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Home » Life » 5 Things I Learned While On A Sugar Free Diet

5 Things I Learned While On A Sugar Free Diet

August 21, 2014 //  by The Kitchen Snob 10 Comments

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I’m back on the sugar train and it’s a bumpy ride. To my surprise, I didn’t down 2 candy bars and 4 cupcakes immediately following the last day of my sugar free diet. I introduced sugar back into my diet s l o w l y. I was afraid I might feel sick if I overdid it. And I was sort of right.

5 Things I Learned While On A Sugar Free Diet - thekitchensnob.com #sugarfree #fedupchallengeAs you may already know, I recently did the 10-Day Fed Up Challenge and it was an eye opening, wallet opening, and (happy dance) waistband opening experience.

On Day 11, I treaded lightly. Like the wanna-be-goody-two-shoes that I am, I ate sugar-free for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, even though I didn’t have to. [Applause is appreciated.] With family in town, we went out to dinner and, being allowed to eat sugar again, I thought it was only fair to sugar lovers everywhere to order dessert. Bless my heart – the things I do for people!

We ordered a slice of flour-less chocolate cake. One bite and I had had enough. It seemed ridiculously sweet, which leads me to the first thing I learned:

1. My taste buds were out of whack.

After 10 days without sugar, desserts I was eating prior to the challenge without giving much thought to, taste WAY TOO SWEET now. I mean like [cough! choke!] too sweet. I can’t handle it. And I consider myself to be a professional sugarholic.

Eating so much sugar and processed foods desensitizes us. I blame Sprees and corporate office candy bowls.

I have always loved sour candy. I bought some sour cotton candy a few days after the challenge. It was for a special romantic movie night (read: Star Wars) for the husband. I was a complete wuss and couldn’t take more than 2 bites.

What being on a sugar free diet taught me is that my taste buds were completely off base before  the challenge. When it came to deciphering what is sweet and what isn’t, I probably added more sugar to recipes than I needed to. Fruit actually tastes better now and seems like God’s gift of dessert to the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still the same ol’ Kitchen Snob who likes things like Cinnamon Explosion Muffins and Forget Your Diet Cookies. I just feel like it’s best for me to eat these things in moderation and not treat dessert like one of the major food groups.

2. Sugar is in almost everything.

Like whoa dude. In evverrything. It’s completely unnecessary. It was quite shocking to read labels and discover sugar in strange places like: sushi, lox, bread, and cottage cheese. (Check out this list of Other Names for Sugar) And what about the chemicals? I don’t even know what most of the chemicals are without doing a Wikepedia search on each one but I’d like to keep following the rule:

5 Things I Learned While On A Sugar Free Diet - thekitchensnob.com #sugarfree #fedupchallengeI’ve personally found that after being free from chemicals for 10 days, when I eat something processed, I don’t feel so hot. Which leads me to…

3. Our bodies actually respond to what we put into them.

I know. Like duh, right? But come on. For a dessert loving, Pez popping, white carb grubbing foodie like me, this was something I knew and understood in theory but had never experienced. When you eat processed foods or sugar frequently, you don’t know you’re feeling bad.

By Day 5, I felt like a lean machine. My mind felt sharp as a tack. I felt strong. Yes, I had some cravings and loved complaining about them but, all in all, I had a spring in my step and felt happy about my progress.

After the challenge was over, I still continued to eat fairly healthy (except for the movie night). One of my favorite breads is The French Peasant Loaf from Heidelberg Baking Company. If you’re ever in New York state, try it! Yes it’s a white bread (gasp!) but there are no chemicals and no sugar! After going off my sugar free diet, I had a slice of it and I felt fine. But when I had a slice of Pepperidge Farm Sourdough, I felt awful afterwards. I still had it in the fridge from prior to going on the sugar free diet. During the challenge, I discovered it has high fructose corn syrup and other processed ingredients. I could immediately feel the effects of processed food in my body. Yuck. And I find it remarkable that now, after the Fed Up Challenge, I don’t like the taste of processed bread anymore!

Another positive outcome, although I know it’s not super important, is I lost 5 pounds during the Fed Up challenge without lifting a finger for exercise. Not bad!

4. Eating healthy and sugar free is totally doable.

To be honest, I thought anyone who tried these types of extreme diet changes were just darn right crazy. I could never do that, I thought.

Well guess what? I did it. And I’m going to do it again. The Hungry Husband and I both said we felt proud of ourselves which is a nice feeling to have. I felt like I was taking control of my body and cravings. We felt good knowing we were doing something good for ourselves and our health. You can’t put a price on that. Well, maybe you can because the 5th thing I learned was…

5. Taking better care of yourself takes work. Oh, and money.

Damn. Eating healthy is expensive. Vegetables and fruits cost more than many processed foods, which is just so sad. And if you want to go organic, fughgettaboutit. The super duper healthy Ezekiel bread? It’s like $6 a loaf!

