How to give up sweets

My experiment started on March 25th. All previous attempts to eat right failed miserably. I’ve never been into diets, but I’ve tried more than once to give up sweets, flour, fast food and alcohol. As a result, after a week, or even less, I broke down and ate again. After that, I felt a sense of guilt and resentment that I didn’t show my will, turned out to be weaker and gave up. Sound familiar?

And so I decided that enough was enough. It's time to stop fooling yourself. This is how the idea of the #sugarfreemonth marathon came about. They say it takes 21 days to form a habit, so I decided that was enough to start the month. After all, nothing will stop me from extending the ban for six months or even a year.

I started a marathon diary on Instagram. Friends and acquaintances turned out to be no worse than personal trainers and nutritionists: they scolded, praised, shared their experiences and gave advice. The editors supported the idea of giving up sweets, deciding that this would make interesting material.

How did it all begin?

I set specific goals for myself:

Reduce sugar consumption.
Form healthy eating habits.
Lose 10-15 kilograms (at this point, I admit, I got excited, and eventually lowered the bar to 5 kilograms).
Improve the condition of skin and hair.

At the start, my weight was 75.4 kilograms with a height of 167 centimeters. Normal weight for me is 65 kilograms, which is what it was like as a student. I'm 26 now and over the past five years I've gained ten kilograms. Maybe this is not much, but I understand that they are unnecessary and it will be more joyful without them.

I decided to take measurements every week. The first numbers were as follows: hip circumference - 101 centimeters, waist circumference - 82 centimeters and chest circumference 95 centimeters. It was far from the parameters 90-60-90. I separately measured the circumference of the thigh and forearm, but these numbers were not key indicators.

Mary's menu before and after

Before the diet, the woman usually skipped breakfast, preferred jacket potatoes with cheese and butter and salad for lunch, and lasagna or spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. We couldn’t do without frequent snacks: fruit scones, milk coffee, chips, cheese sandwiches, chocolate, cakes.

After deciding that she needed to lose weight, her diet changed. She began counting calories, choosing fresh vegetables, salads, fish, boiled eggs and fruits. Mary sometimes allows herself sweets, but only during lunch.

“I now have a healthy relationship with food since I cut out unhealthy snacks and fatty meals,” says Mary. — I used to consume more than 4,000 kilocalories a day. Since then I have lost 25 kilograms and feel much more confident. Losing weight played a huge role in this.”

What have I forbidden myself?

Granulated sugar and sweetener substitutes were banned. I gave up baked goods, cakes, pastries and cookies. Introduced a taboo on sweets: chocolate bars, candies, preserves, jams and condensed milk. Chewing gum containing a lot of sugar was also blacklisted. The list of prohibited products included sweet drinks (compotes, fruit drinks, lemonades, jelly, juices), yoghurts with additives, curds, glazed curd cheeses, fruits with a high sugar content (bananas and grapes) and white bread.

I promised myself to drink 1.5-2 liters of water throughout the day. I decided to do physical exercise for 30-40 minutes every day.

Week one: sugar withdrawal

The first three days were hard. The brain did not understand what was happening and demanded sweets. The addiction was making itself felt.

During the day, my mood constantly changed: the morning seemed gray and joyless, and after lunch I became irritable and nervous. “This is called hypoglycemia, when the blood sugar level drops and a state of inability appears, the main thing is to endure,” a friend encouraged on Instagram.

Colleagues did not miss the opportunity to remind: “you can’t”, “you don’t eat sweets”. I felt strong support from friends: “In order not to get lost, remember why you are doing this,” “Hold on! Life is beautiful without sweets!” And I held on.

Healthy snacks have replaced unhealthy snacks - nuts and fruits. I tried to drink more water, although I used to like tea at work and at home. I started doing exercises in the morning (but this succeeds with varying degrees of success).

I created a new route around the supermarket, and grocery shopping began to take less time. I now stop at the following points: vegetables/fruits, dairy products, meat/fish and cereals. Beyond my interests were shelves with alcohol and juices, cookies and candies, sweet yoghurts and curds. Previously, I always bought something sweet, not consciously, out of habit, I took it to lift my mood.

