We Quit Sugar, nine months on

Yes, nine months later we are still sugar-free. I think it’s become more of a lifestyle choice for us now… It’s working out so well, why would we want to stop?

Personally I have gotten past the stage now of really craving anything sugary. I can walk down the ice-cream aisle at the supermarket and not be secretly tempted to put any in my trolley. In fact, I know that even if I did, chances are I wouldn’t really enjoy it that much anyway.

I don’t feel deprived, and I don’t feel like my children are missing out on anything either. I’ve read and learned and experimented and I can virtually convert any of our old favourite recipes now to using sugar-free alternatives. We still get our fair share of treats. The difference is now that we’ve learned to listen to our bodies more, and know when to stop.

While we were on holidays we did allow ourselves a treat or two. I didn’t lament that I had fallen off the bandwagon by sucking on a lemonade ice block on a 40 degree day, or sharing a decadent chocolate dessert at a restaurant dinner. In fact, having a few treats convinced me more than ever that I had done a good thing by quitting sugar. I could enjoy and savour a few sweet treats without going overboard or craving more, knowing that they really were treats and happy with that.

I am less than a kilo from my goal weight, and have maintained my weight even since being pregnant. I can tell a real difference in my body being 10kg+ lighter at the beginning of this pregnancy than I was with either of my others, and it feels good!

If you have been wondering about this whole ‘sugar-free phenomenon’, and whether it would be right for you, I’d love to just encourage you to give it a go! You don’t have to view it as a life-long change or decision, just experiment with it and see how your body and health feels. I really think you’d be doing yourself a favour.

A sugar-free carrot cake.

My husband loves carrot cake. Loves it. If it is on offer at a cafe, you can be sure that it’s what he’ll order with his coffee. It’s always his request for his birthday. And he wasn’t about to give up carrot cake just because we quit sugar!

I have made sugar free carrot cake for a few occasions lately, the most recent being the one that Peter requested for his 30th birthday. I’m pleased to say, I really think I’ve nailed my recipe. I’ve adapted and combined a few of our favourite pre-quitting-sugar carrot cake recipes, and substituted a fructose free sweetener, and come up with something really delicious, which has people from both sides of the sugar-fence raving! And that’s always a good sign. Oh and yes, I am aware that carrots contain fructose. We’ll live.

So. I thought I’d share the recipe! Here goes:

And just so you know, I use my mix-master with the whisk attachment for this recipe, but you could easily use your electric beaters, or your own muscle power if you’re so inclined!

Sugar Free Carrot Cake

Preheat your oven to 180C, and grease two cake pans that are the same size. I use coconut oil to grease my pans, with great success.

Beat together 4 eggs, 1/2 tsp vanilla (I use vanilla bean paste), and 1 1/4 cups of oil. I have used olive oil, coconut oil, macadamia oil, rice bran oil, or a mix of any of the above depending on what’s in the cupboard, and once when I was really desperate vegetable oil (which I only ever use for playdough) and any of these work completely fine.

Add to your mix 2 cups of self raising flour, 1 1/2 cups of dextrose (a fructose free sweetener, found in the brewing aisle at the supermarket), 2tsp of bicarb soda and 3 tsp of cinnamon (I actually use spekulaas spice, which is a Dutch spice mix). Beat until well combined, with no lumps of flour.

Finally, add 1 cup of chopped walnuts, and THREE cups of grated carrot. 3, not 1. I made an oops on that picture. Sorry!! I usually just stir these through with a spoon until they’re evenly mixed in.

Next you pour your batter evenly between your two pans, then pop them in the oven! For some strange reason, this cake takes a different amount of time to bake every time I make it. Last time I made it half an hour was the perfect amount of time, but sometimes it needs more. If your cake is starting to go golden on top but is not cooked in the middle, pop some foil over the top to keep it from burning.

I find it best to leave this cake to cool in the tin. It tends to crumble or break apart if you try to take it out while it’s still at all warm.

In the meantime, you can whip up your icing! I also make this in the mixmaster with the paddle beater.

Simply beat together 2 blocks (or 500g) of cream cheese, 1 cup of dextrose, the juice of two limes, and 100g of softened butter, until beautiful and smooth and creamy. This is a seriously delicious icing mixture, and if you have a daughter who is lactose sensitive, it’s probably best to not let her loose with the leftovers, unless you want to be woken in the wee hours of the morning with a baby in pain. Just saying.

