I Quit Sugar - Week One...

So you may think I am insane. I myself think I am insane, or even more insane than I originally thought I was which probably means I shouldn't be sitting on my couch writing this but locked up somewhere, in a cave with my only friend being a rock named Frank.

Insane or not in my 'at the time this seems like a great idea' mind, I agreed along with my boyfriend and best friend to give up sugar for an entire month. That means 31 sugar free days. 31 days with no cheats. 31 days with no chocolate. 31 days with no alcohol and even 31 days with no fruit. So aye, basically 31 days of no fun and 31 days that could potentially end with me trying to kill myself with an over dose of sugar sachets.

What I am usually like on a Sunday night.....

Why have we decided to do this? Well, after hearing about it all over social media we decided to watch the trailer for 'That Sugar Film' that is coming out this month. The trailer itself was enough to get us thinking, not just about the obvious suspects (oh Dairy Milk why do you have to be such a bad ass) but the HIDDEN sugar in the food we consume everyday that you don't really think of.

I am talking about the processed sugar you find in bread, yoghurt, cereals, sauces, milk and even some meat. You may think you are not a sucker for the sweet stuff but if you have a look through your cupboards and on the back of your so called 'healthy non-fat' products you may be in for a shock. It might not blatantly say 'here mate this has pure hunners aw sugar in it, sa probs naw the best idea to munch on it' but they are there, looking to sneak up on you like a fart in the wind. Here is a list of some ingredients that you may not class as being sugar.....

In order to make this challenge a success we decided to set some guidelines. Obviously all processed sugar is a no go but we also decided to give up fruit and natural sugars too like honey for example. Why you ask? Because the likely hood of us binging on a 5kg bag of grapes and brushing our teeth with honey every night was high.

When it comes to veggies, we are pretty much cool with them all. We agreed that sweet potato is still okay because, well.....em...eh......its fucking good. We are also allowing ourselves to have our protein powders we bought before hand because, well....em...eh...that shit is fucking expensive.

Everything we consume must be checked. For example when me and Rustin went our first food shop we picked up good quality burgers thinking we were good to go but our dreams of improving our burger flipping skills were shattered when one of the ingredients was, you guessed it, our frenemie sugar. Curse you!

As we left Coles with our first food shop I couldn't help feel like we had abandoned our children, Ben & Jerry at the supermarket. At that moment, I highly doubted that Celery & Spinacheta (see what I did there? I made spinach sound like a name? too good) would fill our hearts and bellies quite like they did. It was a Sunday too and that usually means take out from Noodle World next door to the supermarket. I could see the heartbreak on their faces when we walked by. They knew what was going on just by looking at us - but we did it. We got into the car shut the door and drove in to the distance without looking back, it was.....

Okay I think you get the idea. It was bloody hard, we wrote our sugar free shopping list, went in bought it, I was a bit over dramatic, stamped my feet when I got told no to cookies, Rustin nearly had a fight with the casual shelf stacker over some organic chia seeds and that was the end of the matter.

So here we are. A week from going cold turkey and so far I have refrained from eating any chocolate and got my sniffing the nutella jar moments down to only four times a day opposed to thirty, so aye, progress is being made,

As a mater of fact, the whole challenge has been,..okay? No seriously. I haven't actually missed sugar as much as I thought I would and I was told that the first week is the hardest so hopefully this means that I may actually succeed at this? Alright so at this stage if you were to ask me will I be in Doms (local night club) on the podium with chocolate all around my face and dress with a bottle of tequila in my hand come Easter weekend, then my answer would probably be yes - but if you also asked me has this challenge already changed the way I look at food my answer would also be yes. People say fats are the problem and that carbs are the devil. Maybe you should take a look at sweet innocent sugar. Read labels. See how much sugar really is in that healthy low fat muesli bar of yours. I am telling you now you will be shocked. Now I am by no means saying don't have dessert or a piss up with your pals once and a while, what I am saying is why not try and eat more NATURAL food. Food that is real. Don't be afraid of fats and good carbs, make your own dam muesli bars. I can bet you that they will taste better and it will also take your mind of those dam wains (Ben & Jerry who are still locked in the freezer at Coles, we will be reunited again my loves).

In all seriousness I would recommend anyone to give it a go, even just for a week. Cut out the sweet stuff, eat the foods that don't need added chemicals to make them not taste like a foot and see how it makes you feel. I for one am feeling pretty dam good and will be taking my positivity towards the challenge into the coming week.

Watch this space for my 'Sugar Free - Week Two' post!

Also follow my instagram account @globesquatterfitness to check out all the sugar free and paleo meals I have been having this week!