This is me and Michael Stipe in 2003. Doesn't he look happy? HA! Seriously though. Every time I see this pic, my eyes zero in at my midsection.
I think: We're two vegans. But one does not look like the other. Why?
A couple weeks ago, Carbzy blogged about the 15 grams of sugar a day diet. I decided to try it out. Since then, I have had a revelation.
I have been eating a shitload of sugar.
It was all unrefined. But it was still sugar. When excess sugar and carbs go into the body, they stick. They stick to the belly.
And man, do I have some excess.
Personally - I think sugar is addictive. You can read about the debate here. All I can do is add my own testimony.
Summer, 2007
Five years ago, I thought I was hypoglycemic. Once I went off refined carbs and sugars, the hypoglycemia disappeared. I got a little thinner.
Winter, 2008
(That's my little sister copping a feel on my curves...)
Then I went off gluten. A celiac friend told me that gluten can mess with your blood sugar. I knew I had blood sugar problems, heart palpitations after I ate anything with sugar in it. Plus I thought it might help my guts.
It did. And I got a little thinner.
Winter, 2009.
The Mom Jeans help, trust me.
For a while now, I have been using unrefined sugar. But whether it's maple syrup, raw honey, fruit, or agave - a little taste and I agg for the stuff. Mornings after long nights of drinking? I WANT PANCAKES. All the sugar from the night before is starting to leave my body. My body is addicted and wants more.
One thing I've learned from nutritionist Megan Telpner is that when your body craves a food, it's often not good for you. Cravings are also signs that your body is deficient in some nutrient. For example, chicks crave chocolate and sugar before their periods, because their bodies need more iron and protein.
Interestingly, there is a substantial amount of iron in raw cacao.
I've had it all - the hypoglycemia, the heart palpitations, the cravings and the fat bloated gut. Even as a vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free health food nazi, I've been eating too much sugar. Want to see?
A Day in the Life of FG
Breakfast
OJ with Hot Cereal and Almond Butter
(24 grams of sugar)
Elevensies
A Vita Coco Coconut Water with 1/2 cup of Edenblend
(24 grams of sugar)
Lunch
Greens with Mushrooms and Nut Butter Sauce
(I'm okay here!)
3 PM Snack
(18 grams of sugar)
Dinner
Sweet potato and roasted veggies with 2 glasses of vino
(20 grams of sugar)
HOLY CRAP!
I was consuming one and a half soda's worth of sugar BEFORE LUNCH.
By the end of the day? Four sodas.
No wonder I got a big belly.
www.proteinpower.com
This past week, I started a revolution! I looked to siphon the sugar out of my diet, meal by meal. And man, I LOVE a challenge. It was super fun.
Instead of OJ...
www.fertilehealthy.com
... I had a glass of lemon water with stevia!
Instead of 1/4 cup of applesauce in my raw oatmeal...
... I made it with 1 Tablespoon of applesauce
and 1-2 Tablespoons of raw almond butter!
Instead of coconut water...
missionmission.files.wordpress.com
... I had Kombucha!
OR...
www.choosingraw.com
Instead of making smoothies with Edenblend...
www.turtlemountain.com
... I had Original-flavor Coconut Milk Kefir!!!
Instead of vino...
www.crescentcitynutrition.com
... I had Dandy Blend.
Most days, I clocked in at under 15 grams of sugar.
Some, I ate around 20 or 30. Those were the days I felt a little under the weather and wanted to pimp my immune system with a Vita Coco. But still - 20 sugars? That's progress!
I don't wanna knock the high sugar foods that I mentioned above. There are so many wonderful benefits of some of those sugary foods. Like I've said - NOTHING cures a cold like coconut water.
BUT...
Right now, I'm at the end of my rope. I work out almost every single day. I'm on a vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, high raw, high fiber diet. And I'm still not looking the way I want to. I'm searching for optimum health here. Healthy people look healthy.
I don't look as healthy as I should for how I eat.
It's gotta be the sugars.
What about you guys? Are you as self conscious as me? In what ways are you trying to feel better, healthier? I wanna know!
