It was kind of by accident, but at the end of September last year I cut out soda from my diet. It was kind of my sipping drink if I was out visiting anyone. My mom sent me this challenge thing where for one month you cut out pop, you don’t eat after 8 p.m., and you did push-ups and squats in the morning. I accepted the challenge and for that entire month I looked at the Vanilla Coke in my fridge, there’s still four sitting there if anyone wants them, but I was tempted to have a sip. Instead I’d grab a glass of water avoiding it, adding lemon to it for a little flavour. I had been drinking soda twice a week, so it was pretty much a staple in my diet and cutting it out completely was tough. Your body comes to crave the sugar and caffeine in the drink.
After that one month was up, I decided I would treat myself with a Coke. To my surprise it tasted terrible. It was overly sweet and although I drank it all, came away with a headache. During this time I had also been reading about how bad sugar is for you, so had decided to avoid chocolates and sweets as well. Which meant this liquid sugar hit me pretty hard. At Christmastime I had a few cookies and that because mom made them special, but I couldn’t eat many because they were actually sickenly sweet.
The other day I had been invited out for dinner and they had dessert. I had some, asking for a very tiny amount, as I didn’t want to be rude; but, it went straight to my head. I had a sugar rush quickly followed by a headache.
On the positive side, fruit has never tasted so good, because it is naturally sweet and not overwhelmingly so like desserts and sweets are to me now.
Treats to me now includes fruit, naturally flavoured carbonated water, and old fashioned plain doughnuts. Very little added sugar, only 7 grams in the old fashioned plain doughnut versus something like 23 grams in a honey cruller.
Reading about sugar I discovered it’s literally empty calories and is bad for your teeth, it’s bad for your liver in large quantities, it can cause insulin resistance and is a stepping stone towards diabetes, it actually has “fat-promoting” effects because calories from sugar aren’t fulfilling you might increase your intake of calories in a day, it’s quite addicting – which is why for that entire month I thought about soda a lot, and according to new studies it affects cholesterol and contributes to heart disease.
I’m not a health nut, but I just figured if I got rid of soda then it was logical to cut out all sugar because I didn’t eat a whole lot of it anyways. When it came to salty or sweet things, I was always more of a fan of the salty, which in large quantities isn’t the best for you either; so, I’ve at least kicked one of these two things to the curb, and I’ve been trying to kind of watch my intake of the other. However, some salt isn’t bad because your body actually uses it to absorb water; it’s one of those electrolytes that sports drinks have in them.
People always say, everything in moderation, and I think that’s really what being healthy comes down to. Don’t make yourself unhappy to be healthy because you like certain foods; but, just be aware that certain foods aren’t the best for you and maybe look at limiting your intake.
I have noticed that by cutting out sugars, I have lost weight, and that is without making any other real changes to my lifestyle. I’ll still go eat a burger and fries (everything in moderation), but instead of having a soda to wash it down with I’ll ask for water, white milk (which does have some sugar in the form of lactose), or the other day at Taco Time there was an option of non-sweetened iced tea – just to have a little flavour.
