Are you a sugar addict? I am. In 2005 I vowed to quit sweets and have been blogging about it ever since. This website contains product reviews, personal journal entries, the weekly Sugar Challenge, and an ebook for people who want to Stop Being Sweet.

I Ate Bagels!

January 20, 2007

Wow. This is really air headed of me, but I never thought of bagels as containing refined sugar until Gabriel from Long Island mentioned it on this site!

When I first quit, I avoided things like cookies, cakes, and candy and replaced them with complex carbohydrates like pasta, fruit, and bagels. It helped me to get off the refined sugars and lower my cravings. After several months into it, I found myself eating too much bread and cut it down. With the super sweets out of my life, it was easier to manage my diet because I wasn’t so ravenously hungry.

I have a friend who hasn’t eaten chocolate in over ten years. She eats other sweets, just not chocolate. When I asked her why she said, “Because it would be all I eat.” That’s what works for her.

I still eat bagels–not all the time–but I do. I also eat Ketchup. And I eat Honey. For me it was a matter of cutting out what I call “trigger foods.” My trigger foods were chocolate chip cookies, Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked ice cream, and Flipz chocolate covered pretzels. I’d eat that stuff ritualistically.

This blog has been read by many types of people. Initially I was writing for those who were just like me—people who ate sugar compulsively. But over time I have heard from people who don’t (want to) eat sugar due to all kinds of health considerations.

Remember, there is no one solution. You can stop being sweet and still have a mint after dinner once in a while. It all really depends on you.

All in all I hope to inspire you to become your own health guru. Learn how to cook healthy meals. Understand how YOUR body works. Discover what you can and can’t eat. Experiment.

Be yourself and be healthy!

PS - The Sugar Challenge is just that, so try to be as strict as possible for the purpose of self discovery!

Posted in My Personal Journal on January 20, 2007

Maya Chocolate Bar Experiment

January 17, 2007

People have been asking me questions lately.

“Do you eat honey?”

“Do you drink coffee?”

“Do you eat white flour?”

Some people are genuinely curious while others ask so they can point out my flaws.

I haven’t quit sugar forever.

I will eat sugar again.

In fact, I eat things that turn into sugar everyday. I eat bread. I eat white rice. I eat sugar free cookies (home made with oat meal, nuts, diced apple, and sweetened with a little bit of honey).

Why?

Because I like sweet things but I don’t want to return to junk food.

So, the other day I tried a Maya Chocolate bar.

Ingredients: organic dates, organic hazelnuts, organic walnuts, organic cocoa, organic cacao nibs, organic cashews

There are no added sugars. They are also free of dairy, soy and gluten. Yeah, there’s some sugar content in there, 19 grams worth. A Snickers bar has 30 grams. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but I did it anyway.

After not having chocolate for a long time something chocolaty was nice. It’s not super sweet and I didn’t feel any negative effects after eating it. Best of all there was no Malitol aftertaste or gassy reaction.

After having been off hard sweets for so long, I’m starting to experiment and see if I can eat semi-sweet things without feeling the negative effects of the sugar roller coaster.

Have you found anything that works for you?

PS - I never drink coffee, I eat white flour, and I eat honey in tiny doses approximately once a month.

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on January 17, 2007

Replacement Foods Are Key To Quitting Sugar!

January 09, 2007

When you stop being sweet, make sure you have other foods on hand. Replacement foods are key! You will find yourself voraciously hungry and you will NEED to eat something. Have something to nosh on, something satisfying. I use apples and natural peanut butter. Try red, orange and yellow sliced fresh peppers. Mmmm!

I ate lots of bread when I first quit. While bread is a complex carbohydrate, for me it was still better than a box of cookies. Pasta and bagels also got me through. Eventually I’d reach for those foods instead of cookies and over time I managed to cut back the carbs.

Take things one step at a time.

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on January 09, 2007

Have Another Drink of Coke

January 05, 2007

This information has been posted all over the web and was emailed to me. This is what happens to your body if you drink a coke right now:

In The First 10 minutes: 10 teaspoons of sugar hit your system. (100% of your recommended daily intake.) You don’t immediately vomit from the overwhelming sweetness because phosphoric acid cuts the flavor allowing you to keep it down.

20 minutes: Your blood sugar spikes, causing an insulin burst. Your liver responds to this by turning any sugar it can get its hands on into fat. (There’s plenty of that at this particular moment)

40 minutes: Caffeine absorption is complete. Your pupils dilate, your blood pressure rises, as a response your livers dumps more sugar into your bloodstream. The adenosine receptors in your brain are now blocked preventing drowsiness.

45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centers of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way.

60 minutes: The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.

60 Minutes: The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.

60 minutes: As the sugar party inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, peed out all of the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like having the ability to hydrate your system or to build strong bones and teeth.

This will all be followed by a caffeine crash in the next few hours. (As little as two if you’re a smoker.)

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on January 05, 2007

Increased Productivity

January 05, 2007

If you go off sugar your life will become far more productive and focused. For one thing, you’ll have to deal with stress and problems by doing something other than self destructive sugar binging.

After several months pass and you stop eating sweets and replace the sugary stuff with veggies and healthy foods, you’re whole physiology changes for the better. Better eating turns into better thinking. You’ll start to deal with problems in different ways and you’ll have the energy to follow through on long term tasks (such as exercising).

Which is more important, eating sweets or accomplishing your dreams?

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on January 05, 2007

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