Here is our list of ‘five things you don’t wanna hear’, just in case you have blocked them from your mind ;).

1. There is no off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all, easy answer. So, you have to know enough about yourself to find what works for you.
2. Sugar is not your friend.
3. Limiting your food intake is the ‘easiest’ way to lose weight, but you have to exercise too – for your health and wellbeing, and to build and maintain muscle that will increase your burning power.
4. Losing the weight is not so much the trick as keeping it off.
5. Tracking. You don’t wanna, but you’ll learn a lot from keeping track of your eating and activity, and, research suggests, be more successful at reaching your goals too.

Last time we talked about how crucial it is to find what fits for you, your personality and your lifestyle to have long term success.

This time, we’re going there: sugar. (Now, remember this is called ‘5 things you don’t wanna hear’!) You’ve probably heard that there’s a bunch of people who think sugar is terrible, and a worse drug than cocaine, and leads to all sorts of diseases, even cancer, and is bad for your teeth, and… Ok, but who wants to listen to that?! So here’s my personal experience, which you may or may not be able to relate to…

I’ve always loved sugar, a lot. When I was a kid, there wasn’t much sweet stuff in our house, but my sister and I would make up ‘mixtures’ – like a cake batter, that we would munch up when my parents were out. And at school camps I would put sugar on my cereal and scrape down to the last drop at the bottom of my bowl. As I got older and more independent, I was able to buy as much as I wanted, and did, even sometimes hiding it because I was embarrassed at how much I could gorge on.

I tried to eat less or give it up a number of times, but it wasn’t until two and a half years ago, when I read Sarah Wilson’s I Quit Sugar, that I realised two things.

• First, it is fructose that our bodies have a problem with, and fructose is also in fruit (not that it makes fruit ‘junk food’ just that it means we need not go crazy with it). So, ‘not eating sugar’ but then filling up on dried fruit or fruit juice, won’t let the cravings die off.
• Second, that there are other options – such as glucose sweeteners and rice malt syrup, that mean you don’t have to say goodbye to all sweet things forever. And let me tell you, the sadness about that goodbye was probably partly holding me back from quitting it previously…

So, I got off sugar! And you know, it wasn’t that hard. I had thought it would be impossible, but the idea that I could have something sweet once in a while (as long as I made it myself with a fructose-free sweetener)  and knowing so much more about how it affects the body etc, got me through. I followed the steps in the I Quit Sugar book, making Sarah’s ‘coco-nutty granola’ in Week One, and was sold.

Being free from sugar really felt like freedom. It was so nice not to be a prisoner to cravings any more, working out when and where I was going to get my next ‘hit’, and nice not to feel disgusting after making my way through a good portion of a block of chocolate in one sitting. I felt like a normal human, with no secret greedy side. Physically, I had so much more energy. Mentally and emotionally, I was calm, clear, happy. No more feeling vaguely dissatisfied with everything, vaguely not quite good enough, no more anxiety, no more feeling down and/or exhausted. It was like opening a door into a different dimension. And staying off sugar is surprisingly easy – there are no cravings to compel you (because the more sugar you eat, the more sugar you want to eat, argh!) and feeling so good made me almost scared to eat it again.

Recently though, about two and a half years since I quit, I started on a slippery slope. When I say I don’t eat sugar, I mean most of the time I don’t. Every now and then for a special occasion I will have, say, a piece of birthday cake, which is not enough to tip me off the wagon. But around the time of my daughters’ birthday a couple of months ago, I did have a few things that led me to crave more. And I gave in to those cravings. Until I saw the ugly pattern and snapped myself out of it. I don’t want to be that person! As good as sugar might taste initially, it is nobody’s friend. There is nothing good about it, no nutritional benefit, nothing. It is only bad news. Bad for our mental wellbeing, our waistlines, our kids’ behaviour. My body literally doesn’t need it and neither does yours. Did you know that the first part of your digestive system can only digest a certain amount of sugar? If there is too much, it makes it into the lower intestines where bacteria gets to it and causes gas. So too much sugar makes you bloated and gassy – what a winner!

In her book Potatoes Not Prozac, Kathleen Des Maisons talks about sugar sensitivity as a genetic issue. Not everyone has it, but her informal way to diagnose it is to ask:

“Imagine you come home and go into the kitchen. A plate of warm chocolate-chip cookies sits on the counter just out of the oven. Their smell hits you as you walk in. You do not feel hungry. No one else is around. What would you do?”

Does this question make you smile? You may think the answer is obvious, but people who are not sugar sensitive respond by saying, “Why would I eat a cookie if I wasn’t hungry?” […] People who are sugar sensitive laugh at the cookie question. Their bodies are already responding to the very idea of the cookies.”

Sugar sensitivity means that your body responds to sugars (and possibly simple carbohydrates) differently to other people. From the back of Potatoes Not Prozac:

“Have you ever wondered why you can’t say no to fattening foods or alcohol? Why you overspend or overwork, feel bloated, have mood swings or depression? The answer is not that you’re lazy, self-indulgent or undisciplined. The problem lies in your body chemistry.”

If you think you are sugar sensitive, or have a big sweet-tooth, check out Kathleen Des Maisons’ site, Radiant Recovery. Even just read the front page, but she has more info and guides to get happier and healthier. I only found it today when I went looking for the cookie quote above, so I’m going to spend a bit of time there too. And/or, get hold of a copy of I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson. She is very gentle and realistic but gives you all the facts and the steps you need to follow to get free from the white stuff.

I can only go on what I’ve experienced and what I’ve read of others’ experiences with it, but if any of the conditions above (like exhaustion, anxiety, feeling down etc) sound like you, then, look, it could be something else, but why not consider that it might be sugar and give quitting it a go. What have you got to lose? It could make you feel awesome.