Choose your flattest cake to be the bottom layer. You can use a serrated knife, or one of those fancy wire cake slicers (like the one I bought from Ikea) to make the top perfectly flat. Or you can just use icing to fill in the gaps. Either way, spread a nice and generous amount of your icing over the top of your cake.

The plop cake number two on top! It doesn’t matter if this one is not flat.

And then coat the whole thing in icing! You can sprinkle it in lightly toasted shredded coconut for something schmancy, or if it’s the centrepiece of dessert for a 30th birthday Pirate Party, you can decorate it accordingly.

Enjoy! Make sure you get a piece… this cake has a nasty habit of disappearing before I get a chance to get to dessert!

Who ever said you can’t eat awesome food without sugar!

Let them eat {sugar free} cake!

The Friend family has a new favourite cake recipe.

Last weekend we had a few nights away with a group of friends, up in the mountains where we did not much more than watch kids play, eat food, chat, enjoy the scenery, eat food, and did I mention eat food? Our group of friends are certified foodies, and the best kinds of people to go away with.

One of these said friends is the (very proud) owner of a thermomix, and the rest of us were quite enthralled and curious about this amazing machine. I think what sold us all was when she made this absolutely AMAZING chocolate cake in it, and then told us that the main ingredient was KIDNEY BEANS!! Say what??!

Okay, so a kidney bean cake sounds pretty gross, right? The thing is, you would never guess that this cake contained such a thing. It is light, moist, rich… it tastes like a seriously decadent chocolate cake, and the kids never knew that each slice was another serve of veggies!

Of course, I had to figure out how to make this at home – sans thermomix. It’s a great, versatile cake: gluten free, grain free, and the way I make it.. sugar free! You could easily make it dairy free too, but personally I’m a big fan of butter so it’s staying. I found the thermomix recipe here, and set about adapting it to my food processor. We’ve made it twice this week, and it was a huge hit with both lots of people we shared it with. Here’s how I make this amazing chocolate cake:

Ingredients

• 420 g kidney beans, canned drained
• 1 tablespoon water or coffee (so far I’ve just used water, but can imagine that using coffee would give it an even greater richness)
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 70 g unsweetened cocoa powder (or you could use cacao if you were so inclined)
• 1 teaspoon GF baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 125 g butter, softened (if you wanted dairy free you could try with coconut oil or nutalex)
• 5 eggs
• 120g dextrose (or your preferred sweetener. The original recipe says 180g sugar. I found that much dextrose was too sweet for me personally)

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180d. Grease a cake tin. I’ve made this both in a rectangular slice tin, and in a round cake tin.. worked great both times. Also, I’ve been greasing my cake tins with coconut oil and it’s brilliant… haven’t had any problems with things sticking since I’ve been using it.
• put the kidney beans, water/coffee, vanilla and one of the eggs into the food processor, and blitz on high until it is smooth.
• Transfer the kidney bean mixture into another bowl and set aside. (I do the rest of the steps in my food processor too since I already have it dirty. I’m lazy like that. You could do it in a mixmaster though if you preferred. And if you don’t have a food processor, you could use a stick-blender to do the first step, and do the rest with electric beaters/mixmaster/by hand.)
• Cream the butter and dextrose, then add the remaining four eggs one at a time, beating until smooth.
• Add the vanilla extract, cocoa powder, baking powder, bi-carb and salt, and mix until well blended.
• Reintroduce the kidney beans, and blend until it is all incorporated, and smooth.
• Taste this delicious chocolate cake mix. Seriously. I’m not usually one who enjoys eating cake batter but man this is yum!!
• Pour into a tin, pop in the oven and bake! I’d start with 30 minutes. This was the perfect amount of time when I made the cake in the slice tin. I had to give it an extra 5 minutes in the round tin. You know the drill, a skewer will come out clean, and the the outside has started to pull away from the tin when it’s done.

How great does it smell!!? Okay. Now when we were away last weekend we ate the cake just like that. Actually some of us smothered it in cream. Some of us were a bit cream obsessed. It is a moist cake and doesn’t need something on top of it. It is really nice though if you have it warm with cream… very puddingy.

