Reflections On My Month Without Sugar

The experience of going a month without sugar exceeded my expectations by leaps and bounds. I knew the experience would help me regain influence over my habits, and although I was hoping for a new level of empowerment around my food and beverage choices, I never thought I would feel THIS empowered.

The last impetus to deciding I needed a change occurred just after I finished eating 5 of my children’s Halloween Reese’s minis. I had already formed the habit of drinking soy latte’s regularly and every time I went to the coop, which was pretty much daily, I would buy myself some sort of sweet chocolaty treat. As I looked at my habits I knew that I had strayed uncomfortably far from the standard I expected of myself.

Fresh off of my “No-Vember No-Sugar” experiment, I am excited to share the insights gleaned, starting with some of the biggest surprises.

The Biggest Surprises

1. How easy it was after the first 2 days.

2. How hard it was the second 2 weeks when I lowered the standard after the more rigorous standard I started with.

3. How much my body- probably physical, mental and emotional bodies - craved sweets especially at night.

4. How many nuts I had to eat to stay sane and beat the cravings.

(photo sourced from www.nuts.com)

Now that it is over its easy to see the rewards of my effort and I’m inspired to keep a regular "reset" in my yearly game plan.

The Biggest Rewards

(photo sourced from www.julianbakery.com)

1. Feeling like my body got back to a more sustainable energy source.

2. Being able to walk into a store and avoid even the healthiest dark chocolate.

3. Feeling more in control of my eating and my emotions that I didn’t think were as intimately involved in so many of my choices as they truly were.

4. The feeling of accomplishment by not putting off the change until the beginning of the year, as could be expected, and the opportunity it afforded me to build stronger habits through the normally lax holiday season.

Looking at the rewards and what I’m most excited about reminds me of the fact that I’ve always been driven toward sustainability and efficiency on many fronts in my life. If I were a super hero I think I’d be Mr. Sufficiency (That’s a not so clever combination of sustainability and efficiency), not because I’m the best proponent of either, but more-so because I’m so naturally drawn to both values and I have a strong eagerness to learn and implement the next most sustainable or efficient practice to add value to my life. 

Sugar Is Not Sustainable

From what I’ve learned, our bodies can do wonders without a drop of added sweetener, and even the naturally occurring sweetener in fruits and vegetables can be overdone, and give us more than our bodies need on a regular basis.  As I started wrapping my mind around revamping my nutrition, I had started to feel like my body was addicted to the quick boost of energy I would get with a soy latte, heavily honey sweetened tea or oatmeal, or a couple spoonful’s of Justin’s Hazelnut Butter.  Also, every time I ate a regular meal, that energy wasn’t quick enough so I would end up always feeling unsatisfied.

Being somewhat conscious of my unconscious problem I had developed, I was alternating between the sugar high I’d get from my “Salty Chips” as me and my kids refer to our favorite vinegar and sea salt chips, and some sort of sweet so I would feel like I wasn’t completely out of control with my “treats.”

A couple of days in, I came around to realizing that my body was craving energy and the fat from the nuts was helping a little, but I also needed a lot of spice and flavor to overcome the cravings. I wasn’t sure if it was physical or emotional, but it was at this point that I started finding ways to put more fat in my food by way of olive oil, avocados, nuts, and coconut oil. This was also around the time I started to settle into the new routine, which helped me realize where my habits had went so far astray.

(photo sourced from www.healthrevolutionfitness.com)

I had originally blamed my less strict eating habits on living with my brother in Atlanta with his different style of eating for a few months coupled with the added strain of trying to make ends meet in the big city, and I blamed my ex-girlfriend for getting me hooked on soy latte’s. The more I thought about it, however, I realized that Crossfit had a hand in all of the areas I was struggling in.

I Kinda’ Blame Crossfit

Before jumping head first into Crossfit I was running 12 miles over Transmountain – a route that was 6-miles in one direction which passes through the end of the Organ mountains on the Texas - New Mexico border - and back on a whim just having finished a 36 hour juice fast. My eating was on point and I felt like I had energy for days. The first couple of weeks of really “crossfitting” I noticed how hard it was to run. We were doing a four-mile med-ball Indian run and my lower back was “Blown The F Up” like never before.  I was feeling every bit of the unfamiliar workload of consecutive days of deadlifts cleans and squats, and my running hasn’t been the same since.

I originally thought that once I got my weight back down and started running regularly again I’d be able to get back to my previous mileage. But a year after Crossfit I’m still struggling with 4 mile runs. So how can I blame Crossfit now that extreme exercise routines aren’t to blame? Well, another result of the extreme nature of Crossfit was that the more deeply I got into competing, the tougher and longer the training got, and the more incentive I needed to get up the next day and do it again, or I needed a great reward to make all the punishment worth it.

Summer 2011- 190lbs

Spring 2013 - 205lbs

And… when your 10lbs heavier while still at your leanest ever, who’s going to say you can’t eat a couple of gluten free, no-hormone or antibiotic sausage and egg sandwiches every afternoon, or have some organic dark chocolate before each “WOD”?

