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Ever since I got long COVID I've been constantly reaching for sugar hits. If there's a shortage of dark chocolate digestives in the Bristol region, I apologise.
I used to be fairly good, but could never cut it out completely.
I'd like to cut it down, just wondering what other people are like? Anyone on zero sugar? Doesn't it become a pain, like once you're off you have to stay off because sugar gives you a headache? Or so I hear.
What are your experiences?
I've cut out sugar a number of times. My experience is that once you're off it, it actually tastes a bit weird, and you realise sugar is in almost everything. No detrimental effects of eating sugar other than the cravings to eat more of it, hence cutting it out in the first place. Once you do cut it out, you don't really want it.
Too much. From being stuck in for about 2 years due to the pandemic, i've developed a bit of a gut.
Cut it out entirely from my diet a number of years ago, don’t eat cakes/biscuits/sweets/juice etc and I figure the only sugar I get is naturally occurring in my vegi diet and my one beer a night habit, once you get over the first few weeks/months then anything with added sugar just tastes so sweet and sickly
Huh, I wish it was like that for me. I cut out sugar in tea and coffee about two years ago. It still tastes disappointingly bland.
The more sugar I eat, the more I want to eat. It gets out of hand and I actually end up eating so much that I feel a bit rough- I've found the best way is to massively cut it out, that way I crave it much less and it's not a problem
I have too much. I have given up caffeine and alcohol without much effort, but sugar is much harder to kick.
It’s the stress/feeling a bit crap, where it gets me - I then try and taper down over a few days
Way too much here unfortunately. I quit caffeine a couple of weeks ago and got bad headaches for a few days. Sugar is everywhere so pretty difficult to kick.
Most folk far more thsn they realise as its in a lot of food but hidden.
Directly or indirectly?
Spooned out of a jar, approaching zero. I use it in cooking occasionally. Sugar in tea is evil, I'll take a little granulated sweetener in coffee.
Soft drinks I switched to 'diet' forever ago, it was a shock to the system for about two weeks and then it's the new normal.
Most everything else it's hard to avoid, but I don't really care -that- much because I'm fairly happy that dropping full-sugar pop makes a monthly Twix pale into insignificance.
No sweetener for me as I like sugar or non-refine sugar or coconut sugar.
A day pure sugar intake is like:
2 table spoon of "non-refined" brown sugar (now 1.5 table spoon) for a litre of strong black coffee.
1.5 tea spoon of "non-refined" brown sugar for a mug of tea. Maximum 2 mug per day in the evening but for now only 1 mug.
Eat cheap Tesco white chocolate of about 1/6 of the bar per day if I can remember.
Eat white bread (2 slices per day) with non-salted butter (but any butter will do) and sprinkle with a bit of salt and custard sugar.
I don't drink fizzy drinks either because they don't taste good or they use sweetener which put me off completely. I hate the taste of sweetener for some reasons.
Drink full fat milk .... must be full fat with cream floating on top but I don't drink milk often.
Full fat blue cheese if they are available or to my taste but only occasionally like once in a month.
Eat proper ice cream made with proper fat/cream and sugar otherwise my stomach hurts but only during the summer like now.
Don't eat junk food very much as I tend to eat fruits like tomatoes, grapes, apples, pears or bananas. Recently my favourite is avocado because I could get it for 63p for a box of 5 at Tesco (I think they were reaching the sale by date or something but still perfectly fine), so I bought 4 boxes. The way to eat avocado is with sweet condense milk ... yummy. Oh ya ... sweet condense milk in coffee or tea is also good but watch out because it is not that healthy.
Dinner is cooked with sprinkle of MSG.
Smoke tobacco like chimney.
However, I don't over eat or don't eat much ...
If you don't want to die young then eat less of everything without over eating and don't over exercise. If you can do that you can eat most things.
oh ... try to fast from time to time because that will do you good.
Lately my cravings have been ridiculous for food. This week I've gone to IF 16:8 then yesterday had a 24hr fast. In honesty I found yesterday doable despite spending 10 hours doing garden and a house deep-clean.
I reckon my relationship with food has been rather unhealthy lately. The reason I've gone down the fasting route is the hope that my cravings will die down.
I'm now focussing on 16:8 Mon to Fri. Getting more protein in my diet. Less refined carbs and sweet snacks. Black coffee. Lot more water. I'll probably do a 24hr fast every few weeks.
Do a bit of reading on fasting. Not for weight loss but for insulin resistance, improved hormone regulation, longevity, mood, cognitive improvements, inflammation. Some of the research findings surprised me. It's all quite easy. It also makes you mindful of what type of calories you want to eat ( protein, fats, carbs).
