Quitter Chronicles: Installment #5 : Early Impressions

A few days ago at work, one of my coworkers offered me one of those Danish butter cookies that come in the blue tins.  When I turned it down, she said, “Too fattening?”  I replied, “No, I actually don’t eat sugar anymore.”  She laughed at me and kept saying she was sorry, as if I’d made a terrible choice to amputate all joy from life.  In my heart I retorted, “No, I’m sorry for you.”

With the exception of some small mishaps wherein I had to eat infinitesimal amounts of sugar in my mother’s mashed potatoes or accidentally ate a chocolate chip in an otherwise sugarless Lara Bar, I have been successfully avoiding refined sugars for four months now.  At home, the only sweeteners I use are dates, molasses, honey and maple syrup.  Away from home, I’m careful to avoid any sweets, and generally try to avoid eating any savory foods that might contain sugar. 

Here are some of my early impressions of this shift in my diet.

Weight loss.  I lost ten pounds in the first three months.  This was not my goal in cutting sugars out of my diet.  I never felt that I was overweight, and didn’t feel the need to get rid of any extra pounds.  But the weight loss was the natural result of reduction of sugar in my diet as well as increasing the quality of the foods I eat, and subsequently reducing the quantity.  I feel more nourished and satisfied with less volume, simply because I’m no longer feeding the insatiable appetite for sugar.

Mood improvement.  Before I cut out refined sugar, my life was a daily emotional roller coaster, and sugar was my anti-depressant.  I’d feel good after meals, but feel lethargic and moody a while later.  I’d eat some chocolate or a muffin to perk myself up.  These days that sugar roller coaster is much less pronounced.  I do still like to have snacks between meals, but I don’t experience the same extremes of lethargy and emotional lowness that I did before.

Energy.  Because I get more bang for my buck with food – meaning that I get better quality nourishment even with smaller quantities of food – I have noticed that I have more energy.  Not only do I no longer have that energy roller coaster of sugar highs and lows, but my body is being fueled by better fuel.  I have a steadier stream of energy throughout the day.

Change of taste.  Four months in to this refined-sugar free life, I shudder to think of the days when an open bag of marshmallows was a temptation.  The idea of eating a handful of candy corns makes me a little nauseous.  The other day I ate a very sweet banana and felt it was overwhelming.  My tolerance for sweetness has decreased, and things I would have considered inedible months ago are now wonderfully tasty – Ginger tea with only a little honey, for example.  If you combine this reduced tolerance for sugar, which leads to finding certain foods nauseatingly sweet, with the fact that I feel better and have more energy, maybe you can understand why I felt bad for my coworker who showed me pity when she learned that I don’t eat sugar.

My relationship with food.  I never thought of my eating habits as a relationship before.  But this experience has forced me to get to know my food in a way I never realized was possible or could be important.  Instead of just arbitrarily eating whatever is in front of me, I now carefully choose foods based on ingredients.  Sugar is so ubiquitous that I’m quite limited in what I can buy, but I’m finding more and more wonderfully decadent and delicious options that are easy to make at home from simple, whole ingredients. 

Pain.  Unfortunately, there has not been any perceptible change in my pain levels resulting from this change in diet.  I initially embarked on this adventure to see if it would help to mitigate my chronic pain problem.  It hasn’t.  But I can honestly say that it’s worth it anyway.  The other benefits (listed above) have improved my general outlook to the degree that even if the physical pain remains the same, my ability to live with that pain has improved.  Cooking healthy, nourishing foods has become a fun hobby that can distract me from pain.  Having more energy means I can bear up better under the stress of working and living with pain.  Being healthier means my body is stronger and more resilient, even in pain.  Having steadier and more positive mood means that pain doesn’t bowl me under as frequently as it used to. 

So for now, even if my original hopes remain unfulfilled, I’m going to stick with this crazy diet.

Quitter Chronicles #5: The Cleanse

 Ok, so the cleanse didn’t work out like I expected.

I had grand plans for this.  Initially, I wanted to go several days without any food at all, drinking only water, and letting all the icky stuff get flushed out of my system.  Then I would gradually start phasing in foods.  I would start with only fruits and vegetables, slowly adding starches, oils, dairy and meat.  The final stage of the process would be (after a few weeks) to begin eating sweet stuff again, but sweet stuff sweetened with natural raw sweeteners. 

