Lend Me Some Sugar (Update/Conclusion/Revamping of Sugarless September)

When we started out on this experiment we based it off a video we saw. In short this science guy suggested that eating too much fructose makes you hungry and therefore you eat more food. He suggested cutting out fructose because it turns on hunger cues and instead keep eating glucose because that should turn off hunger cues. So we thought we would cut out sugar and fructose. Which means no fruit or high fructose or sugar of any kind. I know those things are pretty much found in everything, processed and natural. We did our best to eliminate the big stuff and read ingredient labels on the rest. I am was surprised to find fructose and sugar in everything I use daily, like dressings and ketchup, crackers, and a variety of sauces. No experiment is perfect and I am sure we ate sugar and fructose we just tried to keep it at under 200 calories a day. We uped the fiber and had to plan our meals. We made a trip to the store and were able to find whole wheat cereal and other items without sugar. We got all the stuff to make our own dressing. We got lots of veggies to incorporate into our diet. I found a number of recipes to try and off we went.

Week 1-We started each morning with a substantial breakfast, eggs, meat, and toast. I had celery and carrots for snacks, lunch had a veggies and a protein, then a afternoon snack of natural peanut butter and toast. Dinner was more or less the same, protein, starch, and veggie. Evening snack used to be some fruit but now it was a piece of toast. By day 3 my milk started to taste like candy and sometimes tomatoes were too sweet to handle.

Physical symptoms-I felt like I was eating all the time yet still felt hungry. I didn't feel weighed down and my waste line seemed smaller, but it could have been in my head. I feel like I am eating too much salt in everything and bread. There is no sweet to counteract the savory food.

Mental symptoms-The first few days were hard. I like to snack a lot and often my choice of snack is not the healthiest. I had many temptations but prevailed. However, by the end of the week I was beginning to get really grouchy, especially towards my family. The constant eating made me feel worn out and tired and frustrating. I don't have time to eat regular meals let alone additional food after having just ate a square meal.

Needless to say by Saturday we had a family meeting and decided to throw in the towel. This science guy was wrong, in fact, the opposite of what he said should take place happened. We decided that it was an interesting experiment but we were done. We broke the fast that night by ordering a milk shake to share. However, I am going to continue on for the rest of the month with a modified version called Sweetless September. I am going to eat veggies, fruits, protein, less bread, and no sweets (with the exception of an event a week, like a church activity ice cream bar that I am planning, I will allow myself 1 scoop).

This is why I don't do stupid fad diets. I believe in moderation in all things. I am glad we did this though because I needed a mental and physical jump start or kick in the pants to get on the healthy bandwagon again. I sometimes let myself run wild or eat the wrong thing out of emotion, especially at work when there is lots of free food floating around. I am becoming better at having self control in my eating habits and that is what I was hoping to get out of this if anything. You may laugh and think we were crazy and kind of dumb to cut out fruit, but hey, it was an experiment and now we know it was a dumb one.