Best of luck.
Too much.
Virtually none!
we try to buy as little processed food as we can, but frankly I could open the fridge, and I reckon a good proportion of it would be sugar just as an added ingredient. But we don't have things like biscuits cakes in the house, so overall; more than I'd like, less than most, I reckon.
None directly added.
My dentist read me the riot act, so I have had to choose between long term dental health, or sugar and penury.
I miss strawberries with sugar on them, and ice cream. And my wife keeps making cake which I refuse to eat.
I still allow myself marmalade on toast. I don't think I could get out of bed in the morning without that incentive.
As little as possible. We do like jam/marmalade/fruit curds on toast and the occasional all-butter shortbread but OH cooks from scratch so we don't have any in actual meals and we don't buy sweets, cakes, sugared drinks or any other nonsense. Apart from the obvious health advantages it helps save a shitload of money too! As others have said, once you're off it it's easy to stay off it because anything with it in tastes far too sweet.
Also, processed shit that's full of sugar also tends to have palm oil in it, which is Not Good.
I try not to eat a lot an have really cut down recently.
It almost like an addition I start with "just" a bit in my tea then end up scoffing a packet of biscuits and putt sugar on cereals.
Have come very close to totally cutting it out now but a chocolate bar on Sat night and the odd treat in the week.
Like others have said once totally cut out it's tastes a bit different. Current sugar hit is a mini starburst pack of haribo. But they are that sweet now i actually take my time eating them rather than just shoving the whole pack at once.
not much hopefully. Most of the refined sugar I get is what's in muesli & granola for breakfast although I always look for the lowest per 100g ones that I can find - that usually takes a while as some of them are loaded up to over 30% and there doesn't seem to be much on the shelf that is less than 17%. Plus whatever sugar is in cooking pastes etc but again always look for the lowest amount. I don't buy cooking sauces anymore. I'll eat the odd energy gel or bar whilst out on a long ride.
The more natural sugar that I get is half a teaspoon of honey in tea/coffee in the morning and a few bits of fruit in the afternoon. Oh and fruit juice, I usually have a glass in the evening watered down about 1-4, and whatever sugar is in ale.
Don't eat cakes, biscuits, chocolate & crisps and the like.
What on earth is "16.8"?
this by the looks of it > https://www.livescience.com/intermittent-fasting-16-8
Ah, right. I'd have just called that "skipping breakfast."
It doesn't matter if it is refined or not. if you eat a lot of fruit you take in a lot of sugar (fructose)
also tends to have palm oil in it
I take it you mean from an environmental stand point (you can get palm oil from ethical sources) as it has some heath benefits.
Ah, right. I’d have just called that “skipping breakfast.”
Haha!
I eat virtually no refined sugar. When I was a kid my dad worked for Trebor, setting me up for a terrible sugar addiction! A few years ago I realised my early morning riding made me so tired I was getting worse at eating sugar so I decided to quit completely. Quite hard when working with lots of women that bake all the time… I went from being the guy who hoovered up everything left over to the weird guy that doesn’t eat sugar.
I have a bit of honey and dried fruit though.
It was surprisingly easy. We don’t eat processed food, and I skip desert. A major bonus is that I don’t get afternoon slumps at work anymore.
My understanding is that fructose isn’t so bad when in normal fruit as it’s accompanied by fibre.
I've also just recently given up alcohol, since having a ruptured achilles I need to lose some weight, and this seems like an easy first step.
I get very similar pressure from people to "go on, just one won't do any harm" with both alcohol and sugar/cakes.
Very bizarre.
To counter the holier than thou trend, I probably get 25% of my daily calories from refined sugar. I have it on my breakfast, in my coffee, I eat biscuits and cake. But I'm just under 60 kg and my BMI hovers around the bottom end of the healthy range. And the only work my dentist's done lately is to replace an old repair to a tooth I cracked as a child.
(yeah I know this is a bit like "my grandad smoked 60 a day and lived to 125")
I was suffering with bouts of bad headaches, literally taking headache tablets every day for a couple of weeks then ok for a few days so in the new year I decided to try cutting out refined sugar and my chocolate intake. I’ve probably taken tablets half a dozen times since then so I’m hoping that was the problem. Only thing is I only weigh 60kg and I lost 2kg as a result which isn’t ideal but I’ve managed to put 1kg back on since. If anyone is interested I’ve been using Monkfruit extract drops to sweeten my coffee.
I haven't eaten cakes, biscuits, chocolate etc for years but a few weeks ago after a particularly long walk we hit the local cafe and for some inexplicable reason I order a slab of cake, it was horrendous, never again.
