Hit me with sugar free tips please

[makingithappen]

Hi All. I have decided to ditch the white stuff. There is no doubt in my mind that it is the cause of my weight and health problems and I have finally realised enough is enough. BUT IT IS SO DAUNTING! SUGAR IS IN EVERYTHING!! Can anyone please offer advice and/or success stories?

T2 diabetic here. You can't eat many processed foods is the main rule of thumb.... the only tinned things I ever have are lower sugar baked beans and beans/chickpeas in water. I use fresh tomatoes not tinned, and the only sauce I tend to use is mayo as ketchup is full of sugar.

I cook my meals from scratch, that's the only way you know what you're eating. We eat lots of veg based things like curries, tagines, and casseroles with brown rice or pasta. Even baked potatoes are high in sugar, so we mainly eat new potatoes in their skins if we have potatoes at all.

I can't tell you how lovely it is not to have the brain fog that comes from eating sugar. I've lost 3/4 stone so far and still have a bit to go, but I've never felt better for it.

I didn't completely cut it out but swapped to things with less sugar. Artificial sweeteners give me a headache and make me feel ill so I just substituted high sugar things for slightly lower sugar things.

Drinks - I used to have a few cans of coke from the vending machine at work, I now drink tea with 1 sugar. Or filtered water. Cut down on alcohol - I no longer drink at home, just when I rarely get a night out.

Food - I'm cooking from scratch a lot more. Lots of jars/sauces/ready meals are really high in sugar (and salt) so I now just make our own. I've also switched to foods with a better gi - they keep me full for longer so I'm no longer snacking. I have slightly smaller servings of carbs with dinner and instead replace my mountain of pasta/potatoes/rice with loads of vegetables. So at least half my dinner plate is veg.

It is amazing how quickly the weight came off initially. I started last February and by Autumn time I was back in the green zone of my bmi.

It's good to know that brown rice and pasta is ok, oh and the new potatoes. I was starting to wonder how I would manage on just meat and veg!

We do mainly cook from scratch so are ahead there but lunch is going to need some thinking about though.

Any tips for pack lunch and snacks?

I managed a month or so sugar free a couple of years ago and couldn't believe how much clearer my head felt. Literally felt like a cloud had been lifted! But then came our birthday month of May -mine, my daughters, my husband's and our wedding anniversary. I just never got back to it after that.

I stopped eating sugar six months ago. The only advice I can give is make everything from scratch yourself. No processed food at all because it almost all contains sugar. A pain I know but you get used to planning meals in advance and doing meal prep in advance. Also watch out for stuff that says it contains no sugar but actually it has like agave or coconut sugar in it. These are just sugars by a different name.

We have lots of home made soup at this time of year for lunch or I try and make enough evening meal for leftovers so we can have something warm. We go through a lot of butternut squash... roasted in a hot oven, add red onion and red pepper towards the end of roasting then blitz with veg stock and some herbs/spices. Really easy to make.

Oven roasted veg like onion, pepper, courgette, squash also make a nice salad addition.... added into some lambs lettuce with couscous is yummy. And we do have the odd sandwich with wholegrain or seeded bread.... nothing wrong with bread as long as you don't eat too much of it. Again roasted veg is lovely with cream cheese and some leaves, or with cold chicken.

I've found making a rough meal planner really helps so we can work out what we need for the shopping delivery - and a well stocked store cupboard. We keeps nuts in for snacks, and often have with cubes of cheese if we're peckish at night rather than crisps etc.