Dear Sugar,
This is hard for me to say. So I’ll just be very honest with you.
It’s time you and I parted ways.
Listen, you were good while things lasted. Great, even! I felt like you were what kept me going during the day. I felt like you were my reward for the challenges in life. But I’ve come to realize you are doing me more harm than good. And I’ve come to realize I don’t need you anymore. I can do this without you.
Save yourself the embarassment and give up trying to win me back. This is a decision I’ve made for good. This is a real good-bye.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
Jaana
And that, my friends, is how you break up with someone. Or should I say something. This is how I felt when I was breaking up with sugar. And I don’t mean a boy that I called sugar. I’m talking about actual sugar. Sweetener. The bad stuff that makes everything delicious.
I don’t think I ever realized how much of an impact sugar can have on our lives. I, much like Jenna, saw the documentary FedUp and it wasn’t long after that, our whole house changed it’s views on sugar. My husband was already much more of a healthy eater than I am, but I had to make some changes for the sake of myself and our 4-year old son, who I now realize was eating at least 5x’s the amount of recommended sugar per day.
Here’s the thing – we’re not even that big on sweets! I prefer dark chocolate to anything, and we generally keep candy and cakes to a minimum. Our sugar intake was sort of hidden, because it wasn’t an excessive amount of desserts we were eating, but an excessive amount of processed foods. Being as busy as we are, quick lunches and dinners were the ticket. So even though I would watch our calories, we were not getting the proper nutrition overall. I mean, just one juice box for the kid was doubling the 12 grams of sugar that is safe.
I don’t do diets. Like I’ve never done a real diet. But I’ve tried weight loss methods like Weight Watchers (took me a year to lose just 10 pounds) and working with a trainer (didn’t lose anything), but since we cut back on sugar and processed food about 3 months ago, I lost 19 pounds! But more importantly I feel like cutting out the sugar leaves room for better foods and we are getting quality nutrition. My allergies and asthma are almost non-existent. My son’s overall mood and well-being have improved quite a bit too. I wish I could say it solved all of our problems, but I still have skin and hormonal issues I’m hoping will adjust over time, the longer we keep the junk out of our diet.
The main thing I want you to take away from this though, is that it’s not as hard to cut out sugar as you think it is. I promise!
I dreaded making these changes. I had real anxiety over giving up my daily soda and not rewarding myself for a hard day with food. Food just makes me so happy (really, it’s ridiculous) and I felt like without the things I love, I would be miserable. But once I put my mind to it and made the decision to stop buying the stuff that was bad for us, it really became a new habit quickly. The relationship with food began to change. After about 3 days, I wasn’t even thinking about soda, which I considered a miracle. We are far from perfect. I do still treat myself to a fast food meal once in awhile (In-N-Out has my heart) and we partake in goodies for special occasions (hey, we still gotta live!) but I’ve cut down on the processed foods by probably 80%. Now it’s really more of a treat than a way of life.
We are all feeling so much better, not to mention looking the best we ever have! I firmly believe if you’re willing to start with small changes, anyone can improve their lives by lowering their sugar intake, even just a little bit at a time. So worth it!
——————————————————————————————————————-
*** The original post can be found on the HelloFab blog. I will be posting follow ups to answer any questions and give some tips and tricks that have worked for me. Email for leave a comment if there’s anything you’d like to know!
We were already off processed foods because my second kid has a corn allergy and pretty much anything processed has corn. But me and food are bffs, so I was struggling with taking off the last of my baby weight. And I was also just not feeling good in general. Along came baby #3, who had dairy and wheat allergy. I kind of knew those two things were making me feel bad, but didn’t have the motivation to cut them. But we’ll do anything for our kids, right? So, I cut them, dropped 40 lbs, and feel great! I think many of us are feeling bad and carrying extra weight due to what we eating, not necessarily how much. ‘Cause I still love to eat! 😉
exactly Brandi! you are spot on. I love to eat too!
YES to all this! Any wisdom you can impart on how you accomplished this will be of great interest! 🙂 Way to go!
I had a work injury that caused me to stop most of my exercise routine(kickboxing and jazzercise) in 2010 now I do aqua aerobics. Last week made an appointment with a nutritionist. Figured, here we go! She asked me to go over my eating routine: well first thing in the morning before anything else my husband makes me a cup of tea with milk and sugar. Have had this routine since I was probably 4 as my mother was British and that’s how we started our day. Then my second cup of sugary tea and milk is on my ride to work. I was asked when I actually put food in. Oh around 9:30 am, if I am not to busy do try to make eggs with veggies to eat then. The nutritionist asked me to watch “Fedup”, give up my sugar in my tea in the morning, and write down couple times a week what I eat. So, when I got on the scale Saturday morning I had lost 5 lbs, didn’t really change anything else but the sugar.
Now it makes sense: Hello! Eat dinner the night before around 6 and don’t put any fuel in until 930 am the next morning. Body in starvation mode, storing that sugar for later. Got it. Have to say to: Am having 1 cup of tea(milk and sugar) while Skyping sister in England, just can’t help it.
some things are non-negotiable. that’s ok! you still need to have those little treats 🙂
That’s so great! I Recommend reading the 100 Days of Real Food blog for tips on cutting out processed food especially for kids. She has really great simple recipes!
awesome! thanks
You look great! I’m trying to cut down my sugar intake and would be interested to hear about your daily diet and also what kind of workouts/exercises you’re doing.
Thanks for reposting this, Jaana. i’d be interested to know what your diet/food intake looks like on a typical day. Also, did you cut out all obvious types of sugar (baked goods, soda, juice, sweets) or did you also cut out all hidden sugars such as those in sauces (ketchup!), etc? Also, did you cut down on your grains, too? Finally, does your low sugar diet include alcoholic beverages ;-)?
You already looked amazing and now even more! I’d love to hear about your process for identifying the biggest culprits and deciding what to do first!
And I love that you look so healthy and slender at the same time. Skinny, but not scrawny.
Wow! Those are some awesome changes!! I’d love to hear more details on how your diet has changed. Keep up the good work!!