However, both times I made this cake this week, it was for a birthday. And as far as I’m concerned, birthday cakes need frou frou. Sugar-free icing is an interesting adventure, that’s for sure!

The first cake was for my sister’s dog’s birthday. Oh Lordy, I am SO not the kind of person to make a birthday cake for a dog, but my daughter LOVES this dog, and was insistent on making a big deal of his birthday, so we did it. This is was Dusty’s birthday cake: (which I let Mayana go to town on with cake decorating pens)

For Reuben’s birthday cake I made the icing with cream cheese, butter, lemon juice, and dextrose as the substitute for icing sugar. It worked quite well, so I decided to give dextrose a go as an icing sugar substitute for chocolate icing. I beat together butter, dextrose and cocoa, and then added boiling water until it was a good consistency. This icing was super-dooper rich, especially in conjunction with this very rich cake. Pete and I found it very sweet, and even Mayana couldn’t eat her whole piece of cake. It was yummy, and it worked, but it was just too much for those of us who have given up sugar. Back to the drawing board.

I remembered ages ago (well before quitting sugar) coming across this recipe and bookmarking it on my iPhone. This recipe isn’t sugar free, but again, easily adapted. The icing that it makes is light, fluffy and understated in sweetness. It’s the perfect fluffy topping to just add that lovely bit of moisture to the cake without taking away (or adding too much to) the delightful richness of the cake. Here was cake number two, a birthday cake for one of Mayana’s little friends:

Ugh. Please excuse the terrible low-light iPhone photography on both of those photos. Both cakes looked far more appetising in real life!

The only downside to this icing is that it is not gluten free. This really isn’t an issue to us, but it might be to you. It would definitely be worth trying with gluten-free flour, but just a disclaimer that I haven’t tried it that way, so can’t guarantee that it will work the same!
Okay, so here is the magical, sugar free version of this fluffy, yummy icing:

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoon flour
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup real butter, softened
• 1/2 cup dextrose (the original recipe uses sugar, of course, and I just want to highlight that if you are using sugar, use normal, granulated sugar NOT icing sugar)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or other flavour if you wish. I would definitely like to try a chocolate version of this icing.

Method

• Whisk together the flour and milk in a saucepan and cook over low-medium heat. This icing starts off as a kind of white sauce. Weird, I know. Keep stirring until it turns into a thick, gluey consistency. You’re cooking it off a bit to help get rid of that floury taste once it become icing. When it becomes almost playdoughy, it’s ready to come off the heat.
• Put your playdough mixture in a container in the fridge or freezer. You want it to go completely cold… no heat left in it at all. I recommend to do step one of the recipe as soon as your cake comes out of the oven.. by the time your cake is cooled enough to ice, your goop should be cool enough to use.
• In a mixmaster (or with electric beaters – I wouldn’t personally like to do this by hand, but like I said, I’m a bit lazy like that), cream the butter and dextrose until light and fluffy. Add your vanilla or alternative flavouring, and a colour if you’re so inclined (our birthday girl wanted purple)
• Plop in your cooled playdough mixture, and continue beating. I did this on quite a high speed on my mixmaster, and with the whisk attachment. I don’t think it would work quite so well with the paddle attachment.
• Just keep beating. It goes really weird and gross at first and you’ll be wondering what on earth I’m going on about. But just keep going, and eventually it will all incorporate and all of a sudden turn into a glorious, fluffy icing, which looks a bit like whipped cream.

That’s it! Spread it on your cake, or piping with it works quite well too.

So far, this is the best luck I’ve had with sugar-free icing. Even if you were eating sugar, this is a great low-sugar alternative to normal icing. It obviously doesn’t set to any kind of hardness, so just be aware of that if you’re transporting your cake somewhere.

So there you have it: An absolutely delicious, fibre and protein packed chocolate cake, topped with a delicious sugar free icing! Pretty much a guilt-free cake! What’s not to love about that??

If you make this cake, I’d love to have your feedback. Have you tried adapting any of your favourite recipes to suit your dietary needs?

I Quit Sugar

For real. It’s been about four months now and we just aren’t going back. We started out with an intention to experiment, and I have to say, it’s been a raging success.

