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Sugar Challenge for the New Year: 1 Month Without Sugar

January 01, 2012 • Comments (15)

Happy New Year!

23 days. That’s all it takes, so they say. It takes 23 days to create a new habit. If you want to cut out sugar in 2012 then you need to start by going at least 23 days. Just in case, we’re going to go 31 days.

Join the January Sugar Challenge!

Since everyone is different, I’m inviting you to post in the comments below and let us know what your parameters are for this month. Maybe you just want to cut out sugar from your coffee. Perhaps you want to completely get off candy and snacks. Whatever you choose is up to you. Make the commitment and then make it public!

We’ll keep in touch through the comments on this post and via the Stop being Sweet forum. Together we can support each other to Stop Being Sweet in 2012.

From right now until January 31st, do your thing. Good luck!

Posted on Jan 01, 2012 • Comments (15)

Sugar Challenge: Play the Sugar vs. Me Game!

December 12, 2011 • Comments (0)

We’re rolling along with the 2011 Holiday Sugar Challenge. Whether you’re participating or not, you can easily play the Sugar vs. Me game anytime of year. Here’s how it works:

1. Determine a time frame to play the game. For example, one day, week, or month.

2. Every time you are faced with the choice of whether to eat sweets or not, consider it as a single bout in the larger game.

3. Make a note with sugar on one side and you on the other.

4. Keep score. If you eat sweets then Sugar gets a point. If you avoid sweets then you get a point.

Whichever side has the most points at the end of the game duration is the winner.

Have fun!

Posted on Dec 12, 2011 • Comments (0)

Join Us for the 2011 Holiday Sugar Challenge!

October 31, 2011 • Comments (124)

Here’s the Plan:

1. Halloween (October 31st)

Eat whatever you want on Halloween.
Then, NO SWEETS until…

2. Thanksgiving (November 24th)

Eat anything on Thanksgiving day.
Then, NO SWEETS until…

3. New Year’s Eve (December 31st)

Eat whatever you want, but only from 6 pm - midnight.

Let’s Support Each Other

Together we can Stop Being Sweet.

Participate in the challenge and survive the holidays virtually sugar free. Join us anytime. Talk with us in the comments area below and/or join the Support Forum.

Already Off Sugar?

We will completely abstain from sweets right through the holiday season. Let’s do this!

Check Out These Blog Posts

• What It Means to Stop Being Sweet
• Sugar and the Myth of Sheer & Magical Willpower
• How to Say No to Dessert at Someone’s House
• 10 Reasons Why Quitting Sugar Will Make You Happy
• Sugar: The Bitter Truth Video with Dr. Robert Lustig
• Toxic Sugar Radio Show
• The Truth About Lucky Charms
• 8 Unbelievable Sugar Ads
• 10 Sugar Free Snack Ideas
• Abstaining from Sugar Makes People Angry

Posted on Oct 31, 2011 • Comments (124)

Weekly Sugar Challenge: Week of October 24, 2011

October 24, 2011 • Comments (2)

Have you watched the television show MADMEN, about New York City advertising firm in the 1950s? Notice how EVERYONE smoked? Did you see the episode where Donald Draper’s son said his eyes were burning and his mother didn’t realize it was from the smoke of her cigarette?

Are you old enough to remember ash trays in airplanes? On car door handles? In waiting rooms? It seems crazy now but it was normal at the time.

Perhaps one day in the future there will be a show called Sweet People. In it, folks will sit in front of a computer all day while drinking “energy drinks” and eating junk food. They’ll have Pop Tarts for breakfast while scarfing down some coffee in their sugar and then they’ll go to the vending machine at 10 am for a hit of chocolate. They’ll stop their car at a roadside gasoline station and purchase packages of candy and huge paper cups filled with soda. And some chips.

Future generations—the kids who are being born right this minute—will one day watch Sweet People and say, “I kinda remember that. My grandmother kept a bag of Oreo cookies and a six pack of Rebull next to her desktop computer.”

Even though our grandkids will vaguely remember our sweet eating ways, it will seem foreign to them. Everything we know now as being cool (iPhone 4s) and trendy (Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream) will one day be as old fashioned as vinyl LPs.

The Challenge

This week, imagine what your future could look like and consider the legacy you’re leaving behind. Everything you do will one day add up to become the story that gets told about you—if your story is worthy of a telling. Do you really want, “[Your Name Here] really loved sweets,” to be what they say about you?

We don’t go on forever. Nothing does, including the Weekly Sugar Challenge. Next Monday is Halloween and it’s the start of the 2011 Holiday Sugar Challenge. On that day I am going to retire the Weekly Sugar Challenge. I will continue to blog about sugar of course and about the Holiday Sugar Challenge until January 1st, at which time I will replace the Weekly Sugar Challenge with something new.

If you’re participating in the Holiday Sugar Challenge, do whatever you feel you need to do this week to prepare. Halloween is just one week away!

