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lauraredcloud at 12:00pm on 08/05/2013 under fitness
lauraredcloud at 12:00pm on 08/05/2013 under fitnessI've had to think a lot about what I'm eating lately, and it's consumed a huge amount of my brain. I'll put all the blahblah beneath a cut so you only have to read it if you care.
A doctor told me to cut out refined sugar for diagnostic purposes. I initially thought this wouldn't be much work since I eat a relatively low-sugar diet anyway. I'd been calorie counting with My Fitness Pal anyway, so I'd entered in my foods for the last few weeks, and the amount of sugar had been tracked. It was. Um.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 1: Low is relative.
There are conflicting "sugar free" diets and programs on the Internet. Some rely on artificial sugar substitutes, which hardly seem any better. Some are so restrictive that they're impossible or are based on premises I can't take seriously (Paleo). I bought I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson, an accessibly-written and charmingly Australian program for quitting sugar. Like me, Wilson thought she had a low sugar diet until she started looking at labels. So I started looking at labels. And I realized: I CAN'T EAT ANYTHING ANYMORE!
Quitting Sugar Lesson 2: Sugar is added to everything!
Tomato sauce. Bread. Packaged foods of all kinds. Even salty foods contain sugar to counteract the extra salt! What the hell is that about? Low-fat foods are the worst, since they basically replace fat with sugar or aspartame. Most yogurts, for example. This seems like a particularly cruel form of marketing. You're playing on people who want to be healthy!
And there are so many KINDS of sugar! There are natural foods that are basically sugar, like honey and agave nectar. There are sugar synonyms and variants that companies use so they don't have to say "sugar," like "evaporated cane juice" and "maltodextrin." There's anything ending in -ose. Calculating the amount of sugar in a product, and whether there added sugars or just the natural lactose, glucose, or fructose present in the food, requires careful scrutiny of ingredients lists and nutrition facts labels.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 3: You just have to cook at home.
There's really no way around it. I've eaten out a few times, trying to avoid anything I know is sugary, but of course you never really know. And, except for a few all-natural-food-store exceptions, processed foods are completely out.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 4: Vegetables are good.
I know, I know, we all know this, but just as calorie counting made me realize, hey, exercise, the sugar-free diet brought home the value of vegetables. If your aim is low to no sugar, vegetables become the bulk of what you can eat. Vegetables and fat.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 5: Fat is good.
I don't know enough science to tell if Wilson's claim that "fat doesn't make you fat, sugar makes you fat" is reasonable. Enough fat makes you fat, I'm sure. But fat is filling. Sugar isn't. If you're going to have an indulgence, and I WANT ONE, fat is more pragmatic. And when you don't eat sugar, it gets a lot harder to hit your calorie limit for the day.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 6: Fresh (and only fresh) fruit is good.
Yesterday, I deviated from the plan and added fruit back in the form of berries. It's too early, according to her program, but my doctor didn't say anything about fruit specifically and I was finding it hard to get enough vitamin C without them. I also found no actual doctors supporting a fruitless diet, even temporarily. Only Internet crackpots. So here's where I differ from Sarah Wilson.
It should be noted, though, that dried fruit and fruit juice are still out. Whether you discard the water or the fiber, both methods are great ways of concentrating and preserving all of the sugar while making it possible for you to consume way more than you would if it were fresh.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 7: Beverages are as follows: water, tea, coffee, full-on spirits. End of list.
This basically means I don't drink alcohol because I only liked the sweetened, juicy cocktails. Luckily, I already developed a taste for coffee that's black as night. But I've also been enjoying it will full-fat cream, because why not?
Quitting Sugar Lesson 8: I... I don't like sugar that much!
I haven't experienced intense cravings, and I'm finding myself "hungry for" buttery things more and sweet things less. I would be happy never to eat cake again. The diet has helped me to realize that most of the reasons I eat sugary stuff (intentionally, not hidden sugars), now with my adult taste buds, has to do with my emotional relationship with sweet treats rather than actual enjoyment of them. I'll eat cookies because a friend made them or because that's what I liked when I was a kid, but the experience never lives up to the hype. Dark chocolate is the only thing I miss (I eat raw cacao nibs but they taste like dirt...delicious dirt), but I like chocolate because of its bitterness, not its sweetness. I doubt I can go back to 70% cacao now. It'll have to be 80, maybe 90%.
That said, this is a difficult and annoying diet. I don't want to pay that much attention, especially while eating out, and to be honest, I don't see a huge benefit. I'm not demonstrably healthier or more energetic than before (although it's only been a short time and I have had a cold, so who knows.) I want to hold onto these lessons because I think they're good in general, but I don't feel like I need to stick to the diet to learn the lessons. On the other hand, they are largely things people have told me and I haven't listened before, so.
