Reducing sugar intake in 2015

[Sashiko]

Inspired by this thread, it seems that quite a few of us want to reduce our sugar intake, and we're all more likely to be successful if we have a bit of support.

What's your weakness? What's your goal? Tips from anyone who has already done it, and links to useful / interesting articles on the subject are very welcome!

Aside from the known health benefits, I'm really hoping that reducing sugar will help my moods, as I do get really irritable and it only recently occurred to me that it could be due to blood sugar spikes / crashes.

My plan is

1. Stop taking sugar in tea and coffee (approx 5 tsp per day)
2. Alcohol on weekends only
3. Attempt to reduce carbohydrates
4. Reduce sweet treats (although these are not a big part of my diet, I do like to bake now and then.)

Who's with me?

At the risk of sounding thick I need to ask a question...

I was looking at the label on some squash (cordial) we've got and it says in that in a glass of 250ml diluted the "of which sugars" content is 22g. Is that like measuring out 22g of sugar????

If so I'm absolutely flabbergasted!

Cordials are largely just...sugar. Depressingly. All fun drinks are

Oh yes, I forgot about agave nectar! I bought that last year when I was trying to cut down. I did drink a bit of the cocnut milk, and I quite like it, and it is fairly sweet, so Ill try that and report back.

Four teaspoons of sugar in diluted squash????!!!! I give my kids that because I don't want them to have artificial sweetners! their teeth are going to fall out of their head!

Yes that will be right- 22gms per 250mls. That is actually just under 10% sugar ( 10mgs per 100mls) and low sugar is counted as less than 5% sugar.

A teaspoon is around 5gms.

Re Agave and honey; yes depends how strict you are being but your body doesn't recognise 'natural' v 'processed' - it's still a carbohydrate molecule once digested , whether it's from a potato, cane sugar or honey and the pancreas pours out insulin to get rid of it. That's how diabetes occurs when the pancreas gives up after an onslaught of carbs ( refined or not) and thinks 'bugger this I'm not doing any more'.

Eeeek. We usually have no added sugar ones but DH bought a cranberry/raspberry ocean spray one and that's what the label says. Gah.

What on earth should our children drink other than water?

Milk? Milk shake with fruit blended in?
Depending on their age even weak milky tea ( or herbal teas) are better than sugar-laden drinks.

Thinking about this- harking back to the 60s when I was a child- then I was only offered milk or water ( or weak tea from about the age of 10) with 'pop' as a treat now and then; lemonade , cherryade, etc , but not on a daily basis.

Well am on day 5 sugar free and it is going ok apart from my new craving of really milky tea! Didn't even have sugar in my tea before but find the milky tea really comforting and if it is helping me stop the sugar I will go with it for now! Although I am going on hold at tomorrow for 2 months to a hot country so there will be lots of water and coconut drinking taking place.
It is crazy that there is 22g of sugar in the squash.
I'm still eating potatoes at the moment which I need I stop but going to slowly reduce them.

That's an insane amount of sugar in squash! Wow. I have recently been trying to give the DCs drinks only with meals, but DS in particular
drinks quite a lot (by my standards, but I know I don't drink anything like as much as I should - that's another resolution.)

Surely it depends whether you make the squash up to the recommended dilution. You could slowly make it weaker over time and that will cut down the sugar?

It was going ok for the first week or so. Today, however, I have a horrible headache ( I never get headaches), a nasty taste in my mouth and a funny tum. I really want some sugar, really badly :(

Hang in there bigbuttons In the book I read, the author described feeling really quite ill when she quit sugar. Like a withdrawal - which seems to me to prove just what awful stuff it is.

Thanks shetland?? I'm hoping tomorrow will be better. It doesn't help that the staff room table is groaning with all the leftover chocolate and biscuits!

I did quite well today, ate a boiled egg mid morning, then mackerel for lunch. Dinner was a big dish of butternut squash casserole-type-thing with sweet potatoes, an onion, and a tin of tomatoes in. Not entirely sugar-free as it had a dollop of mango chutney in, but not bad. Very tasty.

And then I stupidly ate five haribo sweets. But, at least they were the last five, so I can't do it again tomorrow. Silver linings and all that.

And still no sugar in tea or coffee. Still not loving it, but not hating it. It's certainly bearable.

sashiko the casserole sounds lovely.

Hope you feel better today bigbuttons. I'm also in a staff room type of place and we've one big unopened tin of biscuits left. While the lid is sealed, I'm safe Don't know who will eat them as we are only 4, and one of those is gluten-free so it'll be down to the other 2 I guess/hope!

Would kill for cake right now.

Perhaps I'll console myself with a cup of sugarless tea and a peanut.

Could you go have a bath or something where you don't usually eat and to distract yourself ?

are you hungry or is it the sugar demons? If you're in any way hungry, eat something quick and real. Omelette, jacket spud with cheese?

If not, distraction is the way to go. How are you getting on?

Hi, day three. Coping. Just. Really miss the sugar in my.coffee will have to get used to it. Have lost 2lbs though!! Took all the sweets out of the cupboard into work. DP not happy but they just can't be there!

Am having half orange juice half water now instead of full orange juice and actually prefer it. I am not banning myself from chocs or ice cream but will try to save them for Fri, Sat, sun treats. The frozen grapes are doing well to curb my poor dinner sugar requirements!!

Poor? Post!

One word to sum up today - fail :(

There's always tomorrow Shetland, no big deal
I'm only on day 3 so big respect for those further along than me!

Just sugar demons, I'd had a big plate of bolognese (with a bit of pasta, about half what I'd have had before).

Other than that, doing ok. I'm not missing sugar in hot drinks too much, but it's sinking in just how much sugar I have at other times, without thinking about it. I almost made a hot chocolate today, I dread to think how much sugar is in an Aero hot chocolate, but I wouldn't have thought about it before.