I am positive you feel better and have dropped bodyfat. I hope now you can put some new found habits into place to make your lifestyle a little healthier. Remember, cutting sugar from your diet is not all about weight loss. More importantly, it is about health as sugar is very, very bad for our bodies!

Here is an article I wrote a long time ago about how bad sugar is for us

I am sure a few of you will indulge today as a reward to yourself for lasting out the  30 days and if it is only one treat, it is fine. I am a realist and I understand that whilst in a perfect world, we wouldn’t consume sugar, but I know it is not the reality. Sugar is all around us and is very addictive, so let’s put the focus on reducing our intake rather than eliminating it. Having said that, if you can eliminate it completely, then well done, I am stoked for you. For the rest of us, let’s put solid plans into place for our sugar reduction policy.

• No soft drink ever
• No bottled fruit juice ever
• Alcohol only once or twice per week on special occasions
• Sweets only once or twice per week- ice cream, chocolate, cakes etc
• No lollies or cookies or chocolates from a jar at work, it is completely unnecessary
• Encourage your workplace to have fruit or healthy options for the ever present morning and afternoon teas
• If you have cake or the like at work for a morning or afternoon tea, then make sure it is counted in your 1 or 2 sweet treats per week
• No sugar in tea or coffee
• No dried fruit, it is not a health food
• Pasta, bread, rice and potato are condiments to accompany a meal of protein and vegetables or salad. They are not the main component to a meal and should only take up 1/3 of the plate or less
• Look for lower sugar varieties of yogurt as they can have lots of hidden sugar
• Never have artificial sweeteners. They are bad chemicals and they trigger the brain to crave sweet things

Good luck to everyone on your quest for sugar freedom, better health and your optimal bodyfat levels.

Well done to everyone who has succeeded to stay sugar free for the month so far. You should all be feeling lighter, not just on the scales, but in your self. Your stomach should feel less bloated, especially with the 3 times a week psyllium husk!

So by combining no sugar, pysillium husk and 5 days a week exercise, I would be very surprised if you haven’t lost a significant amount of weight. Your pants should definitely feel looser around the waistline if nothing else!

Start thinking now about what long term changes you will make after staying sugar free for 30 days. I know I have said it before, but here are a few suggestions to make eating less sugar fit in with your life;

• Sweet treats only once or maximum twice per week.
• Alcohol only once or a maximum twice per week.
• No sugar in tea or coffee.
• Don’t think of dried fruit as a health food.
• Rice, bread and pasta are not staple food groups, they are small accompaniments to meals at the most.
• Look for low sugar varieties of yogurt.
• Never ever drink soft drinks or bottle juices.

Just by making these small changes listed above, you will find yourself feeling better, living healthier and maintaining your healthy weight range easier.

Good luck for the last 9 days.

Remember, 0, 3 and 5

0 sugar, 3 times a week psyllium husk and 5 days a week exercise

It is a few pages long, so you have to keep clicking across the page links because they only put a little bit of info on each page, but please read it, it is well worth it, with some very scary info in there.

After reading this, you may understand why you don’t have to be a weight loss candidate to limit your sugar intake and why I associate sugar with heart disease more than I associate fat with heart disease.
Read me, I’m an awesome article:)

I will definitely be getting hold of some of them, with only 4.8g sugar per 100g in the passionfruit flavour! It has more protein than carbs! It looks like a good balanced snack. Balanced with carbs, protein and fat.

Just to top it off, it is organic!

Check it out here!

Very interesting!

Overcoming Sugar Addiction Article

In any case, even if you made a mistake or two on the weekend, what I want you to do is to accept that you slipped up and get back on with it. There is no doubt that sugar is highly addictive and very hard to just go cold turkey simply because I said you should.

So, the plan for this week is to make less slip ups that last week. Now if you made no slip ups, then congratulations, you should be right for the rest of the month. If you made 1 slip up, then aim for no slip ups this week. If you made 2 slip ups last week, aim for 1 or less slip ups this week.

By following this type of plan, you can aim to stick with the program and not get down on yourself if you do happen to make a mistake. Just remember, that if you have reduced your sugar intake by large amounts this month, even if not completely, then you are way out in front and on your way to living healthier and thinner!

