(In this post, I am defining sugar as "refined sugar as an added ingredient." Sugar is, of course, in all foods, especially bread, pasta, fruit, and vegetables. When I talk about giving up sugar, I mean added sugar. I did not give up carbs or breads, fruits or other foods with naturally occurring sugars like vegetables or oatmeal.)
Sugar is one of the hardest things for me to give up.
First, I have a straight-up addiction to sugar. I am helpless in the face of it and I have no control.
I crave sugar. It immediately calms me down, while also providing an edge of pick-me-up at the same time. When I see a candy bar in the grocery check-out line, my mouth waters, my stomach rumbles, my fingers twitch, and my legs fidget.
All I can think about is how much I need it. How much I want it. To feel good. To feel that pleasure, to feel like I deserve a treat. To feel like life is good, all is right in the world and I have access to bodily pleasure. Sometimes I reach for the Reese's peanut butter cup and eat it right there in the check-out line. Sometimes I wait until I'm out in the car. Either way, that sugar calls to me.
Honestly, I feel like my relationship to sugar is not that different from some people's relationship to alcohol. It's everywhere and in everything, it's a soothing comfort at the end of a long day, a reward after a hard workout, and a nice thing to share with other people. According to the Addiction Center, some studies have suggested sugar is as addictive as cocaine. People often enjoy the dopamine release sugar brings. I can tell you for sure, I am definitely one of those people. To say I have a sweet tooth is a bit of an understatement, actually.
I've given up sugar for 30 days three times in my life now: November 2019, March 2020 and August 2020. As I write this post, I know I want to do at least another 30 days at some point in 2021. But my body and mind are rebelling. I digress.
The second reason sugar is one of the hardest things to give up is that it's hidden in everything. The first time I gave up added sugar for 30 days was in November 2019. Before then, I had never really fully read the ingredient lists on nutrition labels before. Now, I had to—I wanted to—look at the labels of everything before I ate it and before I bought it. That exercise was useful in and of itself simply for me to learn what kind of chemicals I had been and am putting into my body. There are all kinds of things in the ingredients of products that you would never think of. But especially sugar.
Sugar can get disguised on labels in all kinds of ways, such as maple syrup, brown rice “sweet flavoring”, or coconut sugar. But either way, it’s added sugar if the word “sugar” or “syrup” is on an ingredient list. Tortillas and tortilla chips, cereal, almond milk, yogurt, veggie burgers, ketchup, jam, peanut butter.... the list could go on and on. There was sugar in a lot of the things that were staples in my diet!
What that meant was that giving up sugar wasn’t just about eliminating cake and ice cream from my diet, it was also about making things from scratch. I learned how to make my own tortillas so I could have tortillas that were just made out of flour, oil and water, instead of the 10 other ingredients on the store bought ones. I learned how to make my own veggie burgers out of lentils and chick peas. I learned out to make my own hummus and mayonnaise, and other kinds of sauces so I could have flavorings and sauces without the sugar.
My roommate Maddy did the no sugar challenge with me that November. She is super creative in making things from scratch and she showed me how to make my own cashew milk (hint: grind up soaked cashews and water in a blender and you’re done). She made her own ketchup so that we could avoid the sugar but still have burger night. She was super encouraging to me in making my own things out of scratch and showed me how to use the food processor so I could make my own pesto and Lara Bars (aka date balls) without added sugar. She showed me how to use the blender so I could make a lot of my own food since it was literally that hard to find food at the grocery store that didn’t have any added sugar in it.
(I still ate fruit and thinks like oat milk, which have naturally occurring sugars from the plant but not added refined sugar.)
As strong as my cravings were, I have to admit that I felt so much better when I wasn’t “on” sugar. I slept better for sure—I wasn’t indulging in late night ice cream binge fests. I was able to have more sustained energy throughout the day—I didn’t have the post-lunch afternoon crash after sugary who-knows-what in my lunch. I was able to exercise harder and longer because my insulin and sugar levels were able to maintain a steady level throughout the week. I turned to other sources of comfort when I craved the soothing feeling of a sugar dopamine rush: self-massage, a warm bath, warm cup of tea, or a soft blanket.
It was interesting how my body craved sugar the way an addict would. I fed the cravings by eating lots of fruit and dates, and even some artificial sweeteners like stevia and xylitol—I allowed some of those sweeteners when I really needed something sweet because they do not raise blood sugar levels, and my goal was to see how my body felt without the insulin spikes.
It was also interesting how once you go off sugar for 30 days, your sensitivity for sweet things is heightened. Previously somewhat bland flavors--like bananas--become like heaven and very sugary things like candy become too sweet to handle.
But man, I’ll tell you, the joy of ice cream and chocolate, cakes and cookies, it’s hard for me to part with. That’s the nice thing about the 30 day challenges, it’s manageable enough to stick to. But that’s also the bad thing. If you have a long-term addiction like I do, it’s so easy to “fall off the wagon” again as soon as the 30 days is over. Nevertheless, I recommend that everyone try 30 days without sugar both to see how your body feels without the spikes of insulin, and also as an exercise in reading all the labels of the food you are eating—you might be surprised about how much sugar is added to your foods, but also the other chemicals that you are ingesting as well.
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