Hubby and I are still limiting our sugar intake but we do cheat from time to time. Our rule is: we get to eat one sugary treat once a week. Sometimes we do end up eating sugar more than that. Usually twice a week at most. By going sugar-free we are not only cutting junk food out of our diets, but sugar all together. Meaning: we are not taking sugar in our tea, coffee, oatmeal, baked goods, etc. We watched a documentary, in which they did a study on lab rats of the addictiveness of sugar and cocaine. The rats got addicted to sugar faster than they did the cocaine! That right there is a red flag on the danger of sugar.
Going sugar-free doesn't have to be as scary as it sounds. The key is to substitute white granulated sugar with a healthier alternative. We started using honey in our tea, coffee, baking, etc. instead of sugar. However, hubby has a client who's a registered nutritionist. He told us that once you put honey in a hot substance, the heat takes the benefits of the honey out of it. He suggested to use agave nectar as a sweetener and to eat honey straight. Agave nectar is sweeter than sugar, and doesn't have a strong distinct flavour like honey. So now we've started sweetening our food/drinks with agave nectar and we really like it. You should be able to find it in any health or bulk store. It makes our morning coffee tasty and we feel good about ourselves for eating healthier.
My husband went cold turkey on cutting out his sugar, and he said it was really hard (as you could probably imagine.) For me personally, I slowly decreased it week by week. We both have sweet tooths, so it was definitely a big adjustment. However, the neat thing is that once you cut it out of your system completely, you don't even crave it anymore. It takes a lot of self-control and when you are hanging out with family and friends and they are all having some sweets, it can get very tempting. The key is to keep yourself disciplined and remind yourself why you cut it out in the first place.
I definitely have to cut it cold turkey. I have no willpower to do a once per week deal.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why I didn't see this message before! Google usually informs me right away. It didn't this time. =( sorry for the late reply!
ReplyDeleteWe do eat sugar more than once a week sometimes but generally we don't bring junk food into our home. I hear you, it's a very difficult thing to cut out.