The results of the first week were great motivation. I lost 3.3 kilograms in a week. The weight dropped to 72.1 kilograms. The volumes decreased: three centimeters were lost in the hips, five centimeters in the waist, a centimeter in the chest. The body became toned and the stomach became flatter.

The mood swings passed, and along with them lethargy, drowsiness, weakness and inattention. The first week benefited the body: vigor appeared, performance and overall activity increased.

What happens if you give up sugar and bread: is it possible to lose weight?

Within two days of quitting sugar, you will see the following changes:

Intestinal motility will improve. Constipation, diarrhea and bloating will no longer bother you.
There will be no mood swings. After eating sweets, a person feels better, but this false euphoria soon leads to a depressed state. If you don't eat sugar, there won't be mood swings.
Eating habits will change. Children deprived of sweets will begin to eat healthy fruits and cereals.

A week after quitting sugar, more positive changes will appear:

The condition of the skin will improve. Acne will not appear, and the skin will become smooth, clean and glowing.
Sleep will be restored. Abuse of sweets causes drowsiness during the day and insomnia at night. Giving up sugar, even for a week, will help restore sleep.
Energy will appear. The body will begin to independently maintain the required sugar level, and not adapt to glucose surges due to the intake of sugar from the outside.

After 10 days you will be able to experience new transformations:

The risk of developing diseases will be reduced. Since excess sugar leads to a weakened immune system, avoiding this product reduces the risk of developing a number of serious diseases.
The extra pounds will go away. Slow metabolism is the result of overusing foods containing carbohydrates and sugars. Avoiding them is the best way to build the body of your dreams.
Memory will improve. Excess sugar has a bad effect on the connections between brain cells, which causes obstacles to the flow of blood to the brain. When you give up sugar, concentration and memory improve.

After a month, you will be able to consolidate the results obtained and reach new heights. You will lose extra pounds, your skin will rejuvenate, your brain activity will increase and your hormonal levels will normalize.

Since many people have a strong addiction to sweets, abruptly giving up sugar will lead to a person becoming aggressive and impulsive. He will have no energy and may develop strong cravings for fatty foods. However, this is a temporary phenomenon that will soon pass forever.

By cutting out sugar, you significantly reduce your chances of developing diabetes.

Weeks two and three: “plateau effect” - the weight rose

At the beginning of the second week, I installed useful applications on my phone: a pedometer, an application with exercise sets, a food diary and a drinking timer. The phone now buzzes, reminding me that it’s time to drink water. I tried the exercises, but the program did not arouse much interest. I turn on the pedometer, but not regularly. I deleted the food diary after a few days; writing down every piece of bread eaten and cup of tea drunk is, in my opinion, overkill.

I bought two dumbbells, one kilo each. I did different exercises with them. Friends on Instagram advised me to buy a resistance band, a hoop, and download sports apps.

My jeans became loose. I was able to fasten the belt to the third notch, which I was very happy about. I started training at home. Another small victory! I didn’t do any sports for six months. I couldn't overcome laziness. I always found excuses not to go to training. There was no specific goal, so the autumn and winter passed, maybe it would have continued further. But changes in diet led to changes in my head.

On Easter I gave myself a cheat meal (cheat meal - diet violation) and ate Easter cake. I didn’t really enjoy it, I was even disappointed - the glazed bun turned out to be dry, there were almost no raisins in it.

At the end of the second week, 600 grams were used. The weight rose and stopped falling. The measurement results were also modest. Minus a centimeter in the waist and hips, minus two centimeters in the chest. I decided that after the official end of the marathon, I would continue to limit my consumption of sweets.

I stopped eating sweets because of work deadlines, bad weather and negative emotions. This kind of doping was enough for half an hour or an hour, then I returned to my original mood. I started taking Omega-3 (fish oil) supplement. The condition of the hair and skin has noticeably improved (it has become smoother, inflammation has gone away).