YOUR ALWAYS AWARE LIFESTYLE COACH CONSCIENCE, THAT’S WHO. Well that’s who was gnawing at the back of my mind every day, but after committing to being my ex’s training partner for the 2013 season I wouldn’t allow myself to complain, or miss a workout, but boy was I relieved when she decided to drop out of the Games and work on healing. I don’t think I could have lasted another week.

During the course of this no-sugar process I realized my energy had been coming from such an unsustainable source for quite some time now, and though my weight is back to normal and my training regiment is more balanced, like it used to be, I just haven’t gotten back to where I feel I should be. As I increased my fat intake and started feeling more satiated after meals, I came up with the hypothesis that; where I used to feel a second wind at the 2 mile turnaround mark, with the aid of that slow metabolizing energy from fat and protein and vegetables, I was now completely depleted from this unsustainable inefficient source of energy that is quick to burn and needs consistent replenishing. I found this awesome blog post that gives great detail to what I was feeling intrinsically. This month long process has given me a deeper experience and UNDERSTANDING of why sugar is so unsustainable for my goals.

Soy Latte – A Whole Other Beast

 

Part of this process was also to get away from my newfound love for soy-latte’s which, though I love, I don’t particularly enjoy the idea of it’s high acidity and all the honey I need to really make it enjoyable.

My first effort was to substitute coffee with Pero, the non-coffee barley and ginger root, and whatever else, replacement I had gotten my mom years ago when I wanted to help her break the habit. I knew there was comfort in the warmth as the days were getting colder, but I wasn’t craving tea, so that wasn’t all it was. I added lots of cinnamon, nutmeg and I even tried to get some hazelnut flavor to add to it, but all in all it wasn’t very tasty.

The next trial was to make it a latte with some unsweetened almond milk, which still didn’t work. Then I got the idea that I could make it like my all-time favorite mocha latte by adding some chocolate, so off to the co-op I went.  They didn’t have the unsweetened chocolate nibs I was looking for, thinking I would be able to add to other foods when I was feeling really deprived.  So as I kept searching, I came around to the carob chips, which I had tried before but didn’t really like, and now thought it would be perfect since it didn’t have any sugar in the ingredients.

I got them and was barely out the door when I was snacking on them and thinking I had beaten the system. I got home and made my mocha latte, and it did the trick, it tasted pretty okay and I felt GOOD. By the time I went to make my next mocha latte I realized I was too excited about these carob chips and something must be off. So I revisited the ingredients when I realized it’s main ingredient was malted barley, I dug a little deeper and realized this wasn’t a part of my gluten free, sugar free process. Then I looked back at the Pero ingredients which also had some sort of barley, I think it was malted as well so I threw them away with a bit of hopeless feeling in my heart.

Next I thought I’d try the cold-brew coffee I saw people drinking. I thought maybe real coffee with less acidity would be a better alternative than Pero but I was wrong. I actually started to like the cold-brew by itself, but it was so concentrated I felt I wasn’t doing myself any good sipping on that. So, it was back to the drawing board.

Ironically, out of the blue my friend hit me with the “London Fog,” An earl grey tea with milk almost like a latte. I didn’t think it sounded like it was up my alley as I really don’t enjoy earl grey, black, green, or any of the caffeinated tea’s that seem more like something a grandparent would drink at a tea party. But again, by this time I was desperate. When I finally tried it, I felt I had found my cheat-code, but I couldn’t be sure until I tried it at home without the cane sugar sweetened soy milk they use at Starbucks.

 I bought some earl grey, got home and made my tea, and BAM! It tasted good. Plus it was some serious caffeine. So much so, that I didn’t want to drink it just like I didn’t want to drink coffee. The only difference was, I could forego it when the thought came to mind without that deprived feeling when I wanted a coffee. Without the honey, without the acid, I had found something I could choose to have that wouldn’t bring me back down that slippery slope.

Every food choice I’ve made now that I’m in December, I stop and wonder if it’s going to be the choice that sends me back into the unscrupulous place I’d just clawed myself out from. It reminded me that I had committed to a new approach and that I would now be aware of the higher glycemic choices I was making, and it wouldn’t be acceptable to have those things more than once in a week. This mindset has helped me get away from the feeling that; ‘in moderation I can have my cake and eat it too,’ while my mind, emotions, and energy stores weren’t nearly in accord.

The Big Realization

I realized that I, and maybe we all are, am a creature of habit. I need a policy of scheduled awakening practices to lift the veil of complacency and to create a more clear and realistic picture of the true effects of the habits I’ve fallen in to by nature. I don’t think it’s necessary to do a master cleanse, or a full on colonoscopy on a regular basis, that might be extreme, but to be able to take your habits off the tracks every few months, maybe once a quarter, get a real good look at them, so as to reassess their efficacy, their impact, and their sustainability. That’s what I realized will work for me, maybe it can help you as well. I would love to have you join me the next time I do a similar exercise, but next on the calendar will be an exercise in socializing without ALCOHOL for a period of time…any takers?