On August 24, I ate my normal breakfast and lunch, but I skipped dinner.   I had every intention of going without food for at least five days before beginning to phase in simple stuff.  But on the evening of the 25^th, I caved.  I woke up in the middle of the night feeling super jittery and faint.  It seemed weird that I would wake up from slumber only to pass out.  After this happened a few times, I finally got up and stuffed my face with a handful of almonds, some cheddar cheese, and a spoonful of peanut butter. 

Boy was I glad I’d taken the preliminary steps of cleaning out my pantry of sugary stuff, because I guarantee you I would have gone for banana bread or something.  

So, at this point, it seemed silly and perhaps reckless to try to do an extended fast.  Instead of fretting about giving up on the harsh cleanse plan, I just began my refined-sugar free life on August 25.  I had eggs for breakfast that morning, and some tea with honey. 

Quitter Chronicles: #4 : Phase In

As my stock of foods containing sugar began to dwindle, I started to phase in sugar-free foods and foods sweetened with unrefined sugar. 

Mainly this involved taking care to buy the usual groceries but sticking to options lacking sugar.  For instance, tortilla wraps.  Most brands that I looked at contained high-fructose corn syrup, but I managed to find a couple of brands that didn’t have any sugar listed in the ingredients. 

I also started to make more stuff from scratch, to stock up for when I would need them.  I made hummus and tomato soup and threw them in the freezer.  Instead of buying granola bars, I bought almonds to keep on hand for snacks.  I bought more fruit and veggies that I could conveniently eat raw. 

I wanted to wait until I’d truly begun to live refined-sugar-free before I started eating sweets that were sweetened with raw sugars.  But in preparation, I found some dark chocolate sweetened with raw sugars, and I found a few recipes for desserts that I could make with honey or molasses. 

Basically, my point is that in the weeks leading up to my sugar cleanse, I started easing into a life without sugar.  Simple enough, but I thought I’d tell you, just to tell you.

Quitter Chronicles: #3 : The Slow Purge

Slow Purge.

After spending a few days making mental notes of all the foods I ate that contained refined sugar, I decided the next step would be to begin to slowly purge my house of this sweet menace.  All those foods in my pantry containing sugar would have to go.  But I neither wanted to toss them nor give them away – they cost me a lot of money, and there were a lot of them! 

In my mind, the first logical step was to avoid purchasing anything containing refined sugar – at least significant quantities of such items.  I stopped buying granola bars, pasta sauces, crackers, salad dressings, etc.  By refraining from adding sugary foods to my stockpile, I figured it would be much easier to focus on ridding my cupboards of the stuff that was already there.

The second step was to use what I had.  I began to widdle away at the banana bread and muffins I’d so wisely frozen.  The sweet and sour sauce I bought for emergencies went into a stir-fry.  The remaining granola bars got packed in my work snack stash.  Even the sausage in my freezer went in a quiche, and the Italian sausage stew I made served it’s purpose as a convenient meal.  I even managed to finish off my Swiss Miss hot chocolate in the month of July.  And yes, I will confess that I binged on “m&m’s” that I had bought on sale after Easter. 

At first this process seemed really daunting.  I had a lot of sugary stuff to get rid of and was mildly afraid of putting on a few pounds in my efforts to eat it all before I started my cleanse.   Seemed counterproductive.  But, first of all, I don’t think I ended up eating much more sugar in those weeks than I normally did when I wasn’t concerned about sugar.  And secondly, as the weeks passed, the task became more encouraging because I saw that my supply of sugary stuff was dwindling markedly. 

In the end I did end up giving away a bunch of stuff like raspberry jam and Marshmallow Fluff.  And, sadly, I ended up donating a good amount of Cadbury eggs and Hershey Kisses to my coworkers.  But with a few days remaining before my scheduled start for my sugar cleanse, my pantry and freezer were clear of high-fructose corn syrup and white sugar. 

Quitter Chronicles: #2 : Inventory

Inventory.

After deciding to try to cut refined sugars out of my diet, I spent a couple of days paying attention to what I ate.  I did this very casually with no extensive notes or anything like that.  I just made mental notes of the foods in my pantry that contained sugar. 

Some were surprising.  Pasta sauce and salsa.  Vitamin C and Calcium supplements.  Half & Half.  Salty crackers. 

Some were obvious.  Granola bars.  Peanut butter cups.  Sweet & sour sauce. 

Then I paid attention to stuff I ate at restaurants, or things that people at work shared with me.  Probably that dressing on that salad at that restaurant has sugar.  That cupcake my coworker made definitely did.  I wonder about the dough on that pizza.

