Going sugar free

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590 posts

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#1345686 16-Jul-2015 18:39

I had a blood test a few months ago and was told by my Dr that I was diabetic type 2. He started to write out a prescription for me but i told him to hold off with that and to give me some time. I ended dropping everything that was high in carbohydrates and sugar from my diet, went for walks and lost 5 kilo's in 4 weeks. I had new tests and they showed I was pre diabetic and now have no need for the prescription.
I have since lost another 4 kilo's all from stopping my sugar intake and eating certain foods (basically anything thats white and out of the ground). I had stopped smoking cigarettes at the same time and I think it was around the 5th or 6th week that I had withdrawal symptom

Batman

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#1345687 16-Jul-2015 18:44

Wow good on you!

scuwp

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#1345699 16-Jul-2015 18:54

Well done to those that manage to make a positive change. I guess everyone has different perceptions as to how far is reasonable or feasible to go. Personally I prefer to chill out a bit, make healthy choices where available (and don't stress out when they are not) and keep an eye on portion sizes, as even the healthiest food can be bad if you have too much of it.

I honestly can't decipher the variety and tsunami of studies about this, that, and the other foods being bad/good for you. Hugely contradictory. Give up cereal for some Vogels? Sorry that's super-high in sodium so is bad for you. Eggs are bad, no wait, they are good, or maybe not. Low fat = high sugar, low sugar = high fat. 5+ a day, oh sorry, fruit is full of sugar so please don't eat to much. Sugar substitutes are the way to go...oops sorry, seems they trigger the same sugar responses in the body which make you crave it more. Nuts are good...oh sorry, they are high in fat. I could go on all night. It's no wonder the average human has a problem making the right choices.

Bottom line if it works for you...got for it!

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rhy7s

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Ultimate Geek

#1345763 16-Jul-2015 20:38

I avoid salt, refined calories (be they sugars, fats or proteins) and animal products. On the subject of sugar, some more snippets on the topic can be found here.
(Edit: note that there are transcripts to save time vs the videos)

jtbthatsme

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#1346335 17-Jul-2015 15:41

I once gave up nearly all sugar and most other bad eating habits (chippies, chocolate, cakes, biscuits most fizzy and all energy drinks) and over 3 months with some time at the gym i lost over 25 kgs (1st half of that was within a month) but ultimately lost the desire to keep at it and at first most things with sugar in them made me sick (cream bun tasted great going down but not so going back up lol) but now I've put most of the weight back on and eat whatever whenever.....apparantly though this is not doing me good so my dr told me after my recent visit and I now have high cholesterol so have to cut back again lol.

Ultimately it's about moderation diets don't usually work long term as most people don't stick at them long term or forget the key element of a successful diet...regular exercise. I feel that if it's not impacting your health then just be happy with what you eat and exercise occasionally / regularly to keep it in balance. Your body (and how you perceive it) will certainly tell you when things are not right.

Dingbatt

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#1346351 17-Jul-2015 16:04

First mistake is to call it a diet. If you think you are being deprived of something you will never stick to it. I'm lucky, in not suffering withdrawal symptoms so the no sugar thing was easy for me. After a while natural sweetness becomes more noticeable. The best example of that in my case is that I used to add sugar or sweetened fruit to weetbix to be able to eat them, now just plain milk is a sweet enough addition to them.

I passed through the zealot stage about 2 years ago. Now I only talk to people about it if they ask. All I'll say is it worked for me, your mileage may vary.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

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#1346405 17-Jul-2015 17:08

Another thing to keep and eye out for if wanting to go sugar free is is they may say 0% added sugar but in actual fact it contains large amounts of Modified Corn Starch which is just a nice name for Sugar

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afe66

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#1346438 17-Jul-2015 18:10

For those who are curious get a copy of "Pure white and Deadly - how sugar is kiling us and what we can do to stop it" John Yudkin and published in 1972 and 1986 and reissued in 2012.
ISBN 9780241965283

Fascinating to see the data that was available on this topic decades ago.