I honestly do not miss sugar at all, and on the handful of occasions when I’ve allowed myself to eat it I haven’t enjoyed it. Anything with sugar tastes so sickly sweet, and quite literally makes me feel ill. That I think has been the biggest surprise: how much my tastes have changed. For instance, at a church dinner the other night, I had one of those shortbread cream biscuits (you know the ones in the Arnotts multi-pack?). I could only stomach half of it. It tasted gross. And I LOVED those things. Seriously, Pete and I have been known to wolf down a packet between us on the drive home to Noosa. Oh gosh how shameful! Even Peter, my sweet-toothed husband, is finding that his taste buds and preferences have significantly changed. The man who used to be able to comfortably eat a family sized block of chocolate can now barely get down more than two squares. Neither of us enjoy sweets in the same way that we used to.

The biggest benefit to us I think is that being aware of the sugar content in our foods has made us more aware of what we are actually eating. We actually look at labels (not in an obsessed calorie-counting way, we definitely don’t count those!!) but just out of interest to see what is actually in our food, and are making more informed choices about what we do and don’t want in our (and our kid’s) bodies. Our rule of thumb these days is that we don’t touch anything that has more than 6g of sugar per 100g. It’s incredibly surprising to find which foods have higher numbers than that. For instance, tomato sauce is nearly 50% sugar, and barbeque is even higher! There are even a lot of savoury foods that have significant amounts of sugar added to them, and I’m coming across more and more that have specifically added fructose. As a result of all this, we very rarely buy anything processed or that comes in a package. I’m making so much food from scratch, including sauces and condiments. And I’m still baking. We didn’t bake or eat much sweet food at all during the 8 week quit plan, but now that we are no longer addicted to sugar and more in control of the quantities we consume, I have begun to experiment more with sugar-free baking. I mainly use rice malt syrup as a sweetener, and have also been converting some of our old favourite recipes using dextrose to replace sugar. You can read a really great explanation about dextrose here if you are interested. I find it best to taste the uncooked batter of recipes I’m converting, as often if I use the suggested amounts of sweetener we find it far too sweet.

Mayana has picked up on the fact that we aren’t using sugar anymore, and asks questions about foods that she is unsure of. I am honest with her that we are trying not to eat too much sugar anymore because it’s not very good for us. I tell her that it’s okay for a treat and don’t push it any more than that. I don’t want to be militant about it and I don’t want her to feel like she’s ‘naughty’ if she does happen to have something containing sugar. She is aware of foods that are sweet and will ask if things are sugar free, and even refuses juice if it’s offered to her when we’re out.

I feel good. Great actually. I am still losing weight.. I’m up to about 9kg now and about 6kg off my goal weight. It’s so exciting, and incredibly motivating. I am doing Zumba once a week, but other than that no significant exercise – though this is something I’m looking to change. I love feeling good about how I look, putting on clothes that used to be tight and that are now too big, buying clothes a size smaller than what I’m used to buying. It is such a boost to my self-confidence, and I’m enjoying feeling healthy. I feel like I am in control of my appetite. I can listen to my body better, and tell the difference between wanting and needing to eat. My taste-buds don’t control me anymore. I don’t feel deprived, and I still eat because I enjoy food. Pete and I consider ourselves to be foodies, and love to cook and eat and try new recipes, and we can still do all that.

I love seeing myself in photos and thinking, I actually look okay! Good even!  Like this dress, on the left a photo of me wearing it at my brother’s formal in 2010, very intentionally hiding myself behind my gorgeous daughter, and wearing it again a couple of weeks ago. I can’t tell you how proud I feel looking at this. And a little horrified of the first picture to be honest. My whole face has changed! I just want to keep going!  Anyway. Quitting sugar seems to have kick-started my previously non-existent metabolism, and I am so, so happy about that.

If you are wanting to do something good for your body, maybe lose some weight and just improve your health and general well-being, I can highly recommend giving up sugar. Just give it a go. And tell me what you think.

A Sugar-Free First Birthday Party

Reuben’s first birthday party was a hastily-organised do held at a local park. We were very blessed to have plenty of friends and family come to celebrate our beautiful boy’s first year of life. It was a fairly casual affair with a playground and duck-pond to entertain the kids, and plenty of time for catching up and chatting for the grown-ups. Okay so maybe some of the grown-ups made use of the playground too.

The guest of honour spent most of his time enjoying cuddles from favourite people and showing off his newest party trick: walking!

He also shared a clandestine cup of grapes under the table with his betrothed friend, Grace.