Good listen here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0019yw1
It points the finger at processing rather than sugar itself, although the two go hand in hand. Also introduces the term "hyper-palatability".
It doesn’t matter if it is refined or not. if you eat a lot of fruit you take in a lot of sugar (fructose)
Of course it matters. Fruit contains sugar + vitamins, minerals, macronutrients, fibre, antioxidants etc etc.
Refined sugar contains nothing - it is a poison. It depletes your body of nutients when it is digested and it feeds all the wrong kind of gut bacteria.
You try a week eating only fruit and a week eating only white sugar and see how you feel afterwards.
We don't buy biscuits, if they're in the house we'd eat them, if they're not in the cupboard we don't miss them, same for cakes, bar birthdays and rare occasions. No sugary fizzy drinks either! If anything it's crisps and dips that do me in!
for some inexplicable reason I order a slab of cake, it was horrendous, never again.
As in, you didn't like the taste, or it made you feel ill?
No idea, not really bothered!
Spooned out of a jar, approaching zero
Same here,only bag we used to have was for visitors,if you drink tea like a chain smoker it’s a bad thing to have sugar in it or biccies.
I eat clean no cakes biscuits perhaps one little piece a choc a day at breakfast during the week then relax a bit on the weekend perhaps a cake,or ice cream and a twix or current fave white choccy snickers whilst watching a movie wiv mrs DoD.
Biccies are the odd weekend treat.
I’ve also boringly invested in a concept 2 rower as WFH and a bit of a bad leg weren’t going to help me keep my panther like physique 🙂
Ah, right. I’d have just called that “skipping breakfast.”
Stone the unbeliever 🙂
(If it helps people lose weight its fine by me)
To answer the question, too much.
I know this. But like you I am finding I crave it lots and also like you I am currently suffering with long covid… I think it started when, during covid, the only thing that tasted the same (or indeed tasted at all) was Cadbury chocolate.
Currently contemplating how to reverse the situation while having tea and (too many) biscuits. Probably not helping.
Half a pack of a shareable pack of Tangfastics...a lazy way to fix a hypo and I ended up eating more than I needed...
I kept reading how bad sugar is for you, and it wasn’t easy, but I’ve given up reading.
Curious how most of the posts here are either all or nothing.
(yeah I know this is a bit like “my grandad smoked 60 a day and lived to 125”)
"What did he smoke?"
"Kippers."
(If it helps people lose weight its fine by me)
Oh, absolutely, and fair play. I just don't really see the need to hang a 'fad diet' label on it.
I've never been able to eat first thing and I abandoned breakfast the moment I could escape my gran practically force-feeding me of a morning. My first meal of the day is lunch and my evening meal is likely between 6 and 8pm. That's not "the 16:8 diet" or "fasting for 16 hours," it's simply missing breakfast and not being a greedy bastard in the evening. As those who have met we will attest, I'm very far from overweight. If anything I have the opposite problem, I could eat butter all day and not put weight on.
I have a friend on the "keto diet" - translation, she's given up bread and vegetables. Call a spade an earth displacement system, hey.
I take it you mean from an environmental stand point (you can get palm oil from ethical sources) as it has some heath benefits.
It's easier/better (IMO) to just avoid anything with it in, just in case like.
In answer to the original question: ALL OF IT!
I love sugar in all of its forms.
Curious how most of the posts here are either all or nothing.
That's got something to do with it. Sugar is pretty addictive. It's a bit like alcohol - some people can partake a bit, but others get hooked. You wouldn't tell alcoholics that a few drinks a night is ok would you?
The difference is that it's much easier to avoid alcohol altogether than it is sugar or even refined sugar.
short answer is a LOT.
i would love to give it up but i am 100% hooked on the stuff.
Of course it matters. Fruit contains sugar + vitamins, minerals, macronutrients, fibre, antioxidants etc etc.
Refined sugar contains nothing – it is a poison. It depletes your body of nutients when it is digested and it feeds all the wrong kind of gut bacteria.
You try a week eating only fruit and a week eating only white sugar and see how you feel afterwards.
The rest of the things in fruit doesn't outweigh the large amounts of sugar. Its like saying yes I drink a lot of red wine but it contains polyphenols. Too many apples is bad for you because of the fibre they contain.
This isn't about just eating sugar - who does that anyway - its about adding it to your diet. Like salt. You get plenty of salt from your diet. No need to add extra.
Curious how sugar depletes your body of nutrients? The body needs sugar to live. Without sugar your brain wouldn't function and you would not be able to do much exercise.
None. Only get it out if we've got builders in. Fruit is a much nicer source.