My next birthday goal (March 2010) is to kick my sugar habit. I've been slowly chipping away at it for the past 6 months by doing the following:
- Changing my relationship with food choices to something I do for my health rather than for my weight.
- Educating myself about sugar and what it does to my body.
- Being aware of how my body feels after I eat sugar.
- Finding healthy replacements, not artificial ones when I do feel like sweetness.
- Omitting foods that don't have healthy replacements (granola bars, sugar in my coffee, cereal)
- Reading labels to make sure there are no added sweeteners in the ingredient list.
These things have made a big dent in how much sugar I eat compared to six months ago. I have noticed a lot of differences since reducing my sugar. But now I am interested in what would change if I gave up all sugar for a month? So that is what I am doing, November of 2009 is going to be sugar free for me.
To me a No Sugar November means:
- No sugar.
- No corn syrup.
- No sweeteners, fake or real, of any kind in the ingredients list of anything I buy.
- Naturally occurring fruit and milk sugars are OK.
I think my biggest challenges are going to be:
- Giving up my baked good. I don't bake nearly as much as I used to, and what I do bake now, usually has raw honey or sucanat in it in place of sugar, but I think I will miss them.
- Giving up raw honey. I thought a long time to see what I was going to do about raw honey. I believe that raw honey can be a great sweetener with health benefits, but for this month I will give it up.
- Giving up my teaspoon of brown sugar in my morning oatmeal.
- Giving up my occasional treats with friends and the kids.