At the end of the third week, the weight continued to fluctuate - 500 grams were added. The waist circumference did not change, but the hip and chest circumferences decreased by a centimeter. I decided to reconsider my diet and try alternative side dishes to potatoes and pasta - vegetables and cereals.

I came to the need to keep a personal budget in order to understand what I spend money on and how much is spent on groceries. I started recording my expenses every day. I gave myself a directive to eat less in cafes and catering establishments, but I haven’t been able to stick to it yet. I don’t always take lunch to work; sometimes I don’t have enough time to prepare it. But the task is doable if you try and are not lazy.

How to stop eating sweets and starchy foods

Some people find it easier to force themselves to give up sweets and starchy foods than others. This is due to the presence of food addiction. There are several reasons for its appearance:

lack of meaning and purpose in life;
situations involving disappointment and loss, such as divorce;
situations when achieving what you want leads to relaxation and loss of incentive to constantly work on yourself, for example, after marriage;
state of crisis, for example, with the threat of job loss;
eating food to achieve other goals, for example, a child may systematically overeat in order to receive praise from his parents or not to offend his grandmother, who tried and prepared a complex dish.

Food addiction is a type of psychological addiction in which food is used not to satisfy hunger, but to lift one’s mood, reduce anxiety, encourage one’s work, and is expressed in the difficulty of resisting the craving for food.
Andrey Ivakin, psychologist
https://www.b17.ru/article/86782/

When faced with difficulties in the social sphere, a person dependent on food resorts to the option of not solving these difficulties, but eating them

Getting rid of food addiction is not easy. Very often this is impossible without the help of a specialist. If the situation is not running, you can solve the problem yourself. There are four steps to follow:

Motivation. You need to admit that you have a problem that needs a solution. At this stage, help and support from loved ones is important. You should find a purpose in life for which you decide to change.
Preparing the right diet. Make a list of healthy foods that you need to eat daily. If you cannot give up your favorite but unhealthy foods, then treat yourself to them rarely, for example, once a month.
Self-realization. Find something you enjoy, for example, take up sports, dancing, drawing or any other useful hobby.
Working on self-esteem. Learn to perceive yourself and your body correctly, and also try to respond adequately to criticism from the outside.

Recommendations from psychologists

Psychologists who correct eating behavior give five useful tips to help you give up sweets and starchy foods:

Eat small meals. If you eat every four hours and enrich your diet with protein, you will feel full for a long time and will not have the desire to eat sweets.
More water. We often mistake dehydration for sugar cravings. If you want to eat something sweet, then drink a glass of water.
Get tested. The desire to eat sweets may be due to a lack of chromium, magnesium and vanadium. If tests confirm this, then these microelements will need to be supplemented with additional supplements.
Normalize your taste buds. People with a sweet tooth often have impaired perception of sweet taste. It will take three weeks to restore sensitivity. During this period, refined sugar should be completely abandoned. You can replace it with fruit.
Overcome addiction. If you cannot cope with food addiction on your own, contact a psychologist and nutritionist.

Eating in fits and starts, with long gaps between meals - all this provokes the abuse of sweets

Useful advice from nutritionists

To overcome sweet cravings, nutritionists suggest introducing 10 valuable foods into your diet:

Mushrooms. Many people overindulge in sweets due to a chromium deficiency. Mushrooms, in turn, are rich in this trace element. This product is able to remove cholesterol from the body and improve the condition of skin, hair and nails.
Broccoli. Another storehouse of chromium and a source of antioxidants that stabilizes blood sugar levels.
Fish and seafood. Fish is rich in protein, which gives energy and saturates the body for a long time.
Chicken breast. Sweets make us happier because they contain the amino acid tryptophan. But it is also found in chicken breast, veal and milk.
Avocado. The fruit is rich in healthy plant fats that help control blood sugar levels.
Kefir. Many people have strong cravings for sweets because the microflora in the gastrointestinal tract is abnormal. Fermented milk products are rich in probiotics, which populate the body with beneficial flora.
Cinnamon. The aromatic seasoning eliminates the feeling of hunger and helps reduce blood sugar levels.
Pumpkin. The carbohydrates contained in the vegetable are absorbed in the body gradually, due to which the blood sugar level does not “jump”.
Beans. The dietary fiber contained in beans provides a long-lasting feeling of fullness.
Carrot. Thanks to carrots, the digestive system works like a clock. Carbohydrates from this vegetable are digested for a long time and do not cause spikes in blood sugar.