I decorated simply, but meaningfully too, with a string of photos and string of handmade bunting.

You remember those weekly photo collages I’ve shared on the blog of Reuben’s life? I had each one printed (all 52 weeks of his life) and laminated, then strung them together. On the back I wrote some highlights of each week. It was like a timeline of Reuben so far. Everyone enjoyed looking at our gorgeous baby’s photos and reading his little stories, and they were a great talking point. I’m really glad I took the time to put it together!

In planning Reuben’s party I made the decision to cater completely sugar-free. I knew I would have to a be a little creative to achieve this for a kid’s party, but (with the exception of one treat of fairy bread) I’m proud to say that I succeeded!

We had ham sandwhiches, nuts, crackers, vegetables and homemade dips, little cups of grapes (in cupcake papers – this was a great idea, very novel for the kids and a good little amount of grapes), almond & coconut fish cakes (fish by shape only, not flavour!), potato chips and fairy bread.

The cake was a sugar-free carrot cake, and there was not a crumb left of it!

Reuben was thoroughly spoilt with loving and gifts and we all felt completely blessed to have the presence of so many people who love him (and us!).

Thanks to everyone who came, we hope you had as much fun as we did!

Super Delicious Sugar Free Breakfast {A Recipe}

This recipe is sugar free, gluten free and dairy free and completely delicious. It’s my take on one that Talia shared on her blog aaaages ago… This quantity was enough to feed my family of four (2 big people + 2 little people)

Apple & Cinnamon Coconut Breakfast Risotto

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup arborio rice
• water
• 1 can coconut milk
• cinnamon
• 1 apple
• 1tspn rice malt syrup

Method

Cook your arborio rice over a medium heat, adding a little water at a time and stirring until it absorbed each time. You’ve made risotto before right? You know the drill. I think I used about 3/4 cup of water just to get things going.

Then, I switched over to adding the coconut milk. I found because it’s significantly thicker than water, it takes a little longer to absorb – in fact it doesn’t really absorb completely -  and goes a little gluggy. Don’t worry though, it ends up a beautiful creamy custardy consistency.. just completely delicious.
Keep on going with the coconut milk until you’ve used it all. If you think it’s too gluggy, add some more water.

Sprinkle in some cinnamon. I probably used about a teaspoon, just do it to your taste. Grate your apple, and add that to the dish. When it’s grated it cooks quickly in the hot risotto, and just adds some sweetness and beautiful flavour.

Swirl through your teaspoon of rice malt syrup. If you eat honey, then you could use that instead.

Ta-daaa!!That’s it! Easy isn’t it? It is seriously so delicious. A perfect porridge alternative for gluten free people. The coconut milk helps to make it incredibly filling – I wasn’t hungry till lunch time after the bowl I had. It was a big hit in our house. Well, Reuben didn’t love it but he’s a creature of habit and he wanted his wheetbix dammit! Mayana on the hand thought that ‘coconut rice’ (her favourite thai food ever) for breakfast was the best thing she’d ever heard of and practically inhaled it, which is saying something when I consider the number of eat-your-flipping-breakfast fights we’ve had lately!

This was so yummy, I look forward to it becoming a regular as the year creeps into winter, and honestly I would quite happily eat it for dessert too.

Give it a go!!

Half way there…

Unbelievably, we’re already half way through this sugar-quitting experiment!

I am becoming used to being a sugar free person. It’s not so hard for me anymore to decline offers of sweetly iced cakes and cherry ripe slice at playgroup, and I don’t feel like cheating. I’m actually quite happy being sugar free.

I think I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t feel like I’m missing out anymore. I’ve found enough alternatives for the things I love to keep me happy. I can still bake and take my own goodies to playgroup. I’m finding incredible ideas all over the internet for ways I can still eat my favourites, like ice-cream, and even lemon meringue pie. If you’re interested you can check out my I Quit Sugar board on Pinterest to see my collection.

I’m loving coconut – I talked about it in my last post, but it’s a great snack to tide you over, a nice little sweet-hit when you feel like one and so versatile. This last two weeks we’ve been experimenting with some delicious recipes, including granola (made from coconut flakes, oats, nuts, seeds, rice malt syrup and coconut oil or melted butter – just mix and cook in a slow oven until toasty. Delicious!) and an incredible sugar-free grain-free gluten-free cheesecake. We actually made that twice for two different social gatherings last week to share with people who do eat sugar and it was a hit both times. You can find the recipe for that here. So much yum!

