My sugar story
I grew up in a household that always ate healthy food. I was always encouraged to eat lots of fruit during the day, dinner would always be salad or vegetables sometimes with meat, sometimes without. We always drank filtered water. Cereals like cocopops would be on birthdays or Christmas. I would have weetbix or cornflakes. Bread was always wholemeal. Mc Donalds was once every couple of months at best. KFC was once a year at best.
But, every night after dinner we would tuck into a dessert of some kind. I would eat ice lollies and ice creams during the day. Mum would always bring home a cake of some sort when she went shopping. There was always some sort of biscuits in the cupboard and remember those weetbix and cornflakes I ate every morning, they were dredged in sugar to give them flavour.
So you can see there is this idea that is common in many families that sugar can form part of a healthy diet and it’s not bad for you. So long as you eat your veggies, you can eat your chocolate cake.
I don’t regret for one minute being brought up to eat healthy food, but I had developed these habits around sugar hits and those sort of habits are hard to break.
Up until 3 years ago, I still ate sweets during the day and night. A nice healthy tuna and salad sandwich finished off with a cupcake. I felt I had deserved it for having such a healthy lunch. I would be preparing stir fried chicken and veg for dinner whilst Hannah was baking the cookies for after.
About 4 years ago, I decided that based on advice from nutritionist friends, I would limit my sweets to after dinner at night. This was a massive shift and also very beneficial. It’s like a smoker going from a pack a day to 5 smokes a day.
About 3 years ago, I decided to only eat sweets on weekends. Again a massive improvement. I was listening to a guy named Paul Chek who at the time was taking the fitness industry by storm. He said sugar is poison in the body and whilst I agreed to some degree, I didn’t bother to do my own research, I just decided to cut back a bit.
Over the years, I have heard enough to make me want to stop eating sugar all together. I have done my research and I know sugar is very bad for you and it makes you fat, but in all honesty I made the decision to eliminate as much sugar from my diet as possible when I completed my CrossFit cert in May 2009. I was in a room with guys and girls who made it a priority to not eat sugar and they spoke a lot about the ill effects sugar has on the body. They were fit, healthy and ripped. I wasn’t fat by any means, but I knew I could rip up a bit and improve my health, so I made a vow not to eat sugar for as long as I could. This was a big call for me. People would ask me if I was never going to eat sugar again. I told them I would love to say yes, but realistically that is not true. I am going to not eat sugar for as long as possible. then I will eat it as little as possible.
I went for 2 months with no sugar. Everytime I wanted some sugar I thought of those guys and what they spoke about and I thought about their eating habits. It actually wasn’t hard. The problem is that when you eat sugar you want more, so if you can get through the first week, you should be fine. I don’t kid myself with Christmas around the corner, Hannah and I have a tradition of making rocky road for our friends and family and a ginger bread house for Christmas day, but I can tell you I am going no sugar until nearly Christmas time and then back on the wagon straight after New year and whilst that is not perfect 365 days a year, it is realistic and a huge improvement.
I don’t have a problem with lashing out on special occasions, the main thing is to determine what is a real special occasion – your birthday or anniversary or a holiday you have been planning for months OR is it just Friday night out with friends or a hard day at work or Sunday friends come over. I could probably create a so called “special occasion” weekly if I had to in order to justify my weakness. But I would rather be fit and healthy.
My reasons for not eating sugar are not weight related at all, they are health related. So if I can do it and I don’t need to lose fat, it is even more important for you if you need to lose bodyfat.
If you’ve got anything you’d like to share, please feel free to write it in the comments.