Why I Went on a No Refined Sugar Diet

So I have a little bit of time to spare right now, a keyboard, and my phone in front of my. My first thoughts were to write a new blog. And I thought that since everyone out there is currently going crazy with their New Years resolution (which is usually to get in shape), that I would finally get around to explaining everything and anything behind why I went on a no refined sugar diet.

Let me start by saying that I am in no way obese. I actually went into the doctor before I started the no refined sugar diet and had them take my body mass index (BMI) to test me for how much fat I had; sort of a way to see if I was skinny fat. I came out as being actually on the lower side of perfectly average. In other words, if I starved myself for a day I would have been considered malnourished. I did not do the diet because I felt I was fat.

Instead, I plain and simply chose to do the diet to see what it would be like to have absolutely no artificial sweets inside of me. I wanted to know if my mood would change, if I would lose weight, if I could survive without refined sugar, and all around what impact sugar had on me as a person.

Its not an easy task. Once I started, I realized that literally everything has sugar in it. From pancakes to bread to any easy-dinners on the shelf, there was almost nothing I could eat that I didn't cook myself. I even had to find a tortilla that had no sugar baked into it to widen my options (and yes, those do exist and yes, they do taste better than the sugar ones). And I did all of the diet without changing any other daily habits! I still went for walks every day to get 10,000 steps in, I still went to class and took tests, and I still was as active as before. Taking sugar out of my diet not once stopped my from my daily tasks and it didn't make me more energetic either.

And before I get onto the results, heres exactly what I removed from my diet: No honey, no packet sugars of any type, no artificial sweeteners, no corn syrup or other substitutes, and none of the lesser known refined sugars that are currently used as both preservatives and sweeteners. All of those things are technically refined sugar (and they make non-refined honey, but its got bugs in it so you probably don't want that).

Well, what I learned from doing all of this was that I could actually live an entire diet without refined sugar. Its not easy, its honestly not even that great a diet, and its probably one of the weirdest challenges I've put myself through to date. I also learned that a sugar-full diet was actually what was keeping my weight were it was. I'm not joking when I say I lost 10 pounds in 1 month of just changing my diet. I wasn't eating less, and in fact I was eating more on the no sugar diet. The fact was that everything I ate just tended to have about 50-75% calories overall. A few other stranger things I learned was about a billion ways to sweeten food without sugar (which leads me to believe that cinnamon chicken is one of the greatest inventions yet) and it taught me to cook a lot more of what I want to eat instead of being lazy and going out to eat.

Yet the strangest thing I probably learned from this study was that our bodies were not meant to take in all the sweets we normally do. I was off sugar for a month, so any and all that was left in my body had been worked out in that time and my taste buds had a chance to reset. Well, I found that fruits are actually about as sweet as the body needs and fill the craving of sweets. When my study ended, I changed back from fruits to sugar and found I actually couldn't do it. Why? Because sugar is actually too sweet. I would try to eat the same sugary foods as I had before, but they actually were just too sugary. And worst of all, about 2 bites in I would feel my sugar craving satisfied but my hunger craving still there. So what I guess I'm trying to say is that cutting out the sugar actually slowly reset my system to the point where I no longer need a large piece of cake to fill the sweet craving or a full bottle of soda to give me that sugar buzz. Instead, a simple bowl of fruit or a glass of orange juice will usually do it for me now and I can walk away all the happier. Its like a sugar paradox - more sweet isn't actually the right amount of sweet but more sweet needs more sweet.

And so now I actually don't eat sweets like I use to at all (sorry Vicki, that cake was too much cake). I use too be an ice cream fiend, eating a bowl of it and feeling good afterwards. My friends use to give me cake that literally touched 4 edges of the plate with each corner. I use to want brownies, candies, chocolates, and anything else that had refined sugar in it every night. Now I just don't feel the need. Instead, I pop open the fridge and find my fruit and have that to cure the craving.

As a small side note, when I first started the diet a bowl of fruit could not sustain my craving needs. I actually ate more fruit that first week than ever before in my life because I had these unbelievable cravings. However, after eating fruit I also felt full, satisfied, and better for a lot longer period than refined sugar ever managed. To be more exact, I would eat a piece of candy or a slice of cake before and for maybe 10 minutes I would be satisfied. Then the craving would start again. With fruit, I finish off a bowl and I feel satisfied for hours.Its actually better at curing the craving.

So to end this blog about my tests into a more healthier me, I actually recommend people trying to cut sugar from their diet. Maybe they shouldn't take it to the extreme I did, but it does create a better feeling and a better person in the end, yet doesn't change anything at all.