The diary of a sugar shunner

Day 1:
Monday 16 April
Day 1 of official sugar strike (didn’t actually eat any yesterday either but today is the official start - husband ate whole Easter egg yesterday, I just smugly declined!)
Feeling a tad depressed about being back at work after being on holiday for a week. Walked part of the way to work and felt smug and evangelical (amused self fantasising about all the clothes that would fit me again, come the summer). Mood crashed when actually got to work! Tempted to eat whole box of nuts I bought with me and intended to eke out during the day. Nuts are actually delicious - who knew.
Drinking lots of ginger tea!
P.M - waited a loooong time for dinner.
Danger zone, after dinner, jonesing for some chocolate - ignore it, it will pass, it passed.
Had peppermint tea as a break from ginger tea.

Day 2:
Met friend in coffee shop. On the way there tried to envisage the challenges the cafe would pose - doughnuts and pastries and and pies*, oh my! *Don’t actually like pies, or doughnuts, just did it for the rhythm.
When I got there, my friend was choosing a cheese and tomato toastie, so I joined her just to be sociable ;) No obvious sugar, probably loads of hidden.
Daughter off sick and asked me to get her a Kinder egg, turns out she only wanted it for the toy. Had to suppress natural instinct to eat egg, before quickly squirreling it away in fridge, out of sight. Ate some fruit and nut mix instead. (Probably won’t lose any weight with all the sodding nuts I’m consuming!)
Had early dinner with kids. Satsuma to follow.
20.44 hours and now feeling hungry - yes, despite the ginger tea! Will try and ignore it, failing that, will go to bed at 9!!

Day 3:

Something strange happened today (still haven’t eaten sugar). Went to eat lunch outside and sat at a picnic table, as I was having noodles (easier to eat at a table than on a bench or on the grass). Two young students asked if I minded if they sat there too. Of course I didn’t mind, I said, heart sinking a bit (but you have to pretend to be nice and accommodating). I’d just started reading a book by Megan Jayne Crabbe - Body Positive Power.

Reading about all the *impossible standards that women are supposed to subscribe to, from a very young age. She talked about how she first felt fat or wrong about her body, aged 5! And I remembered - feeling FAT from a very young age and feeling WRONG and unacceptable!
* Quote from book: “What better way to make money than to make half the world feel ugly then sell them the solution?”

 The two students kept up an incessant stream of chatter about food and weight! One of them was lecturing the other; extolling the virtues of protein powder and the evils of sugar. They went on and on about food and weight
I wanted to shout at them that this was a colossal waste of their time and that they should be concentrating on their studies!!!
HOWEVER - this has not made me fall, nose down, into a sack of sugar, no, no, no! I’m not saying that. I feel that, even though it’s only been two and a half days, what I’m doing is looking after myself, by eating healthily, nurturing ma body. Eating more good things like nuts, seeds and fruit (does that make you think of bird poo - or is it just me?). Sugar is a drug-like chemical that alters your mood and rots your teeth, and I’m just trying to be healthy (if I try and focus on that, rather than the weight thing then I might be OK).
Because the thing is - I’ve done the weight thing, many times over - lost it, put it back on again, lost it, ignored it and ate what I want, lost it, put it on again….and I’d been trained, all my life, from a very young age, that losing weight was the magic key to everything - to happiness, success and yes - being acceptable, and it really, really isn’t.
(The noodles were very nice btw, before I bit into a rogue chili)

Day 4:

Ahem - does the previous entry seem a bit mood-swingy? I don’t think it’s lack of sugar that prompted that rant but the genuine dichotomy between wanting to be healthy, lose weight but also fight the patriarchy!
Anyway, today, have had really busy morning - school run, fighting vicious rose bushes, doing two loads of washing, tidying up, so only just having breakfast at 10 am and really enjoying me pre-soaked muesli with plain yogurt and cinnamon - genuinely, no sarcasm intended. Had some really disappointing news yesterday and at one point thought - eating a load of chocolate will not make this any better.
Do I feel any better yet? A little bit. Bowels in v healthy, working order - sorry for the TMI.

P.M: Had a reaaallly long day! When I went to pick the kids up, the teacher called me in because older one had just had a massive nose bleed. She daughter seemed OK but was covered in blood and it was stressful.
Then her and her sister decided to act like little demons at bath time.
Had some of husband’s homemade lasagne for dinner - v nice, but he told me that when he was looking for lasagne sheets in the cupboard, he’d stumbled across a box of Thornton’s continental chocolates. He told me this yesterday and it was fine, I wasn’t tempted, but now I CAN’T stop thinking about those chocolates. If I wasn’t doing this diary, if I hadn’t gone public with this, I would just eat some chocolates! I wouldn’t  ‘go mad’, just have a couple but alas, I am being watched!!

Day 5:

It was so tempting but I didn’t have any chocolates last night.
However, my husband had bought a cheeseboard selection - he’s joining me in quitting the white stuff and decided that we’d get our excess calories from cheese instead! Nothing wrong with cheese but I wasn’t really hungry after dinner but I did have a few pieces of cheese - the one with cranberries in it (the closest I could get to eating something sweet). Is my husband a FEEDER? Hmmm….
Years ago I decided to outlaw the use of moral language around food - I tried to never say things like “I’ve been really bad and eaten a whole Easter Egg” or “I can’t understand why I haven’t lost any weight - I’ve been good all week.” But one rule I try to live by (not always successfully) is to not eat when I’m not hungry. Sounds simple but not always easy - programmed to clear plate, encouraged to order a starter at restaurants etc. The trouble with things like chocolate and ice-cream is that they are not filling, so you can eat them when you’re full up, but they are very energy dense.
Husband has said to me, half-jokingly, a couple of times this week - “What’s the point of life without chocolate!?” And “Are you telling me you’re never going to eat another slice of cake?”
Well, what I’m trying to do is not rely so heavily on sugary things, but have them as an occasional treat, a la the sanctimonious health advice. So, I will have the odd ice-cream or slice of National Trust Victoria sponge at the weekend, in the future, after this initial period of cold turkey.
Didn’t pre-soak any muesli so had slice of seedy bread toast with almond butter instead (delicious!). But craved something sweet afterwards - first time this week craving for sugar had started that early. Had a little bit of dried fruit and nut mix. I know - dried fruit packed with sugar, blah, blah, blah but dried fruit also has lots of iron so bleh!

I think I’m gonna leave the diary there for a while, friends. Thanks for reading ‘til the end - I can imagine it’s been a bit tedious in parts. I’ll check back in this time next week, with photo evidence of my glowing skin and shiny, lustrous locks!

Have a great weekend!