I sprinkled some of the delicious granola over the top of this one, and sprinkled a handful of blueberries onto the cheese mixture. I think it would also be nice with a little lime. So many possibilities!!

Peter is struggling a little more. He has stayed strong, but because he has cakes and sweeties offered to him at work pretty much every day he’s had to fight a bigger will-power battle than I have. Last week though when we had dinner with friends, he allowed himself a small piece of super-rich Nigella Lawson brownie, and struggled to finish it. He commented to me how surprised he was – the old Pete would have easily eaten three or four pieces, whereas now he was quite content with just the one.

I’m again surprised at the change to our tastebuds. I can taste the sweetness in things that I haven’t before. Prior to this I have always had sugar in my coffee. Obviously I have given this up, and I honestly don’t even notice. I had read in Sarah Wilson’s book that she says she can taste the sweetness of the lactose (which is a sugar also) and scoffed, but it really is true. The milk in my coffee tastes sweet, and my coffee tastes so much more delicious without the sugar. I’ve also started eating plain natural yoghurt. This was not something I could stomach before without adding some honey or a good dollop of fruit. Again, I can now taste the natural sweetness in the yoghurt, it just tastes tangy and yoghurty, none of that sour yuck that it used to taste like. I shudder to think how sweet a yoplait or ski yoghurt would taste now!

I have noticed that my skin is fabulous. It feels and looks so healthy. And overall, I feel healthy too. I have more energy (though I’m sure I could have even more if I would get to bed earlier!!) and I no longer feel bloated. I have not had one gall bladder attack (something that I have really been struggling with on and off over the past few years) since I quit sugar, and I haven’t had any of the indigestion or reflux pains that I would regularly get either. Oh and my stupid teeth have stopped being achy. Also fabulous news.

The best news of all is that quitting sugar seems to have kick-started my metabolism. I have lost around six kilos in the last four weeks! I cannot tell you how much this has excited and motivated me. My current weight is lower than it has been since Peter and I got married, and it’s a really big deal for me. I think I’ve spoken before about how my weight has just constantly plateaued from a certain point, no matter what I’m doing – even when I was going to the gym for an hour a day six days a week! The only change I have made right now is eliminating sugar from my diet, and low and behold my body is changing, literally before my eyes. I started back to Zumba this week, and I’m excited to see how the combined affects of my new eating habits and some exercise will manifest in my body.

I think the really positive thing that this journey is teaching me is to be aware of what I’m eating. I’m learning to listen to when my body is actually hungry, and also when it is full. I’m understanding what kind of foods my body is looking for when I’m having hunger pangs, and how they are settled more quickly by some proteins (like cheese, nuts, or a rice cake with coconut butter) than if I scoffed down a couple of biscuits. I’m reading labels of foods, and am often astounded by some of the ingredients I’m seeing in foods where I wouldn’t expect to see them. I suppose cutting out sugar isn’t just chucking out the white crystals from your pantry, it’s cutting out all of the processed stuff that, let’s be honest, probably isn’t that great for you regardless of the sugar factor. We’re eating more fresh food, more vegetables, more ‘from scratch’ recipes.

We still haven’t decided what we’ll do at the end of this 8 weeks. I definitely don’t want to go back to where we started. Our current thinking is that we’ll continue to eat like this at home, but allow ourselves treats for special occasions or when we are out. I can see how much good this is doing for our bodies and I don’t want to throw it all away.

If you’ve been thinking about it, just try it. You don’t have to do it forever, and you might be surprised with the results…

We’re Quitting Sugar

You know, I never thought we’d be those people. I always have looked at people who give up sugar with a kind of awe. Part of me thought I would never even want to be able to do it… I mean who wants to give up cakes and chocolate and all the good stuff right? But part of me also thought that I probably wouldn’t be able to do it even if I tried.

