Sugar Ho: Week One

I've been sugar free for one week now and I'm happy to say that it's been easy. Not just easy, but a blessing of sorts. By cutting out refined sugar, I've cut out 99% of the garbage foods that I might normally consume and replaced them with healthy, fibrous fruits. My goal is to go sugar free for one month but I've already convinced myself that it's going to last much longer than one month.

The secret to cutting out sugar, for me, is two-fold:

1) take control of buying and making your own food.
2) make a public announcement of your intentions to go sugar free.

Point number one gets you involved in becoming a control freak, if you're not already one. You must manage and micro-manage every aspect of your eating. Going to restaurants and/or friends' houses is best outlawed. God only knows what sugary atrocities lurk in their cooking.

Point number two is helpful to me because once I announce something it's 'game on'. I'm too stubborn to let a proclamation die prematurely. If I say one month, I don't mean one day shy of one month. When I say 'avoid something', I mean fatwa. This is a fatwa on sugar, make no mistake. It's a wholly war....I'm wholly committed. It's a war I'm not fighting alone.

A year and a half ago I was wandering aimlessly around the Queen Street West district of Toronto. I happened to notice a sign in the window of an apartment building on a nameless side street. The sign said something like '200 days without sugar'. It made me wonder who was behind the sign and, more importantly, why. I happened to stumble past this apartment building again this winter and noticed that the days without sugar was up in the 500 range. This made me even more curious. I wanted to know why this person was 'off the sugar' and why he or she needed to announce it to the world. This morning I found out the answer....

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/08/05/parkdale-mans-efforts-to-be-sugar-free-are-sweet

Though I refer to myself as a sugar ho, I'm small potatoes compared to this guy. Nevertheless, I find that eating one cookie makes me feel like eating another...and another. I never personally added sugar to my Raisin Bran in the morning the way this guy did to his Frosted Flakes, but I do have a problem with the way that sugar is added to my cereal by the manufacturer. I deem it unnecessary, and thus the fatwa was born.

I'm not yet ready to proclaim anything beyond this month's goal yet, but I'm liking the way I feel and I think that the writing is on the wall.

Signed,

Ian 'not in the running to be Canada's sweetheart' Varty