Low sugar week 1

Hey all, I'm checking in at one week with low sugar. Partly for accountability, and partly for the sake of documenting. A little background: I have struggled with sugar addiction since childhood. In the last six years I have gotten sober from alcohol and quit cigarettes, and sugar definitely feels like my final boss. At the beginning of the year I was in a calorie deficit (won't be doing that again) and accidentally cut my sugar way down and ended up getting sick. It might have been from a lot of different factors but from it I learned two things 1. counting calories isn't for me and 2. my sugar intake was a problem.

This week I committed to consuming no more than 25 grams of added sugar per day. It's been VERY manageable, much more than I had anticipated. The most difficult thing has just been lack of convenience. My cravings haven't been terrible and my only side effects have been a little irritability and gas.

I have noticed that my hunger cues have been different. It's hard for me to explain but I have been hungry at different parts of the day and I guess it has felt less urgent? I have also noticed that I'm not as hungry throughout the day.

The biggest benefit so far is that food/ sugar does seem like its taking up way less mental space. I am starting to believe that if I can implement this as a lifestyle change, I won't really think about sugar very much, which is the ultimate goal. Right now most of my added sugar is from oat milk and some low sugar muffins that I made. This week I am going to explore lower sugar versions of those. I had artificial sweetener in a drink one day, and that made me feel a little sick and it triggered cravings later, so I've learned things like that are a no-go.

I am wondering what I will do after I hit 30 days of low sugar. I don't know if I will want to stick to what I'm doing or try to eliminate it all together, but I can think more about that as the date gets closer. Thanks for reading!