Now, last week we decided to add 5 days of exercise to the plan to accelerate weight loss. This week, I have something else I want you to introduce to help you feel lighter with a flatter stomach and to help your “insides”.

Add 1 heaped tablespoon of pysillium husk to a glass of water and drink it on Monday night, Wednesday night, Friday night for the rest of the month. It helps to keep you “regular” and cleans out the colon. It can reduce bloating in the abdominal region and may give you a flatter stomach. But, the essence of it is that is it is really good for prevention of colon caner and can reduce cholesterol. I like it because garbage left in the colon can leak into the gut, so this will help to clean out the colon. Very good for you! A couple of the kilos you are holding onto could be crap stuck in the colon. Gross!

Don’t forget to log your confessions below and either do your burpees or add 2 days per mistake to December.

Happy sugar freedom:)

I want to introduce something new for NOsugarVEMBER this year. By cutting all of the sugar and refined carbohydrates out of your diet, you are sure to lose weight in the next 30 days, but I want to make sure you give this your best shot by challenging you to exercise 5 days per week.

This may mean attending outdoor morning training, morning or evening indoor training, training on your own on weekends, 1on1 sessions, or for those of you who are crazy enough not to use my services to get fit, you can use your current fitness regimen you have, but increase it to 5 days per week.

If anyone has any questions, please post them in the comments below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

I also know a lot of people out there who are doing no sugar this month, but have avoided putting their name down. Please put your name down, it is very important. It will encourage you to stick with it and it will encourage others to get on the program. More people are likely to kick sugar if they see lots of others doing it, so please get your name on the list and make that commitment, no soft approaches to this month, we won’t try to give up sugar, we WILL give up sugar.

If you have something super important on in the month that you know you will break it, then let’s accept that and do your burpees, log your misdemeanour and keep it up for the rest of the month.

There is another option to paying your penalty also. If you eat sugar on 1 day, you take that day times 2 in December. So if you eat sugar once, you go through until the 2nd December, if you eat sugar twice, you go through until the 4 December etc.

Hannah and I may eat some sugar on our daughters first birthday, but we have made the commitment to go through until the week  of Christmas.

So, get more names on the list, hit me with any questions you have and even put your name down if you are just giving up 1 form of sugar. It all counts!

The answer is YES!

Starting on the 1st of November for 1 full month, we will rid our diets of sugar.

This means;

No alcohol

No cakes, chocolates, pastries, ice creams, soft drink

No Fruit juices, boost juices, smoothies, milk shakes

No white potato

No sugar in tea or coffee

No sweetened yogurt

No dried fruit

2 – 3 pieces of fruit per day only

2 slices of wholegrain bread per day maximum

1 cup of cooked pasta per serve a maximum of two times per week

I know you are all going to lose some weight in this month, but my main aim of this 30 days without sugar is to show you how much sugar you normally consume and to hopefully curb your sugar cravings.

By the end of this month, I hope you will have developed habits that will see you;

Drink tea and coffee without sugar

Only drink alcohol once or a maximum of twice per week

Only eat sweets once or a maximum of twice per week

Learn that meals should be made up of large amounts of non root vegetables

Treat pasta or rice as a accompaniment to a meal, not the main part of the meal

Never drink soft drinks

Avoid boost and other blended drinks

Learn that dried fruit is not a health food

Choose lower sugar yogurts

So who’s in?

Please put your name down in the comments section and we can kick the sugar as a team.

Hannah and I will be doing it. We’ll have one last sugar fix on my birthday this weekend and then it’s sugar free time right up to the festive month of December. We all know that December is the time of year when the junk food and alcohol comes out, so what better time to cleanse the system than November. Not only that, this will definitely shred off some of that bodyfat that has suddenly appeared since the swimsuit came out with this warmer weather!!!

If you break your sugar free promise, you must log your indiscretion on the blog and perform 5 burpees. if you happen to break the rules again, you must log your indiscretion and double the burpees. For each indiscretion, you must double the burpees. Just think, 5 times and you will be up to 80 burpees on the 5th occasion!

And be honest! You signed up to this, nobody forced you! You need some sort of guidelines to keep you on track!

