I am inspired again.  Hurrah!  I have been looking for a book about giving up sugar for a week or so and last night I selected two.  One is about the scientific and evidence based reasons why sugar is so bad for you and is by a couple of writers I remember reading about previously.  The other is by David Gillespie about how to quit sugar.  I started with the quitting sugar one last night and am hooked.

Click on Sweet Poison to get to the website if you want to know more.  David’s first book, ‘Sweet Poison Why Sugar Makes Us Fat’ explains why sugar makes you fat.  I am reading the second one, ‘The Sweet Poison Quit Plan’.

Sugar is in almost EVERYTHING.  It is shocking.  Fructose is the sugar that is causing damage and if you read ingredients that say “sugar”, that means sucrose which is half fructose.  The foods containing sugar that surprised me today were ham and mayonnaise.   I could not find any ham or cooked chicken in my local Supermarket that did not have sugar added.  So I bought beef instead as the only ingredients were beef and salt.  Helmann’s mayonnaise has sugar in it too, so that is out.  I am going to have to read labels very carefully indeed.

So what have I had today?  For breakfast I had some left over cooked potatoes which I gently heated with some freshly picked kale and tomatoes.

Served with scrambled eggs for a filling and tasty breakfast. I really enjoyed watching Harvey play rugby today and I then enjoyed a lovely coffee when I got back.  I did have milk in it.  Apparently a little lactose (milk sugar) is ok. For lunch I had some more fried potatoes with sprouting broccoli and smoked haddock.  I wouldn’t usually eat fried potatoes but while I am coming off my sugar addiction I am allowed to eat anything I like, as long as it does not contain sugar – so I am 🙂Tonight my lovely neighbours are popping in for drinks so I have carefully planned what I can eat.  And what I can drink.   I am allowed dry white wine, red wine or spirits if I have zero sugar mixers.  I have to be up very early Monday morning so I am setting a target of 1 glass of red wine.

By 6pm, I was not at all hungry and even when I prepared nibbles for the drinks party, I did not even try anything.

If you give up sugar you have to read all ingredients and look for sugar.  This traffic light system helps.  This was on the olives which are high in fat and salt but low in sugar so they tick the box and I can eat them.

I mixed them with some fresh baby plum tomatoes and Feta which we nibbled on.  Delicious and there is some leftover for lunch tomorrow. The mixed olives worked well in this, adding colour and flavour. We had celery, tortilla chips, pretzels, home made guacamole, humous, olives, tomatoes and Feta and Philadelphia with sweet chilli sauce.  I could eat everything except the Philadelphia and chilli sauce. My kind, generous, funny and lovely neighbours We had a very relaxed evening, nibbling, drinking and chatting round the little table. Thank you all for coming. So how did I do?  Very well actually.  By only serving food I could eat (except the sweet chilli sauce) I was able to relax and enjoy what I had.  There was so much I could eat I was not tempted to have the little I was not allowed.   I did have more than 1 glass of wine but apart from that, I was good.

Here’s to the week at work and hoping I can cut out the sugar there too.