Posted on Oct 24, 2011 • Comments (2)

Weekly Sugar Challenge: Week of October 17, 2011

October 17, 2011 • Comments (2)

This week’s challenge has nothing and everything to do with sweets. Starting right now, begin to remove external stresses from your life. Sounds easier said than done, right?

Here are some ways to do this:

1. Refrain from taking on anything new until you clear something off your “to do” list.

2. Refrain from taking on anything new until after you completely clear your “to do” list.

3. Start hacking away at your “to do” list right now and then be very selective about what you add to it in the future.

It can be difficult for sweeties to put the above three steps into practice. Here’s why: The more stuff that you have to do the more stress you experience. The more stress you experience the more you want to find a relief from the stress. The best way to relieve the stress of having too much to do is to literally remove a few things from your list either by doing them or by rejecting them.

If you’re a sweet person, chances are some of the things on your list have nothing to do with you. If you have things like taking care of another person’s needs, helping out a friend or coworker, or doing a favor for an acquaintance on your list then perhaps you can remove that item from your list. You have to take care of yourself first.

Next, examine why you have so many things on your list. The more stress you have the more you’ll want to seek an escape from the stress. If your “to do” list is too large, you won’t be able to check everything off of it in one day. That means you’ll need to do something to relieve the stress and often that means you’ll go and eat some sweets. In fact, eating sweets becomes a rational escape from the stress.

Because eatings sweets is pleasurable, it’s easy to justify taking on junk food as a coping mechanism while you tell yourself life is just too darn crazy. It’s entirely possible that you purposefully have a lot on your plate (pun intended) so that you are “forced” to escape into a box of cookies, your morning coffee, or in whatever other form of sweet junk food you like to partake.

So this week begin to hack away at your “to do” list and don’t take on anything new. Say no when asked for a favor. If someone gives you an added responsibility that you feel you must accept, tell them you will do it in a week or so when you’re caught up with what you have to do now. In other words STOP BEING SWEET!

Oh, and of course abstain from eating sugar. If you get things done (remove stress) and avoid sweets, your will change your life dramatically. Good luck!

Posted on Oct 17, 2011 • Comments (2)

Weekly Sugar Challenge: Week of October 10, 2011

October 09, 2011 • Comments (7)

There is no challenge this week. Do whatever you want. Eat whatever you want. Who cares about sweets? People smoke and drink and drive drunk and they live just fine. College students jump from hotel balconies into pools. Some folks eat meat, take drugs, and make money off the hard labor of others and they live to be 99 years old. So what does it matter if you eat sweets?

Steve Jobs died last week. All the money he had and they couldn’t stop the cancer. I wonder if he would’ve traded his entire fortune for a clean bill of health. I bet he would have. He could’ve made the money back with his skills and smarts. The rest of us live simple lives; what do we have to look forward to? We have some cookies at lunch. We get a happy meal for dinner. We have ice cream in front of the television when it’s dark outside, a half-full bowl of our favorite candy at 9:30 pm on Halloween, or leftover cheesecake.

Just eat whatever you want. Live it up. Who cares? Nobody wants to forgo their sugary snacks. Life is too short. There are birthdays, weddings, holiday parties, and sunny backyard barbecues to look forward to. Really, who cares? You can tell people about the Holiday Sugar Challenge but they won’t hear. It’s like telling people to stop drinking. Or smoking. Or driving drunk. They’ll do it anyway and they’ll brag about it.

They’ll say, “I’m the worst. Can you believe what I did?”

Posted on Oct 09, 2011 • Comments (7)

Weekly Sugar Challenge: Week of October 3, 2011

October 03, 2011 • Comments (0)

This week’s challenge is to start preparing for the 2011 Holiday Sugar Challenge!

To get ready, try going a business week without sweets. Eat whatever you want over the weekend starting on Friday evening after 6 pm.

There are still four weeks until Halloween and that’s when the official Holiday Sugar Challenge begins, so consider this practice for making it through the holidays without overdosing on refined and added sugars.

If you’re already off sweets and plan to stay that way through the holidays, please share a recipe in the forum!

Let’s get through the next few months together with minimal sweetening.

Good luck!

Posted on Oct 03, 2011 • Comments (0)

Weekly Sugar Challenge: September 26, 2011

September 26, 2011 • Comments (8)

It’s almost here—pumpkins, witches, parties, and candy. While the thought of Halloween may frighten you, there’s nothing more scary than this week’s challenge.

Find someone who you can confide in, count on, or at least talk with about your relationship to sweets. You needn’t fully garner their compliance in going unsweet for any length of time. Simply make sure that you can communicate with this person and that they have concerns, thoughts, and feelings about how sugar wreaks havoc in their diet.

Talk to this person. Have a conversation about sweets. Listen. Notice what familiar things they tell you and what stuff is news to you. You’re taking the first step to building a support network that’s going to become very important to your health in the coming months. Good luck!

Posted on Sep 26, 2011 • Comments (8)