For the last few months, Peter and I have dabbled with lowering our sugar intake. I guess just being more aware of how much of it we’re eating, and the hidden sneaky places it gets you. I’ve read stacks of blogs about the whole ‘Why You Should Quit Sugar’ argument (I don’t have particular links, I just googled!). We started cutting down, experimenting with using alternative sugars and sweeteners… like rapadura (which I’ve developed a bit of a taste for), coconut sugar and dextrose. I started stalking #iqs and #sugarfree and #iquitsugar hashtags on instagram. And I started reading Sarah Wilson’s blog. I found out that her ‘I Quite Sugar’ eBook was going to be released as a hardcopy book, and talked to Pete about buying it.

The more I read about the whole thing, the more I wanted to try it. I don’t want to be all hardcore about it. I want to try the whole 8 week quit plan, and see what it does. I talked in the New Year about how I want to make some changes for my health this year. I want to look after my body, and I was curious to see how my body would respond to giving up sugar.

On Australia Day long weekend, Sarah Wilson listed her eBooks online for half price. Pete and I, cheapskates that we are, decided to buy them.  I liked straight away that the book talks about my exact approach to the whole thing… just trying it, out of curiosity.  My lovely husband agreed to join me on the journey. I think mostly out of support for me, but also because he is also up for a healthier body. Love that boy.

The more I read the book, the more giving up sugar makes sense. It really isn’t that great for us. Our bodies were not meant to have much… like, a really small fraction of the massive overload that we feed our bodies these days. And since I’ve been looking, I’m finding that sugar is in EVERYTHING. It’s unreal.

We’re up to week two now. We have gone pretty much off all sugar. I am learning how to listen to my body about food. Not to eat just because I’m bored. To have a drink of water instead of heading to the fridge when I feel a bit peckish. To have a little hit of protein instead of a couple of biscuits when I need a mid morning or afternoon snack. I’m feeling good about it.

I’m not really that much of a sweet tooth to be honest. My husband is. So I think I’m finding it easier in a lot of ways. I don’t get cravings for chocolate… he does, and they’re worse because he’s not having it.

The only time I’ve been naughty was when we were out helping people clean out their flood-ravaged house on Saturday. Lovely people provided some food and drink for sustenance, and I had a can of lemonade and a cupcake. To be honest I could only drink half a can of the soft drink. It surprised me A LOT to find that it was so sweet to me that it was disgusting. And I usually love lemonade. It was almost syrupy. I was shocked to find that my tastebuds have already become accustomed to NOT having sugar. I’m proud to say that even today out for morning tea, I didn’t give in to the delicious looking and smelling cakes that were offered to me, and I even didn’t eat the Picnic bar that someone gave to me!

Pete and I have committed to the 8 week plan. We definitely intend to reintroduce fruit sometime in that 8 weeks (Sarah Wilson recommends to go off it only in the first few weeks, so your body can fully detox from fructose). After the 8 weeks… well we’re not sure yet. I guess it really depends on how our bodies are feeling. If we can see and feel that our bodies are loving it, then we will love our bodies back. We don’t intend to become hard-core, in that we will have treats. BUT I guess the shift is that instead of something we have whenever we feel like, we will let things like chocolate and cakes and lollies and dessert out with friends actually be treats. I’ve also been and will continue to experiment with baking using alternative sweeteners such as dextrose and rice malt syrup.

The eBook bundle we bought includes a recipe book full of delicious sugar-free treats. Our favourite so far is coconut butter. It’s so easy, and full of yum. All you do is pop a bag of shredded coconut (sugar free of course) into a food processor for about 15 minutes of until runny. I poured it into ice-cube trays and set it in the fridge. It is so delicious. Kind of reminiscent of coconut ice, but without the sickly sweet. I find that one piece of it is enough for me, it’s very satisfying, and definitely squelches any sugar cravings that I’ve had so far. Pete and Mayana both also really love it. Pete says it helps to quash his chocolate cravings, and Mayana calls it Coconut Chocolate and thinks it’s the best treat around. You should try it.. it’s soooo good.

I’m actually kind of excited about it all. I’m really hoping that it will help me to lose weight. I have such trouble losing weight. In our uni days, Peter and I used to be gym members. I went to the gym for an hour, five or six days a week, for six months, and I lost less than half a kilo.  So far, so good. I’m not feeling too deprived, and I’m learning heaps about my own eating habits. It’s been really good actually, becoming more aware of what is in the food that I’m putting in my body.

So anyway… stay tuned! I’m sure I’ll post another update or two in this next 6 weeks.

Would you consider giving up sugar?