An irresistible craving for sweet foods may be a consequence of a lack of certain microelements in the body.

Indeed, by enriching your diet with zinc and chromium, you can reduce your cravings for sweets, influencing a number of biochemical processes. By the way, most of us live with a deficiency or subdeficiency of these very important microelements. I recommend checking the baseline and then adjusting. But if we take a deeper look at the problem of increased cravings for sweets, in the first place, of course, is the state of the intestinal microflora. It has long been proven that microorganisms living in our intestines have the ability to send signals to our brain that we interpret as “what sweets to eat now.” Therefore, the most important point is to improve the condition of the intestinal microflora by daily consumption of probiotic products, and also work out existing problems together with your doctor. In addition, it is important to analyze your diet in terms of glycemic and insulinemic indices. For example, dairy and fermented milk products and meat, which have a low glycemic and high insulinemic index, are not recommended for dinner. And, naturally, fruits with a high glycemic index too.
Yulia Chumicheva, general practitioner, gastroenterologist, nutritionist
https://www.wday.ru/krasota-zdorovie/sok/chto-est-chtobyi-ne-hotelos-sladkogo/

If you have weaned yourself from eating sweets, but you see cakes and sweets everywhere, then you should pay attention to healthy treats:

Chocolate. Everyone's favorite product contains serotonin, the hormone of happiness, as well as potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, B vitamins, PP and lecithin. These elements are essential for brain function. It is enough to eat 20–30 grams of chocolate per day.
Dried fruits. These treats are rich in vitamins, pectin, fiber and antioxidants. You can eat 3-4 pieces a day.
Honey. The sweet product is rich in microelements, vitamins and bioflavonoids, but you can eat no more than one teaspoon per day.
Marmalade, marshmallows, marshmallows, jam. They do not contain proteins, fats or vitamins, but if you use moderation, the carbohydrates from these sweets will quickly burn. It is enough to eat 1-2 pieces several times a week. You can eat jam every day, but no more than two teaspoons.

Treats should be eaten after the main meal so as not to provoke a sharp increase in blood sugar. Otherwise, we will get not only a surge and then a rapid drop in mood, but also an increased production of the hormone insulin, which is responsible for “storing” fat.
Olga Perevalova, nutritionist
https://www.woman.ru/health/diets/article/58261/

Treats should be eaten after the main meal so as not to provoke a sharp increase in blood sugar

Video: useful tricks from a fitness trainer

Week four: more sports

Home exercises turned out to be not enough, and I started stretching. I thought, why not try doing the splits? It was not easy to stretch, the muscles ached from unaccustomed use, but my back straightened and flexibility increased with each session.

Now I go to stretch twice a week. There is already progress: I sit lower in the longitudinal split, I learned to straighten my knees when we stretch my legs, and stretch my back (at first it was hard). During training, I try to relax my body and not think about pain.

During the month of the marathon, the number of followers on Instagram increased. I didn’t think that my example would become motivation for someone. Some colleagues and friends were inspired, they also took up nutrition and decided to limit their consumption of sweets.

Instagram marathon is cool! You are read, supported, controlled, you gather like-minded people around you, discuss various topics with them, take notes on something, and share discoveries.

“I’m following your experience with admiration, I have the same goal, but I still can’t decide,” wrote Maria Medvedeva from St. Petersburg.

- What a great fellow you are. I have no words. I also tried, I held out for three days, depression set in and I broke down, but I noticed that the quality of my body became much better and my volume dropped. What guides you to avoid eating too much? — subscriber belenkaya_ka asked me.

