Sugar Detox

Discussing sugar for the past has made me start thinking again on just how much sugar we consume on a daily basis.  This past summer I cut out refined sugar entirely from my diet for two weeks.  Let me just preface this by saying that I have the biggest sweet tooth ever.  Baked goods are my weakness.  So by no means did I have any intention of making this a lasting thing.  If anything I was just curious as to what would happen if I was more conscious about what I was eating. 

            I did the sugar detox with my aunt who is by far the healthiest eater I know.  She framed the detox more as an introduction to conscious eating rather than a diet so I figured “how hard can this be, I can totally give up my cookies, brownies, and cake for a little while.”  What I did not realize though was just how many foods contained added sugar.  It is everywhere!  Things I ate on a daily basis, which I never thought had sugar in them were some of the sneakiest offenders.  What also surprised me were foods that I had considered healthy in fact had a ton of added sugar.  My “healthy” stables like almond milk, oatmeal, and almond butter were all things I had to cut out for those two weeks. (These things can also contain no sugar, you just have to pick the right brands!)

            At first I found it very difficult to figure out what I could or could not eat.  The first few days required reading nutrition labels on everything.  I soon came to learn that the sure fire way to avoid sugar was by cooking with raw foods and avoiding all processed food.  After some practice it became a lot easier.  I eventually got familiar with what foods I could eat and which ones to avoid.  The days when I had enough time to cook, cutting out sugar was not too challenging.  It was instead the foods I reach to when in a rush that presented a problem.  My go to easy food like protein bars were typically loaded with sugar.  Finding a substitute for those foods was one of the biggest challenges.

            In retrospect, cutting out sugar for two weeks was an eye opening experience.  However, physically I did not feel very different without sugar, which I was disappointed by.  Generally my diet does not consist of a lot of processed or sugary foods.  Therefore I do not think that it was a drastic enough dietary adjustment to begin to see changes in only two weeks.  I am sure that if I continued to eat that way for longer I would have begun to notice a difference.  One change that I did notice though was that I experienced less sugar cravings.  I am almost always craving cookies or brownies but during those two weeks I did not want them as much as I ordinarily do.  The biggest take away for me, and the reason I would say it was worthwhile, was that I learned to read labels and understand what I am eating.  I use to just pull something off the shelf and assume that because it is packaged to look healthy that it was.  Now I am far more conscious about what I eat and about the hidden sugar content in a lot of foods.  I am glad that I experimented cutting out sugar.  While I still appreciate a really good piece of cake, my diet now consists of far less sugar than it use to. 

What a day of food looks like on sugar detox

Breakfast:  Oatmeal (plain, no added sugar), with bananas and cinnamon

Lunch:  Salad with veggies, a hardboiled egg, and dressed with olive oil

Snack:  Carrots and hummus

Dinner:  Roasted chicken breast with sautéed broccoli

Never will I stop eating sweets like baked goods but here are some changes I made that haven’t been hard to stick with

• Buying the version without added sugar (ex. Plain oatmeal, unsweetened almond milk etc.)
• Avoid store bought salad dressing and tomato sauce (homemade tastes so much better and store bought ones have a ton of sugar)
• Limit packaged granola bars or granola (when you make your own you can control exactly what goes into it and it’s super easy)
• Pay attention to the sugar in drinks (stick with water, black coffee/tea and herbal teas)