Going off the grid

I’ve embarked on something this week which has made me feel like I am, maybe for the first time, a bit of a renegade. Or maybe that’s just the (lack of) sugar talking...

Let me explain. This Monday, I stopped eating sugar. I quit. I know, GASP, right? Ok , well for me it is a GASP, worthy of the capital letters and all. I’m not going to bore you with describing how much of a sugar-aholic I am (was?), but trust me, I could eat some big-ass sugar. And as a result, I have a big ass. Ha ha.

(I hope my mum is not going to read this blog).

For 6 days now, I have been sugar free- or, as sugar free as possible in this oh so sweetened, sugary and deliciously syrupy world. I started this process (which really is a quitting process, much like quitting cigarettes, and trust me, I know on that one as well) after reading a few posts by David Gillespie on his blog Raisin-Hell, and, out of curiosity, checking out his website.  I think I was attracted firstly by the fact that David lost 40kg ‘just’ by cutting sugar out of his diet. Wow! After my own experiences of short-term but ultimately un-maintainable weight loss using the usual suspects (Weight watchers, Lite N Easy et al), I was ready for something new, and maybe something radical. Cutting out sugar? Well, that would pretty much just mean not eating lollies, right? And I don’t eat them (much) when I am dieting anyway. (Actually, I do, I just do something like skip a meal so that I have enough Weight Watchers ‘ProPointsTM’ left to eat the lollies). Not eating sugar would just take self-control, and I can (probably) do that (maybe).

But after ordering the book, signing on to the support/information website www.howmuchsugar.com (both of which cost me less than signing up to Weight Watchers, let alone the ongoing monthly WW fee, just by the way), I now feel like the weight loss will be secondary to what I gain if I can follow this through.

I’m not going to rehash all of the copious research that David has done, described in his book Sweet Poison, which tells David’s story of discovering the perils of sugar and deciding to quit (there is also a summary in his follow-up book Sweet Poison Quit Plan which focuses on how to quit sugar yourself, should you want to). I wouldn’t want to get done for plagiarism, for a start. Some of the things that stood out for me I want to explore in this blog, doing my own research if necessary.  But here is part of the case that David puts forward, in a nutshell (nuts being allowed in his quit plan):

1.       The availability and consumption of sugar have increased DRAMATICALLY over the past 100-odd years.

2.      Over-weight and the related diseases such as diabetes, heart and liver diseases and a host of others have also increased DRAMATICALLY and continue to rise.

3.       There is research- and I mean strong and impressive research (trust me a third time, dear anonymous reader, in my old life I was a health researcher)- that indicates a clear and causal link between point 1 and point 2.

The research doesn’t point to sugar per se as being a threat to our health and (my) ability to wear size 10 clothing, but specifically to the fructose part of sugar (sugar being 50% fructose, and 50% glucose). Fructose is a nasty little bugger. While insulin is released to mop up the glucose that we eat, our livers have to deal with the fructose. The liver doesn’t know what to do with fructose, so it turns it into fat. Simple, and surprisingly well documented.   Surprising to me, anyway, because my view of sugar was always that it was not as bad as fat, and that the only way sugar contributed to my weight was if I ate ‘too much’, meaning that my energy intake was greater than the energy that I used. (Therefore, I could skip a meal and eat a packet of Allens Party Mix). Turns out it is both simpler and more complex than this.

I want to use this blog to record my progress toward becoming 'sugar free', and along the way, look into the sugar story and try and understand what we know and what we don’t about what we eat and what it does to our bodies. I’ve presumed a lot for a long time, based on, well, not much really. The Life Be In It ads in the 1980s with Norm sitting on the couch (‘eat more breads and cereals, eat more breads and cereals, eat more fruits and vegetables, and be more ACTIVE’) spring to mind, and I think we had a few domestic science lessons in year 7 about nutrition...I’ve certainly never been inspired to look into it in more detail. I’ve been too busy waiting for my weight to magically right itself or to find the willpower within to stop myself from being so fat and lazy. I’ve got a 1 year old son, so a special interest to me is understanding nutrition and healthy eating for toddlers. I might include some recipes, if I try them.

I definitely don’t aim to replicate what David Gillespie has done- so, if you want to cut to the chase and understand why David calls sugar ‘Sweet Poison’ and why people like me have decided to quit sugar, I’d encourage you to read his books or go to his website or blog (no one is paying me to say this, I promise). This blog is just my story, and the opinions and interpretations (including misinterpretations) are mine.

How does this all make me feel like a renegade? I’ll see if I can put it into words (and if not, maybe I shouldn’t be attempting a blog...)

If you want to stop eating fructose, you have to stop eating commercially produced sugar (table, caster, brown, raw, icing, and more), foods made of this sugar (lollies come to mind), and foods to which this sugar is added (practically everything you can think of from yoghurt to Hoi Sin sauce to tinned corn to chicken flavoured chips). Practically every aisle in the supermarket is a minefield. Or a sugar field. Ha ha.

It is completely possible to eat (and eat well) while keeping fructose almost completely out of the equation (except in fruit and veg which I will have to leave for another post). But, you have to go back to basics, shop carefully and be prepared to make your own when the commercial brands of foods you love contain fructose, which they nearly always will. For example, you can have chocolate, but it has to be sweetened with something that doesn’t contain (or act in the body like) fructose. So...not Cadbury. Or any of the commercial chocolates in Australia. I may have to make my own. Like those who live off the electricity grid, producing their own power so that they don’t need to purchase what the rest of us purchase without thinking about it, I feel like I’m going off the sugar grid.  I’ll still eat what you eat (mostly) I just won’t do it with most of what is in the supermarket. This may not be that revolutionary to you, but it is to me.

I’ll let you know if it makes a difference to me. I hope it will.