Healthy food deliveries, coaches, psychologists, nutritionists, and people who have achieved excellent results in losing weight subscribed to me. Most of them sold their secrets and knowledge. Once again I was convinced that people make money from PP, fitness, miracle stories about weight loss and training. But my experience has shown that you can figure everything out on your own, the main thing is not to complicate it and adhere to the set limitations.

Day 24. The marathon continues This is what a happy person looks like before an hour of stretching. All winter I was in some kind of hibernation; I was tired of moving along the “home-work” route, although it was very comfortable and familiar. You know, everything turned out to be much better than I expected from myself. Yesterday they pulled me well, when I stood on the bridge, something seemed to crunch, but everything was fine. Most of all I am pleased with my back, yesterday there was so much pressure on it that the tension went away, now it feels so pleasant. In order to bend better, it turned out that you need to relax, turn off your brain and not think that you will be hurt. The ability to relax is a key property for a person, especially now, when you are always connected, in traffic jams, stress and deadlines. I wonder why no one teaches this yet, hmm, or did I just not monitor? It seems to me that those who have mastered this relaxation and know how to turn it on at the right moments are truly happy people. The question for you today is: where do massages go well in Irkutsk? Share passwords, appearances. #refusesugar #sugarevil #orbitsugarfree #unsweetmonth #unsweetened #sugarfreeplease #foodhabits #sugarfree #irkutsk #usefulexperiment #irkru
A post shared by Alina Vovchek (@alina_vovchek) on Apr 17, 2018 at 5:59pm PDT

As a result of the #sugarfree month, I was able to reduce my sugar consumption to a minimum. Healthy eating habits have emerged: drinking more water, eating vegetables and fruits every day. I excluded tea with a bun as a separate meal from the diet. I gained more strength and vigor, my mood improved, I even wanted to change my wardrobe and engage in more self-development.

Having given up sweets for a month, I lost 4.1 kilograms. The volume in the waist decreased by seven centimeters, in the chest - by six, in the hips - by seven. My arms and thighs have lost a little weight (those who have lost weight know how difficult it is). I decided to leave the measurements every week and continue the experiment, because the results exceeded my expectations.

Unhealthy diet

The turning point in Mary Brockhurst's life came when an unflattering beach photograph that clearly showed her full arms caught her eye. This photo inspired her to change her unhealthy eating habits.

The woman said: “I always had a terrible relationship with food after having children. I thought dieting meant starving, so I would often overeat and then not eat anything at all.”

She added: “I was on the beach with my family when the photo that changed my life was taken. I remember being shocked by the size of my hands, they looked like the wings of a bird. Seeing this, I decided to go on a diet that same week.”

Mary ate cakes, chocolate and chips every day. Of course, she was overweight. But now, after changing her diet, she can wear her daughters' clothes, Rose is now 16 and Violet is 13.

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“The kids also come and look at my clothes because we can all wear the same thing. I never thought that we could go shopping together one day,” says a happy Mary.

Why should you try giving up sweets?

1. Don't be afraid to experiment. They can change you not only externally, but also internally. And the result will not be long in coming. The main thing is persistence, a clear goal and self-confidence.

2. You will become a motivation for your family and friends. They will be inspired by your example and will also change with you.

3. You are not a sweet tooth; your love for sweets is just a habit that you can change. Along with giving up sweets, a good mood, strength, vigor and desire to move on - to new goals and achievements will return.

4. You will start playing sports. Proper nutrition is one of the keys to health, but physical activity is no less important. And you will understand that you have both the strength and time for this. They always have been.

5. You will lose weight and stop thinking about it all the time. You won’t notice how your life will become happier. Good luck!

Exclusion from the diet

The first step to giving up sugar is realizing how harmful this product is. While scientists are beginning to call sugar an addictive drug like cocaine and heroin, on a layman's level many people still believe that sugary foods are for the brain and starchy foods are for energy.

Even those who have realized the harm of sugar continue to consider eating fruit a healthy habit. But fruits are rich in sugars, which, like refined sugar, cause an increase in insulin levels with all the unpleasant consequences that follow from this fact.

The second step to quitting is to identify all products that contain a harmful ingredient.