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11 comments:
Hey Anney- great post! I'd love to get my sugar intake as low as you, but I have serious doubts that I ever will. I am a true sugar addict. At least I haven't had any chocolate today....yet.
And for the record, you're gorgeous in that pic with Michael Stipe.
It's so hard to wean off sugar... I've been going mad on sugar in the last week, once you start, it's so hard to get back on the straight and narrow. One thing I noticed is perhaps your intake of sweet flavoured drinks. I reckon if you ditched them for herbal tea or water exclusively you'd get rid of any extra weight. I'm pretty convinced our fluid intake shouldn't come with calories. We drink to hydrate, and eat to nourish. If the drinks are your snacks, maybe a few seeds, a scottish style unsweetened oat cake or two (not raw mind you) or a spoonful of nut butter or hummus on a stick of raw veg might be a good substitute, i.e. filling but not sugary and therefore not likely to set off a craving.
I've been on a diet since before Christmas (not consciously any more though) and vegan since early Jan and I have lost all the extra baggage I wanted to (8lb). I guess the trick has been swinging my meals towards vegetables over the carby and protein elements. I tend to find that a more savoury rather than sweet grain-based breakfast helps me control mad sugar cravings, i.e, just a spoonful of unsweetened almond butter on oatmeal, or leftover grain from last night's dinner and a little toasted sesame seed. I couldn't stand miso for breakfast though.
The hardest thing of all is digging one's way out of a binge. I'm currently at this myself, but keep succumbing to squares of dark chocolate here and there...
Great post!
We watch our sugars too! We love our kombucha ; )
I think learning what your body likes and what it can handle is hard, but worth it to feel better. Just takes time and patience.
Pure2raw twins
Hi FG! I eat sugar. I do not count or monitor it. I am a high raw vegan, GF, and soy light...so I feel like sugar is my last bastion, and I happen to like it and feel it fuels me. I dont eat tons of it in the white form, but I do eat dates, agave, maple, etc and that's "sugar". honestly, though, this is my path and my bod is diff from yours who's diff from her's. You just have to find your path. It took me til I was about 27 or so to really find mine. In the past 5-6 yrs, I have really come into my own. It only took a few decades. Good Luck!
Obviously I'll be getting into the subject more in depth on the blog, but I really do feel that no matter what you call it, refined or unrefined, sugar is sugar is sugar and our bodies don't like it!
HOLY CRAP! I'm so excited for you!!! Talk about taking the ball and running with it! You are so awesome!
Doesn't it just blow your freakin' mind how much sugar, in whatever form, we were eating? My revelation was the same as yours! If anything, it's the awareness that can lead to change including change in taste.
I'm so proud of you I could just burst. I felt the exact same as you "I don't look as healthy as I eat. WTF?" Other people said it too, in a nicer way, like "We see how you eat, why aren't you a twig?" though my thyroid issue plays a big part (which I'm dealing with and the scale is moving).
Also, you look very close to an ideal weight so don't be too hard on yourself. I think your body is gonna love the changes you're making.
You rock!
I can so relate to this post. I am always on the lookout, eliminating this and that, trying to restore my digestive system. I have to say that eliminating sugar has helped me enormously. And sorry, the stevia? It killed my stomach. Couldn't handle it. I just got used to a NO sugar diet and I actually survived it. Didn't think I would but I did and I really don't miss it anymore. I don't even eat fruit and I don't miss it. It helped me, I hope it helps you too!
You know, I had your blog bookmarked and the link disappeared - that is, Id click on it and it would say "blog not found". This was after my Firefox update. I kept wondering where you could have gone and why... especially since you said you were blogging. then I refreshed and reordered ALL of my bookmarks. And here you are!!!
I'm going to leave an abbreviated comment since I've got a lot to say and a meeting in -5 minutes. I have been having trouble sticking to my caloric intake lately. A LOT of trouble. And that's not like me. I keep getting hungrier and hungrier the more I eat. I don't buy into that "fake hunger feeling" - that is, I can recognize it and put it to bed. Now I'm weak, tired, stupid.
