Sugar Free Success!

Something really surprising has happened. After months of attempting to quit sugar, I suddenly realised this morning that I no longer crave it. Previously when it came to sugar, resistance was futile, I loved it, I couldn’t get enough of it and I have been this way my entire life. At work there is a tradition of bringing in cakes on your birthday and I work in a pretty busy office so it’s often someone’s birthday. And every time those collections of cakes appeared my sugar free plan went out of the window. I genuinely couldn’t resist. My will power was rubbish!

Until now.

A colleague just turned 30 and a huge collection of cakes has appeared in the office, and you know what? I’m just not bothered. While others are sitting happily munching away, I don’t feel tempted at all. This is so bloody weird! Never in my life have I had a “take it or leave it” attitude to sweet things.

Suddenly being sugar free is no longer hard.


I suppose I should add a footnote about how I’ve managed this, in case anyone is interested in how to break the habit.

Well, firstly whenever I fell off the waggon, rather than thinking: “Oh sod it, I’ve blown it, I might as well eat the entire cake now!” I just climbed back on and started again, and I needed to climb back on quite a few times until the change in behaviour stuck. Then I found a substitute for those moments of weakness – in my case a chocolate bar sweetened with Stevia sold at Holland and Barratt. Whenever I’d had a bad day and would usually reach for something sweet to cheer me up, or whenever I’d had a good day and wanted a little celebration, I’d have one of those instead of a muffin or chocolate bar and that would do the trick.

And that’s it really. I used to love minted peas and caramelised onion chutney – both of which are packed with sugar  - so those dishes were one of the first things to go. I also stopped drinking fruit juice – which although natural is highly concentrated source of sugar, whole fruit is better. I checked the labels on breakfast cereals and ditched the ones that contained sugar, the remaining options are a little boring, but not if you add blueberries or strawberries instead. I’m now working on cooking sauces; I can knock up my own pasta sauce easily enough now but I’ve not found an easy-peasy curry recipe that satisfies. But hey, so far so good!

Next up then to tackle – eating more veg…