Tips for giving up sugar

Here's what I do, and why I do it. First of all, there are so many reasons to give up sugar, all of which you can find online. Here are my favourites:

1. It stops you being hungry. Whenever I've given up sugar completely, as in nothing with anything ending with -ose in it anywhere, I have literally forgotten to eat. After a week or two I generally re-introduce fruit but I find even a tiny bit is enough to satisfy my previously insatiable sweet-tooth. Giving it up for even a little while will reset your hunger cues, and your desire for sweetness.

2. Skin. After two or three weeks, all blemishes, blotchiness, blackheads and oiliness - gone. Normally my skin is completely disgusting. Every pore on my sizeable nose is a blackhead no matter how hard I scrub. My forehead is constantly oily, so much so that I blot with toilet paper every time I use the bathroom. I still get horrific breakouts regularly, and the area around my nose is always blotchy and red. If I don't have sugar, I look like I've been airbrushed, and my usually swarthy, thick skin is delicate and soft, like a wee babe. It's fucking eerie, but awesome, and knowing it's going to happen in a bit over a week is keeping me going at the moment.

3. You stop getting sick. Sugar fucks up your immune system by leaching vitamins and minerals from whatever else you eat in order to be properly digested. Which brings us to....

4. ....when it is digested, it turns into fat. Most specifically, lower belly fat. If you have a little pooch down there that won't budge no matter how much you exercise or starve yourself, it's a little collection of sugar. It will go away if you stop eating it. The good thing is, you can eat however much of anything else you want, as long as it doesn't have added sucrose, fructose, many of the other -oses, and corn syrup in it. Corn syrup is the DEVIL.

So I gave up sugar last year and lasted for two months. In that time I lost about seven or eight kilos, but felt so much better mentally that it almost became beside the point. I fell off the wagon after being too shy to request a sugar-free meal at a friend's wedding, and once I'd had a little taste, it was all downhill from there. It's weird that a little food additive can be so pervasive, and therefore take so much courage to overcome. I have a few strategies for success, and hopefully I can adhere to them more fully this time around :)

1. Tell EVERYONE that you're doing it. And then remind them all the time. I used the excuse that I was trying to overcome my dependence on anti-depressants, and I was told that sugar can affect mood stability, which it can. If you are chronically depressed it can really lift your mood, once you overcome the withdrawal stage.

2. Read labels. Sugar is in everything, and in really unexpected (for me at least) places. Stock powder. Pretty much anything processed at all. If you get rid of all of it the cravings will stop sooner.

3. Give in to other temptations, at least at the beginning. Give yourself a break! Last night I felt like shit so I made pasta bake for dinner, when I would normally never touch the stuff.

4. Cravings are shit, so be armed for them at all times. Travel with food on you, nuts or seeds or other little sugar free snacky things. Anything with fake sweetener in it will make you hungrier, and mean the detox process takes longer. Last time I saved artificially sweetened things for emergencies, when I knew I was going to cave if I didn't have something naughty.

Bear in mind that if you do this, it doesn't have to be forever. Even for a couple of weeks will help to reset your tummy if you have a problem with binge eating (like me), and will calm your crazies and clear your skin.

Much love xx