Tomorrow I quit sugar

[OuchBollocks]

I am OuchBollocks and I am a sugar addict. Not for me one square a day or a frozen curly wurly to take the edge off, no. I have it, I eat it, I want it more.

Last year I quit sugar for New Year, and stayed off minus one or two teeny slips until I got pregnant with DS, then being off alcohol and caffeine combined with the summer heat made the lure of a cold Fanta too hard to resist. Then I broke my leg and was bed bound and in pain and people brought chocolate to the hospital, and the meals all came with dessert, and then I had DS and more chocolate, then Easter and more chocolate, and although I've managed to drop a dress size so far with the 5:2 diet I need to jack in the white stuff. I am going to Ibiza in September '18 and I want to feel confident.

God help me,it's going to be hard. The rules are:
No sweet drinks, including artificial sweeteners
No chocolate, sweets, icecream, cake, sorbets, pastries, jam, marmalade etc etc
No crisps
Read labels of sauces carefully to check sugar levels.

I will update this thread for my own personal records. I am going to kiss sugar goodbye with the slice of cheesecake that is waiting for me after dinner. Goodbye sugar, it's been fun :(

I have managed to say no to ice cream twice today! It's also probably the first weekend in years that I haven't scoffed a big bar of choc in the evening. Feel so proud of myself

Hooray well done panda and all of us who have stayed strong in the face of French fancies, roly poly and other temptations. Our pancreases will thank us :)

Just say no!

Well done everyone! I'm so gutted, I've had no sugar, done my 30 minute shred DVD every day except Saturday and have put on 4lbs!!!!! Could it be holiday weight catching up on me? Anyone got any suggestions??

Are you increasing your portion sizes? Eating something instead of the sugary stuff?

My day wasn't too bad:

B: Weetabix and banana
S: Apple
L: roast beef dinner - NO PUDDING!! I didn't even look at the menu. Helped that no-one else wanted pudding.
S: grapes
D: Cheese toastie (I know that's bad if I'm trying to lose weight) and a pear.

I did help 3yo ds with his screwball, but am still pleased with my efforts. Weekends are so hard! I'm not feeling great this eve, so have given the glass of red reserved for me in the kitchen to dh. Unheard of. Not had booze since Fri night and won't drink now until next Sat (halo).

Sophster1978 oh dear Is that in a week? Do you have much to lose? Maybe it's wrong time of the month and/or water retention? Keep up the excellent work - I'm sure it'll show on the scales soon (do take your measurements too, it really helps the motivation I find).

Well done everyone!

How long have you been doing it Sophster? It could be the results of what you did last week, not this.. Also I found I could gain lbs at time of the month, then lose it the next day..

Can I join? I lost 6 stone on no-sugar about 10 years ago, and kept it off for a long time, but am currently 3 stone up again after having a baby. I haven't felt ready to lose the weight till now, but now I do.

To kick-start things I'm doing soup-only lunches and trying to eat more veg than fruit. But in general I just do three meals a day, no snacks, no chocolate/cake/sweets etc. I do eat bread and pasta but limit portion size. Normally I do also have some alcohol and quite a bit of fruit.

I'm a cold-turkey person in terms of blood sugar, and I love how just STEADY I feel on no sugar. I can get to mealtimes (or even beyond them) and not feel insatiably ravenous like I do when I'm lurching from sugar crash to sugar crash. My skin is also loads better: on sugar I get spots on my chin and round my mouth, but off it I never do.

Thank you!! I've been doing it a week and have been eating more fat, which according to the book makes you lose weight (nuts, cheese, avocado- that sort of stuff). I'm going to keep going and then once I've done the 8 weeks go back to slimming world and try and combine the 2. Fingers crossed I'll suddenly have a big loss!

I don't shy away from fat, but just careful you don't eat loads more to compensate for no sugar and actually you end up eating more calories.

I have to say, Ive eaten a lot more fat than I was - Cheese, butter, regular lattes instead of skinnies and especially full fat Greek yoghurt by the bucketload yet it hasn't stopped me losing weight. I've not gone mad - I'm not deliberately eating fat, but I'm veggie, so cheese forms a lot of my protein, and I've found it fills me much more than low fat alternatives I was eating previously.

I'd give it another week, see how it goes and then adjust.

ifigoup of course you can, welcome! Two of the biggest reasons I'm cutting right back on sugar are my spotty chin (esp at TOTM...I am 36 ffs not 13!) and mood swings/PMT. I've never done no sugar before. What do you mean by STEADY please? Just appetite or mood, too?

