does with regard to smoking, alcohol, drugs, seat belts, speeding, and taxes.

In this article, Michael Yudell expressed that he wished the Mayor had some kind of evidence to back up the attempt to regulate sugar water. That’s just the issue—how much evidence do we need? Where does it come from?

In the past, Bloomberg/NYC attempted to remove sugary drink purchases from the NYC food stamp program for a test period of two years. That was a valid and reasonable attempt to gather data about how placing a limit on the purchase of sugary drinks would effect lower income populations. Thanks to successful lobbying by the beverage industry, that measure was also shot down.

The big win here is not for the American citizens who still perceive themselves as being free enough to overindulge in sugar water. The clear winner here is the beverage industry.

Related: Opposition To Soda Ban Sad Proof That Americans Still Fight For What They Believe In

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on 03/15/13 • Comment

About David

I realized I had a sugar problem back in 2003 after a weekend-long binge on raw chocolate chip cookie dough and chocolate covered pretzels. As a result, I began trying to quit sugar but kept failing. Finally, I figured out a way to stay off sweet junk food for good. Read more.