Well everyone, I completed 7 full days with no added or artificial sugars, and I think that is a big accomplishment! I am very proud of myself, and I learned a lot through the process. I am determined to take what I learned and change my eating habits. You may be wondering why I only finished 7 days, and did not do the whole 10. After 7 days, I decided that I felt really good, and I had even lost 2 pounds. I did not want to stress myself out for the next few days, as I decided to travel with Brent for work. It would have been possible to continue sugar-free on my trip with Brent, but I really felt satisfied with my week completed and felt that it would be easier to transition to low-sugar at this time. I am proud to say that I think I stayed within the recommended daily value of sugar consumption for the last two days.
Some of the small steps that I made in the past two days to keep my sugar consumption down included only eating half of the bread with my sandwich at a restaurant, ordering a low sugar drink at Starbucks (skinny peppermint mocha or skinny caramel macchiato), using ketchup sparingly, no soda at all, no processed snacks, staying with eating fruit and nuts for breakfast, and no dessert. These small changes allow you to still eat what you want and be happy, but you cut out unnecessary sugar.
Now that I’ve completed my challenge, I want to share a few shocking sugar facts with you. I’ve learned a lot about good sugars and bad sugars, and have learned to look at labels and be able to identify hidden sugars. Take a look at my previous posts (day 5) for a link to the list of 50 words for hidden sugars.
- Preferred sugars that you should use if using added sweeteners include cane sugar, honey, and maple syrup.
- Bad sugars that you should try to avoid are white sugar, brown sugar, agave (some people do not agree), and high fructose corn syrup.
- Women should only have 24 grams of sugar per day (6 teaspoons).
- Men should only have 36 grams of sugar per day (9 teaspoons).
- A tall Starbucks Peppermint Mocha contains 42 grams of sugar! Twice a woman’s daily value in one small drink!
- A tall Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte contains 38 grams of sugar! This is more than a dessert drink.
- Most ketchup that is served at restaurants is basically all high fructose corn syrup, light on the tomatoes.
- There are usually added sugars in things like spaghetti sauce, salad dressing, BBQ sauce, soup, and even coffee creamers and other products that say they are ‘sugar free’. Make sure you know the hidden words for sugar and can find them hidden on labels.
- Avoid processed food as much as possible because ‘reduced fat’ snacks often just replace the fat with artificial sugars, which your body will respond to by storing the food as fat.
- If you drink coffee, try to pick cream OR sugar instead of both to easily cut out some sugar.
- Just because fruit is natural sugar, try not to over do it because you can have too much. Stick to about 2 servings of fruit a day.
- Any type of fruit juice is loaded with sugar. Your body can process actual fruit well because the fiber is included, which helps your body process the sugar. When you drink fruit juices, the fiber is taken out and your body does not respond to it as well and is triggered to store the nutrients as fat. Juice cleanses are bad!
OneLovelyLife 