Sophster1978 Have you done SW before? I've done it on/off for nearly 20 years. I find it works best if I stay to group, but I can't actually stand them! Plus I don't agree with quite a lot of their plan these days; it's very artificial sweetener heavy. Their frozen ready meals in Iceland all have sweetener in them, and a lot of the recipes call for it. Plus you're "allowed" diet fizzy drinks, and fat-free yoghurt, so I'd find myself reaching for them everyday. I'm now of the thinking they're actually pretty unhealthy, and would far rather have a few spoonfuls of full-fat Greek yoghurt and feel satiated than to have a big pot of fat-free gloop. I couldn't get my head around synning things like a few nuts or seeds, either. I have two small boys who need healthy fat, and I like to eat the same as them. So found it incompatible with other diets. Plus I'd use my syns on small bars of chocolate or some Haribo...which then lead me to wanting more. I'm hoping cutting it all right out will be better in the long run (Tho I will really miss Haribo!!).

I sooooo want to head to the kitchen and have a nice big bowl of sugary cereal! Will drink water, brush teeth and head to bed.

GoingRogue, berries in full fat Greek yoghurt has been my go to when I've got sugar cravings and, for some reason unknown to me, really gets rid of the need.

I envy you going to bed, I'm cabin crew and just about to get ready for a 9 hour flight back to London,

I'm going to get some full fat Greek yoghurt and berries tomorrow - thanks. We get through a lot of berries here as the kids love them too (my pocket doesn't!). Also have a bag of frozen ones, just need to remember to defrost them.

Being cabin crew sounds so exciting and glamourous! Must totally mess with your body clock though, doing weird hours. How long have you been in that career? I'm envious as have never had a career and am now a SAHM which I find quite boring some days. Youngest starts school next year though so will be looking for a job then...although nothing as amazing as flying !

Ifigroup that is really interesting about the steadiness as I get really ravenous and shaky between meals. I guess that means you are recommending cold turkey then? (Shivers at thought.)

Ive done it nearly 20yrs now! Wasn't meaning to. It's not half as glamourous or exciting as you'd think (although I've done/seen some amazing things, I can't deny). Plays havoc with the diet though, all the nights out of bed and stays in hotels. I've got to stay awake next to a big box of chocolate and crisps tonight!

Cold turkey works best for me, but we're all different.

Steadiness: I meant appetite, but thinking about it I guess I do mean mood too. Feeling in control of my food rather than it controlling me is a good thing and leads to me feeling more capable generally. Certainly knowing I lost all that weight before makes me feel very confident I can again. It also led me to do other hard things (Couch to 5K; learning to drive - maybe not hard for other people, but massive and overwhelming for me!), because I knew that it was in my power to try. Before no-sugar I somehow felt that being overweight was just the way it was. It was almost like I was always waiting for someone/something to intervene. When I realised that wasn't going to happen and that nothing would ever change if I didn't change it, it was both scary and empowering. Starting to lose weight, I knew this was in my power.

Reading all this back, I don't know why I let myself be off the wagon for so long. But having a small baby is not an easy time. (DC is now 1 and, as I say, I finally feel ready again.)

Wow! 6 stone, that's amazing! How long did it take you to lose that?

I agree about slimming world, I lost 2 stone but can't stand staying for group and my weight just seemed to plateau. My oldest child is 7 and after he was born I lost the baby weight really easily, I then had 2 more close together (youngest now 10 months) and just can't shift it! I think I need to fill up more on veg than cheese and nuts....

It was slow and steady. Between half a pound and a pound a week. So getting on for two years in total. If I'd been inclined I could probably have gone faster but it didn't suit me to. For what it's worth, my skin contracted nicely with me and I didn't end up with loose folds.

Oh no! That sounds like our recent French holiday, we ended up with raw sewage in the bath and shower.... hope you have a good journey back. I am definitely finding that I'm not picking as much so hopefully everything will fall into place. I'm seeing a friend today who's a chef and really into nutrition so I'm going to ask her advice.

Oh nightmare overcome, sounds hideous. Hope your journey home is painless.

I've just booked DS's christening for just over 8 weeks time. In my family they are fairly big occasions plus a lot of my family like to judge appearances. It was ok with DD, she was 3 weeks at her christening so people had low expectations but DS will be 7.5 months so I need to be super focused and try to shift some of this belly.

Thank you for the advice and further explanation Ifi" slow and steady is how I want to do it!

Oh no Overcome and Sophster about the French plumbing!

Ouchbollocks I'm sure you will look lovely at the Christening whatever, but having a deadline certainly focuses the mind! Good luck over the next eight weeks!

My big family event (significant wedding anniversary) is coming up in under two years time - haven't quite caught the whiff of urgency yet! Need to get a grip!

I'm going to start by investing in a page per day food diary and taking a look at those Pilates back exerc ises!

Great advice and tips on here everyone! Thank you!

Minor victory- I did not stress eat sweets in advance of my stressful conference call which actually wasn't even stressful. In fact 90% of the things I stress about at work end up not being as bad as I thought ( I have to give 'Application rejected ' style calls a lot which suck but are unavoidable. I need to hold that thought.