I'm cutting down my sugar intake for a month - posting rules for myself - boring, feel free to ignore!

[Shelduck]

So, I'm going to spend a month trying to cut down on my sugar intake. I've written some rules for myself, which I thought I would post just to help me to commit to them! As you can see they are pretty lenient, but this is to make it more realistic that I will stick to them. Feel free to ignore! Here goes:

From Monday 24 August I will give up biscuits, cakes, sweets, desserts, ice cream, sugary drinks etc.

I can have as much fruit, including dried fruit, as I like. But I can't have fruit juice, or smoothies made with fruit juice.

I can have anything with artificial sweeteners.

These rules don't currently cover "hidden sugar" in things like processed ready meals or not-obviously-sugary cereal, but I will try to be more aware of these, and choose lower-sugar options where I can.

Exceptions:

1. I can have up to 15g of good quality chocolate, 2 days per week.
   
2. I can have up to 60g of something I have baked myself, 2 days per week. [I really don't bake often, but I don't want my diet to stop me feeling like I want to bake with DS.]
   
3. Special meals out are excluded. [DH and I go out so rarely that if the opportunity does come up, I'm damned if I'm going to hold back!]
   
4. I can eat something sugary to be sociable, e.g. birthday cake, or a meal cooked for me. But this is really only when refusing would make me a party pooper - not just whenever anyone offers me something. But I will lose something from 1 or 2 to make up for it.
   
5. I can eat something sugary if I really really do need to eat quickly, and there is absolutely nothing else available.
   
6. I can eat something sugary if DS insists on sharing, but I will do what I can to minimise it or get out of it. [OK, sounds like a cop out but 3yo DS has got this weird thing where he decides he wants to share his food with you, but he really won't take no for an answer. Think Mrs Doyle from Father Ted. Sometimes you can fob him off with saying you will save it for later, but often he will just shove it in your mouth!]
   

When it comes to 1-6, I am not going to take the piss. The aim is still to reduce my sugar intake, and 1-6 are there to make it more manageable and to help me stop falling off the wagon completely, not to give me an excuse for eating sugar.

These are my rules and I am free to break them if I want. However, I intend to donate £40 to Save the Children on 25 September, and for every time I break a rule, I will deduct £1 from this amount.

[BorisJohnsonsHair]

Good idea but it does sound like you're giving yourself lots of excuses to eat sugar! I gave it up for a month, and have to say it was much easier than I thought after a couple of days. I just didn't fancy it as much. I think if you can give it up completely for 2 or 3 days, you will find it much easier to do without afterwards.

Good luck x

Note to self - give up sugar again!

[yumyumpoppycat]

Hmmm with the donation idea, what about if you add a £ every time you cheat? Or set it at zero and donate a £ or 2 for every sugar free/non cheat day?

Also no 5 - is there a medical reason why you would need to eat rather than just wait a couple of hours unti you can eat healthily? This rule might set you up to not plan your food which is essential when changing the way you eat?

But if you are a sugaraholic this is probably a really good start so don't let me put you off ....

Makes a similar note to self as Boris ;)

[Shelduck]

Thanks both!
Boris - yes, it does look pretty lenient on paper, doesn't it! I suppose the thing is that it's really important to me to make a long-term change, and so I needed to come up with something that I honestly believe I can stick to. Not wanting to make excuses but the next few weeks are going to be pretty fraught anyway (returning to work from mat leave, DS2 still feeding at night, need to get him on solids blah blah blah) so I need to be realistic! At the end of the month, if I've done OK, I'll tweak the rules again.

Also, with the exception of 1 (chocolate allowance!), I'm really hoping I don't ever resort to "invoking" any of the exceptions. I just didn't want any of these to be reasons for feeling like I'd failed and giving up completely. But I take your point, so what I'm going to do is keep a diary of how I'm doing on these.

yumyum - No.5 - no, there's no medical reason but I do have a tendency to let myself get hungry and then completely crash, and I turn into a zombie. At which point, DH will intervene and tell me that I really need to eat. You, know how it is - you chase around making sure the DCs are fed, and forget to eat yourself. So yes, you're right, I need to make sure I keep on top of this.

With the donations - I was originally going to do as you suggest and say that I'd give money for every cheat day, but I realised that it wouldn't feel like much of a penalty (hey, i get to have a biscuit and feel good about giving a quid to charity). But if I feel like I'm actually taking money away from a donation, I'm more likely to guilt myself into thinking twice.

Thanks again for your comments! Day 1, here we go....

[yumyumpoppycat]

Ah I get the donation thing now! Good luck