5 Things I Learned While On A Sugar Free Diet - thekitchensnob.com #fedupchallenge #sugarfreeBut here’s one way to look at it. Your health is worth it. If there was a way for us to scientifically look at our health and how the food we put into our body was affecting us and then determine the cost of our health problems from eating processed foods and chemicals, would our health care cost less if we were all more healthy overall? I have to hope and assume it would. We weren’t put on this earth to eat silicone dioxide and shellac(shiny coated candy anyone?).

For some great recipes and information about cutting out processed foods check out 100 Days of Real Food by Lisa Leake. She’s got some great info about eating healthy on a budget. She also has a new cookbook!

And let’s not ignore the work involved. I did more dishes in those 10 days than ever before. I wanted to know every ingredient I was eating so I cooked everything. No short cuts here!

Eating healthy by going on a sugar free diet took lots of thought, reading, planning, discussing, and cooking. I’m sure if I were to adapt to this lifestyle permanently it would get easier and become second nature to me.

What’s In The Kitchen Snob’s Future?

The Hungry Husband and I have decided to be more conscious of what is in our food. (Disclaimer: this doesn’t mean he might not be upstairs in his office right now eating a bite size Twix…that I bought him as a treat…bad snob!) But hopefully treats like that will only be eaten in moderation from now on [points disapproving finger at self].

Conclusion: we are going to go sugar free and white flour free for one week a month. This is our way of making some changes. Baby steps. And bite size baby Twix. Both can live harmoniously in our house.

I’d love to hear what you thought of the Fed Up Challenge! For those of you that tried it, what did you learn?

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. triber

    April 21, 2017 at 6:53 AM

    btw: after six years i am of the opinion that sugar is as addictive as heroin! people can’t stick to diets because they get ‘hungry.’…they are just jones’n for a ‘fix’.

    Reply
  2. triber

    April 21, 2017 at 6:44 AM

    sixth year off sugar here! still love my sweetened coffee tho. solution is STEVIA, but carefull here: READ ingredients as many/most so-called commercial STEVIA products still dump in (unecessisary!) sugar & chems & fillers.. also, the leaf is sweet. the stem is bitter. my current go-to is whole foods 365 brand $6+ bucks a pop for an itty-bitty ounce, but sooooo worth it.

    Reply
  3. Erica Leslie

    October 3, 2016 at 3:03 PM

    I’m had my 8th graders watch Fed Up and volunteer to take the No Sugar Challenge with me. Of course, only about 20 of them are on board (out of 85), but we are on day 6 and going strong! Thanks for your blog. It helped get us setup!!

    Reply
    • The Kitchen Snob

      October 4, 2016 at 11:00 AM

      Hi, Erica! Thanks for your comment. That makes me sooo happy to hear! I’m impressed 🙂

      Reply
  4. Lisa

    January 9, 2015 at 4:38 PM

    We just watched Fed up last night. We are on Day 5 of a Paleo diet meaning no added or artificial sugar. Basically nothing but meat, fruit, some nuts and veggies. I feel great and carrots now taste like dessert! We are aiming to do this for 30 days and then re-evaluate because it is EXPENSIVE!!!

    Reply
    • The Kitchen Snob

      January 10, 2015 at 10:16 AM

      Lisa – isn’t it incredible how expensive eating healthy is? It should be the other way around. Proud of you for keeping at it!

      Reply
  5. Leah

    January 9, 2015 at 11:34 AM

    I watched Fed Up last night and decided that I would do the challenge starting today. So far, so good as far as not consuming sugar but man am I sleepy! I feel like I am in a fog! Crazy what doing without your daily gallon of McD’s sweet tea in the morning will do rt? I think tea is going to be my biggest issue. I can do without all of the other stuff if I can just have my tea, but I’m gonna do this. I went for about 8 months on the whole foods plant based diet promoted by Forks Over Knives and it was amazing how differently I felt. How energized! Most of the foods that are FOK approved are sugar free bc they are from nature. Anyway thanks for this blog I am alone in my endeavor at my house so the support is much appreciated!

    Reply
    • The Kitchen Snob

      January 9, 2015 at 11:44 AM

      Thanks so much for your comment, Leah. I can definitely relate. We are watching Fed Up this weekend! Can you believe I haven’t seen it? It wasn’t showing in our area and we just got Apple TV so will be streaming that bad boy on date night! Romantic, right? 😉 I LOVE iced tea with sugar in it. McD’s is a little too sweet for me but I still love my sweet tea. That was hard for me, too. I’ll be starting up another challenge here in the next few weeks so I hope you’ll check back. And feel free to email me if you just need support!

      Reply
  6. ThefairlyGoodMother

    August 30, 2014 at 5:08 PM

    LOVED this post! And the lifestyle change 🙂

    Reply
    • The Kitchen Snob

      August 30, 2014 at 11:56 PM

      Thanks!

      Reply

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