re: Just say no! to sugar - the accountability thread

Yesterday was tough. Showed up to work and there were two Randazzo king cakes in the office. Everyone knows I’m from New Orleans, so multiple people tried pushing slices on me.

I know king cake gets some hate on TD, but I love them. One of my favorite foods.

But I persevered. Had zero.

Five days straight no sweets.

Glad to see this thread. I eat pretty well during the day, but the after dinner pantry raid kills me. Sweets/pastries are my kryptonite.

I lost around 50 lbs about 5 years ago just by eating less. I have gained about 10 lbs back, and have had trouble recently giving in to cravings. We don't keep many sweets in the house, but I have grade school kids and of course they have snacks in the pantry.

Started working out again this week, I'm on day 4 as well of no sweets. I usually cook 3-4 nights a week, nothing fancy, but at least I'm in control of it. The weekends and non-routine days are hard to control.

Glad you took it out on the gym.

Just remember it can take a few days for the bad effects to go away. Inflammation, cravings will probably be bad today.

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Day One - no sugar

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Good for you, I decided to kick sugar recently too, saw a video of a Mayo Clinic physician warning people (during his speech), of how sugar consumption is linked directly to causing cancer. It's not as tough (cutting out sugar) as I thought it world be, because eating fats completely destroys my sugar cravings. IMO, people who naturally gravitate toward sugar foods should try keto.

Lots of stress at work leads to bad eating typically for me. My numbers were the best they have been in years 4 months ago, but sucked last month. It’s the sugar, for me even sugar free just triggers more carb cravings.. my A1C went up a whole point.!

Passed one more test last night. I’m usually pretty drained after music gigs, and I almost always have a decent sized snack when I get home.

I felt the urge to eat something sweet but fought through it.

One full week down with no sweets. Things I’ve noticed:

- My body is showing noticeable changes in physique. Nothing worth posting, but the bloating is completely gone. Most likely water weight from reducing carb intake

- I’ve slept like shite almost all week. Probably averaging 5 hours a night. I think this is more all-around stress induced though

- Other foods are tasting sweeter. Roasted a butternut squash in butter and rosemary a few nights ago, and it tasted like candy. It was so sweet I almost stopped eating it because I was scared it was going to trigger the “I’m eating a dessert” brain chemicals and send me into a binge.

- I’ve become more focused on reducing all refined carbs than originally planned. Original goal was to cut sweets...desserts and sugary snacks only. But I noticed on MyFitnessPal that I was still consuming 30+ grams of sugar a day. Past few days I got that number down to around 15 grams. I might try to get it closer to zero this upcoming week. Only allow carbs to come from non-sweet sources (cut fruit, crackers with added sugar, etc).

- No superpowers yet, but I think the sleeping issues are keeping me from feeling as good as I should. I have noticed that as the inflammation has gone down, I feel more flexible and lithe.

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Just say no! to sugar

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My biggest issue...fricking sweet tea.

How’s everyone doing? Still on track?

I’m learning a lot about my body and it’s not easy. I am officially over two weeks without added sugar. Averaged 20g of sugar from vegetables and fruits per day for the past five days.

Some new knowledge:

- I’m no longer dependent on sugar. It’s official. I don’t even think about it. I don’t crave it. It’s not an option for me. I’ve shifted my mental energy from “don’t eat sugar” to “what can I put into my body that is the best fuel for my fitness and physique goals?”

- It’s all about momentum. The first few days were tough but getting on a roll made this process a lot easier. I no longer believe sugar is as addictive as I thought. I had it close to cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs - but there have been little to no physiological withdrawals. Not real ones that matter at least. Psychological? Some but those were remedied after a week of saying no.

- My macros are now complicated. A few days ago I tried to go down to 100g of carbs. I ended up with a macro split of - 150g of protein; 100g of carbs; 140g of fat.

My sleeping habits got worse. Almost truly debilitating bad. I could fall asleep no problem but two to three hours later I would wake up and be unable to fall back asleep. I went three days on a total of 10 hours of sleep. Miserable barely describes how I felt.

I did a lot of research and found that high fat intake can trigger reflux. I’ve struggled with silent reflux in the past and know the symptoms well. The 150/100/140 macro plan wasn’t going to work because the high fat was causing my body issues.

It’s taking time to figure out, but I’m already nixing the 100g of carbs idea. I read through Tom Venuto’s book and read a number of bodybuilding sites and have decided to try a 150/170/90 macro split for the next week. See if I can sleep better and how I feel.

I thought kicking sugar would be hard. It wasn’t. But now this is about finding the right diet for me. That seems to be hard.

In - I'm Keto AF and sugar is our enemy

Well...I’ve posted the good.

Time to post the bad.

After 21 days of zero sugar, I had two graham crackers and 1/2 cup of vanilla ice cream tonight. That’s after a cheat meal where I went to a restaurant and just ordered what I wanted. Catfish plate with fries, Mac and cheese, and hush puppies.

Total calories for the day added up to ~3200.

I’m not feeling bad about it though. Not proud of the streak ending, but...it was a cheat day. We’ll see how I do tomorrow. I feel good about going another 21 days without it.