As with any good challenge, I need to set some clear guidelines and boundaries. The purpose of this challenge is to rid my addiction to processed and refined sugars. It would be nearly impossible to be perfect on this so the list below should help clarify my approach.
- No cookies, brownies, cakes, candy, or sweets of any kind.
- No sodas – I include Diet and Sugar-Free because the sugar alternative like aspartame can be just as bad for my health.
- No artificial sweeteners– This defeats the purpose of breaking my dependency and may cause other issues.
- Natural sugars are allowed– I have never heard of an apple or strawberry causing health issues and they don’t trigger me. I have never binged through a pack of blueberries like I have with a box of ginger snaps.
- Savory dishes with a hint of sugar are allowed– I am not checking at a restaurant to see if they have added a dash of sugar to their pasta sauce, but I won’t add any if I am cooking at home)
- Avoid products with any type of sugar– high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, sucralose, etc. If there is any, should not be one of the top 5 ingredients.
- Honey and agave are allowed– As they are both natural products (and quite expensive) it is hard to see them triggering me in the same way a cookie does. (They never have)
- Avoid natural cane sugar– While cane sugar is certainly better than processed sugar, it does trigger my brain to want more and that’s a risk not worth taking.
- Alcohol is allowed– However, I am mostly talking about beer. See Day 7 post for more context.