I’m excitedly looking forward to all the names appearing below…

Although I originally capped numbers at 12, I eventually ended up having 15 clients and 2 trainers attend. My apologies to those who missed out, I will have another one in a few weeks, so please register your interest in the comments section or via email directly to me.

I know we went a little long on time, wrapping up in just under 3 hours, there is still more I could have gone through, so what I will do is go over some of the important things.

What is stopping you from reaching your goals?

When I walked in this morning, up on the whiteboard was the list of reasons everyone gave for not achieving their goals, so I want to make that list here so you can be aware of what is holding you back and focus on changing it.

I am creating the list in the order you said it and the way you said it;

• Too many carbs
• Meal sizes
• Skipping meals
• Not being organised
• Drinking alcohol
• Inconsistency
• Laziness
• Boredom
• Escapism
• Socialising

So taking a look at that list, I can see that a lot of them relate to each other.

Why are you eating too many carbs, eating meals that are too big and skipping meals? Because you are not organised, lazy and inconsistent!

Why do you drink too much alcohol? Because of escapism and socialising!

If you are eating because of boredom then get a hobby!

These are all easy things to fix, you just need to put half as much effort into your own health as what you do into making your boss rich!

Insulin and fat gain.

Remember that when you eat just carbs, you will spike your blood sugars and release insulin. While this insulin is circulating, you will not use fat as a fuel. Balance your meals with carbs, protein and fat to moderate the effects on blood sugar levels.

The Glycemic index

Carbohydrates aren’t categorised into good carbs and bad carbs because I have something against them. I am merely the messenger, they ruined their own reputation when they were tested on the glycemic index, they have no-one to blame for their poor social stigma other than themselves and what they do to your blood sugar levels.

Food charts

Use those food charts wisely. At last there is a precise way to say what a portion should really look like. No more guessing and wondering why you are not losing weight. They are really easy to use, it may just take you a week or two to get used to it, but if you want me to go back to the work example, when you first started your current job, did you know what to do and find it easy on day 1? or day 2? No, like anything in life, it takes a bit of time to adjust to it and learn how to use it properly to get the full benefit from it!

Supplements

If you are trying to get a portion of protein at every meal without using a supplement, you are setting yourself up for failure.

How often do I hear things like;

• I missed morning tea because I was in a meeting or I was too busy.
• I didn’t have any protein at breakfast because I just didn’t have time to cook eggs.
• I had to just have [insert garbage food from foodcourt here] because I was at the shopping centre.
• I don’t normally get drive through, it was just because I was on the road a lot today.
• What protein can I possibly have with fruit?
• I’m sick of eating tuna.

I think you get the message.

There are a lot of products out there and most of them are so full of chemicals, you would be better off eating the box they come in, but I have combed the internet and health food shops and here are my pick of products;

Optimum Nutrition 100% why protein Natural, order at www.vitaminking.com.au/100-natural-whey-protein-by-optimum

Phyto Protein 100% Pea protein isolate, order at www.vitaminking.com.au/phyto-protein-pea-protein-isolate-by-logical-nutrition-pty-ltd-vital-greens

PureFit all natural protein bars, check them out at www.purefitaus.com/about-purefit-bars and order them with me directly and you won’t have to pay the $10 postage. Clients only.

Forum

The best way to move forward with the information that you have is to talk to others when you have a question. This is why I have set up this forum, so that any questions you have I can answer and at the same time, I am probably answering for 10 other people who also had the same question. So please post any comments about last night or any questions you have about your eating to the forum.

Your comments on the blog are really inspirational for others, so please keep them coming. If you have got something to share that you think will help others along the way to better health, please post it up for everyone to see.

So just via enrollments, we raised $754 and whilst I am disappointed that people caved during the month, I am super excited to see how much we raised via misdemeanours and sponsors.

Please donate your money, send me the receipt and I will put the tally up for everyone to see.

I hope that from this month you will have made a few changes to your eating habits. Below are the things I would love to see you take away from this month into the future;

Alcohol only on special occasions and no more than once a week

Cakes and sweets only on special occasions and no more than once a week

No sugar in your caffeine

Only multigrain bread

No soft drink ever

Cut right down on white potato

Cut right down on white rice

If you can cover those bases, you are doing alright!

Once again, well done everyone, please post your results and your experience for others to see and get inspired by for next time.