The section at the end is also depressing to see the forces of "Big Sugar" at work just like the drug and smoking industries where the author was "de-invited" to conferences one the sponsors heard he was speaking or where his talk was the only speaker who abstract was "forgotten" to be included in the list of abstracts in the conference manual.

NZ sugar consumption per head 1982 50.9 kg/year (Kampuchea 0.7)

UK soft drink consumption per person gallons/year
1939 2.7
1950 4.1
1960 7.9
1970 10.2
1980 18.2

A.

raytaylor

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#1346463 17-Jul-2015 18:54

I cant cut sugar from my diet but I am replacing it with honey on my oatmeal and wherever I can, I am buying stevia products

Japanese use stevia as table sugar and I see now you can buy it in granulated at countdown.

Mom is going to make me some muffins with it over the weekend as a trial.

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timmmay

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#1346467 17-Jul-2015 19:00

Well honey is just sugar. Natural, artificial, what matters is what's in it not how it's made.

Batman

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#1346469 17-Jul-2015 19:08

Some researchers are suggesting artificial sweeteners cause diabetes, but not conclusive at this stage. I think. Not sure which type of sweeteners. But it tastes foul on my tongue lol

raytaylor

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#1346470 17-Jul-2015 19:15

So Stevia is not artificial.

Think about how plain sugar that comes from a plant called sugarcane.
Stevia comes from another plant called Stevia rebaudiana

It is now being introduced in the western world and has been used for thousands of years in some cultures.

The benefit is that its level of sweetness is much greater than cane sugar and therefore you use much much less of it in the products.

The new cocacola green is sweetened with stevia and yes it does taste slightly different, so they have reduced the sugar by 25% and replaced it with a lower quantitiy of stevia for the same sweetness effect.

If i remember right it has something like 100x the sweetness power per teaspoon of sugar. So where you would normally use a cup of sugar in a baking recipie, you use half a teaspoon of stevia.

http://www.countdown.co.nz/search-results?topsearch_query=stevia

Ray Taylor

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mattwnz

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#1346471 17-Jul-2015 19:15

I went on a total caveman diet for about 6 month a few years ago. It didn't really make much difference, although I was already lean. But it is amazing how many things have a lot of sugar in them. When I went off it, everything just tasted so sweet, like baked beans, and weetbix, all tasted really sweet. I don't know why they put so much sugar in things, I guess it is a cost thing. I went for Vitabix for a weetbix subsitite which didn't contain any sugar.

mattwnz

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#1346473 17-Jul-2015 19:17

raytaylor: So Stevia is not artificial.

The new cocacola green is sweetened with stevia and yes it does taste slightly different, so they have reduced the sugar by 25% and replaced it with a lower quantitiy of stevia for the same sweetness effect.

May parents grow it,and dry it, and crush it into a green powder. It is very sweet,sweeter than sugar, but it is a good substitute. It does have a different taste to it though. I think you can buy it too, but it is pretty expensive.

Rikkitic

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#1346474 17-Jul-2015 19:21

I am fortunate in the sense that I have never liked sugar so no problem avoiding it. Most sweet things taste too sweet to me and I avoid them. Which is not to say I do not get plenty of sugar through processed food and fruit, which I do enjoy, but I never add sweetener to anything and have never wanted to. I am also vegetarian though I do eat fish and dairy (lots and lots and lots of cheese). I used to have Weet-Bix for breakfast, but even without added sugar it was too sweet for my taste and I switched to plain oats. I don't like added salt either. None of this has to do with health concerns, it is just my taste. At a very early age I made a conscious decision to ignore all 'expert' health advice, which seemed to change every other day anyway, and just eat what I enjoy and not worry about it. Over the years I keep discovering that what I enjoy turns out after all to be what is good for you. I have no intention of changing now.

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