Step one in my sugar cleanse was merely to think about sugar and where it lurks.  It was eye opening, and afterwards I felt a little better equipped for the road ahead.

Quitter Chronicles: #1 : Counting Costs

Counting Costs.

When I first had the idea to give up refined sugars, I was excited and eager to get going.  But I knew that sugar had been such a powerful and ubiquitous force in my life, and that I couldn’t embark on a refined-sugar-free life without putting a lot of thought and energy into it. 

For starters, I was addicted.  Giving up sugars would mean withdrawal, lethargy, mood-swings, continuous hunger.  Did I really want to go through all that?

I’ve never had any allergies and have always prided myself on being able (and willing) to eat anything that’s put in front of me – a point of pride that was tested to the max when I was living in Southwest China in the mid-2000’s.  I rarely read nutritional labels, I just ate whatever I wanted, or whatever I had to eat.  Giving up refined sugar meant I would need to adopt a level of vigilance about foods I purchased, foods I let people serve me, and meals I ordered at restaurants that was going to be entirely new to me.  This was not to be taken lightly.

Eating refined-sugar-free meant that I would have to do a lot more cooking, and probably from scratch.  I usually cooked simple meals anyway, and didn’t rely too much on highly processed, prepackaged stuff, but this was still going to be a big adjustment.  Living with chronic pain, cooking has been one of the hardest things for me to do.  All the shopping, standing, chopping, and washing can ignite some of the worst pain I know of in my upper back.  Refined-sugar-free meant that I would need to spend a lot more time doing this most painful activity.

I would also have to be much more careful about what I eat away from home.  What if I’m invited to someone’s house for dinner and everything contains sugar?  What if I went out to a restaurant and there weren’t any clear sugar-free options?  I’d never dealt with a dietary restriction before, would I be able to adjust to avoiding something so ubiquitous as sugar?

But then I considered the benefits.  If white sugar truly does increase muscle pain, as I’ve read in numerous places, maybe the cooking wouldn’t be so traumatic, maybe it would be worth it.  Besides, while using raw sweeteners like honey and maple syrup might cost a little more money, wouldn’t I save money overall by not being free to buy that muffin with my coffee or that candy bar at the check out?  Wouldn’t I probably end up healthier in the end, pain relief or no? 

I counted some of the costs, and decided it was worth a try.  Time will tell if it is worth it, and if I have what it takes to follow through with this crazy scheme – which is truly not so crazy. 

Quitter Chronicles: Intro : Why Sugar Gets the Ax

July. 

Sugar is bad for us.  We know this.  It rots our teeth, makes us fat, and turns us into mood-swinging slaves.  I am a sugar addict.  (Well, recovering now.)

In July I started seriously considering giving up refined sugars after I read in a few places that white sugar and other processed sugars can contribute to muscle pain and depression. 

I have been dealing with chronic muscle pain in my upper back for about 20 years.  Over the past year or so, I’ve tried all kinds of medical approaches to ameliorating the pain: Anti-inflammatories, physical therapy, cortisone injections, a TENS unit, anesthetic patches, traction.  None of these treatments did much good if any.  So, when the doctor was out of ideas, I decided it was time to jump into the world of voluntary diet restrictions and give up refined sugars.

This promises to be a huge undertaking.  Sugar is in just about everything you can buy at the supermarket.  A refined-sugar-free diet requires a level of vigilance in the reading of ingredients lists that I would never have dreamed of.  To be successful in cutting out refined sugars, one will need to cook mostly from scratch.  Even some canned beans contain sugar; that means that even a simple meal of beans and rice is no longer so simple. 

On one hand, there’s something really appealing about the idea of cooking with only fresh vegetables and whole grains.  But for me there is the hurdle of my daily struggle with pain.  Cooking kills my back.  All the standing at the counter, chopping vegetables, washing dishes, and standing at the stove ignites a fire in my shoulder blades that generally forces me to take long breaks in between kitchen tasks to lie on the living room floor and whimper.  Even shopping hurts. 

So, for me, the first step in giving up refined sugars is to think long and hard about it.  This isn’t merely an adjustment of the foods I eat.  This promises to be a big challenge to my resolve, not just in my eating, but in all my habits and routines from shopping to cooking to socializing. 

In the coming weeks, I hope to share this journey with you in it’s many shades and angles.  We’ll see how it goes!