Recently I had temporarily switched from my Ezekiel sprouted grain muffins to Thomas' Light muffins (both for cost reasons, and they were unavailable for a few weeks).
I also started eating Morningstar Chik'n burgers (vegan) with kethcup.
I also bought fiber-added Polaner jam. It was sugar-free but with sucralose.
I have been adding honey to my hot tea.
And finally, I have been on a super GRAPE kick.
Not only have I been constantly hungry, but I feel like SHIT. In the last month I have gained 8 pounds on the scale. My stomach feels like it's filled with air and I'm popping out like a pregnant lady.
I can't wait to turn this eating 180 degrees - meaning that starts today, right now. :) I'll never give up fruit, it's my manna (I'm eating a lemon plum right now)... but nothing - NOTHING - is worse than this sick, clotted, sagging feeling I have from reintroducing all this sugar into my diet. And it's things the well-wishing dieter may not recognize: muffins, cereal, bread, ketchup. But it makes you SLOW. It makes you FAT. It makes you GASSY. It makes you SICK. I'm disgusted not by myself, but by how I feel. When I used to be satisfied for 4 hours on a single sprouted grain muffin and a tablespoon of cashew butter, now I'm falling asleep at my keyboard after 3 jam sandwiches, a cup of grapes, and a big bowl of Kashi cereal with soymilk. The culprit could not be more plainly obvious.
I can't wait to try nut butter in my oatmeal (steel cut oats + a splash of almond milk). But I can't say "nut butter" at work without 10 people giggling. But I have to admit... that chia seed pudding looks absolutely terrifying. :) I'll have to check it out.
Talk again soon.... :)
Oh man yeah! Each time I add a food back into my diet, something I haven't seen in years, I tend to eat a bit more of that food for a few months. I gain a couple of pounds in the process. Rice Krispies and rice noodles are my current problem. But then, the food becomes more routine and I'm able to keep my it down to the recommended serving size. Sugar used to be a big problem for me back when I had practically nothing in my diet before I got off Claritin and started exercising (no corn, wheat, milk, soy, nuts, canola, cottonseed oil, chocolate, or rice for me back then). But then I got a boyfriend (and now husband) and I couldn't just eat sugar in everything without being held accountable. Helpful diet for me, but it doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. :)I do notice that the more home-cooked food I eat, the better I'm able to regluate the suga' intake. Thanks for you comment on my last blog (I commented back). I'm feeling a lot better now.
Good blog!
This so speaks to my own experience...
I started dieting south beach style about a year ago, but didn't really get serious about it til like 6 months ago...I was never really fanatical about it, but one thing i've paid very careful attention to is sugar intake.
I've been a serious sugar addict - cakey products, chocolate, candy, i needed it on a daily basis. But i found if i could resist one day (no small feat!), day two was much easier, and by day three, if i could keep it up until the evening, i would be on track: my cravings would be almost completely gone, when i did crave, i would only need a few bites.
It seemed so opposite of what i had always thought: i thought sugars at night would be a bad idea, so i would eat them early, thinking i would spend the day working off those calories. But now that I've pushed myself to be much better in the morning (OJ is one of the worst things according to south beach), and only have sugars at night, my belly is so flat! Sugars in the morning keep the cravings going, but sugars at night let me sleep through the cravings. Timing has made a big difference for me.
seriously, i've gone from 144.3 to 120.8! And my belly is actually flat!!! And i don't crave the sugars anything like i used to. And when I do crave, I can still let myself indulge without horrific results...
Yes, from all of my reading around the south beach diet, and from my own personal experience, how your tummy looks is all about sugars! even something as simple as switching from carrots to broccoli can have an effect...good blog, and good luck!
(and I agree about switching to water, good advice!)
(oh, and btw, you look hot as shit, so i guess i should be saying pointless blog! but i certainly know how it is not being satisfied w/your shape, just had to throw the compliment in ;)
I'm going to write a post about my sugar addiction soon, but I realized during my elimination diet just how addicted I am. Like you, I eat really healthy and mostly unrefined sugar, but I definitely consume too much on a daily basis.
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