A doctor told me to cut out refined sugar for diagnostic purposes. I initially thought this wouldn't be much work since I eat a relatively low-sugar diet anyway. I'd been calorie counting with My Fitness Pal anyway, so I'd entered in my foods for the last few weeks, and the amount of sugar had been tracked. It was. Um.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 1: Low is relative.
There are conflicting "sugar free" diets and programs on the Internet. Some rely on artificial sugar substitutes, which hardly seem any better. Some are so restrictive that they're impossible or are based on premises I can't take seriously (Paleo). I bought I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson, an accessibly-written and charmingly Australian program for quitting sugar. Like me, Wilson thought she had a low sugar diet until she started looking at labels. So I started looking at labels. And I realized: I CAN'T EAT ANYTHING ANYMORE!
Quitting Sugar Lesson 2: Sugar is added to everything!
Tomato sauce. Bread. Packaged foods of all kinds. Even salty foods contain sugar to counteract the extra salt! What the hell is that about? Low-fat foods are the worst, since they basically replace fat with sugar or aspartame. Most yogurts, for example. This seems like a particularly cruel form of marketing. You're playing on people who want to be healthy!
And there are so many KINDS of sugar! There are natural foods that are basically sugar, like honey and agave nectar. There are sugar synonyms and variants that companies use so they don't have to say "sugar," like "evaporated cane juice" and "maltodextrin." There's anything ending in -ose. Calculating the amount of sugar in a product, and whether there added sugars or just the natural lactose, glucose, or fructose present in the food, requires careful scrutiny of ingredients lists and nutrition facts labels.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 3: You just have to cook at home.
There's really no way around it. I've eaten out a few times, trying to avoid anything I know is sugary, but of course you never really know. And, except for a few all-natural-food-store exceptions, processed foods are completely out.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 4: Vegetables are good.
I know, I know, we all know this, but just as calorie counting made me realize, hey, exercise, the sugar-free diet brought home the value of vegetables. If your aim is low to no sugar, vegetables become the bulk of what you can eat. Vegetables and fat.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 5: Fat is good.
I don't know enough science to tell if Wilson's claim that "fat doesn't make you fat, sugar makes you fat" is reasonable. Enough fat makes you fat, I'm sure. But fat is filling. Sugar isn't. If you're going to have an indulgence, and I WANT ONE, fat is more pragmatic. And when you don't eat sugar, it gets a lot harder to hit your calorie limit for the day.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 6: Fresh (and only fresh) fruit is good.
Yesterday, I deviated from the plan and added fruit back in the form of berries. It's too early, according to her program, but my doctor didn't say anything about fruit specifically and I was finding it hard to get enough vitamin C without them. I also found no actual doctors supporting a fruitless diet, even temporarily. Only Internet crackpots. So here's where I differ from Sarah Wilson.
It should be noted, though, that dried fruit and fruit juice are still out. Whether you discard the water or the fiber, both methods are great ways of concentrating and preserving all of the sugar while making it possible for you to consume way more than you would if it were fresh.
Quitting Sugar Lesson 7: Beverages are as follows: water, tea, coffee, full-on spirits. End of list.
This basically means I don't drink alcohol because I only liked the sweetened, juicy cocktails. Luckily, I already developed a taste for coffee that's black as night. But I've also been enjoying it will full-fat cream, because why not?
Quitting Sugar Lesson 8: I... I don't like sugar that much!
I haven't experienced intense cravings, and I'm finding myself "hungry for" buttery things more and sweet things less. I would be happy never to eat cake again. The diet has helped me to realize that most of the reasons I eat sugary stuff (intentionally, not hidden sugars), now with my adult taste buds, has to do with my emotional relationship with sweet treats rather than actual enjoyment of them. I'll eat cookies because a friend made them or because that's what I liked when I was a kid, but the experience never lives up to the hype. Dark chocolate is the only thing I miss (I eat raw cacao nibs but they taste like dirt...delicious dirt), but I like chocolate because of its bitterness, not its sweetness. I doubt I can go back to 70% cacao now. It'll have to be 80, maybe 90%.
That said, this is a difficult and annoying diet. I don't want to pay that much attention, especially while eating out, and to be honest, I don't see a huge benefit. I'm not demonstrably healthier or more energetic than before (although it's only been a short time and I have had a cold, so who knows.) I want to hold onto these lessons because I think they're good in general, but I don't feel like I need to stick to the diet to learn the lessons. On the other hand, they are largely things people have told me and I haven't listened before, so.