8 Week No Sugar Challenge – Day 1
I have begun an 8 week challenge to cut out sugar from my diet. Why? For a multitude of reasons, but no – it’s not a New Year’s resolution. This will become a lifestyle choice, whereby I will (eventually) simply no longer desire sugar (or foods containing sugar). I do not plan on forever depriving myself of chocolate or cocktails, because – let’s face it – that will never happen! A challenge, however, is a great way to get your mind in the right frame of mind to make some drastic modifications to your lifestyle, and I found the inspiration for this 8 week sugar-free challenge on Sarah Wilson’s blog (see the I Quit Sugar section). I will keep you posted each week on how I’m feeling and how I progress, what I eat, how I work out, and of course, what recipes I find to make the process all worthwhile.
How did my first day go?
Surprisingly promising! I started my day with a BodyRock workout, I love them because they are high intensity but only 12 minutes! Then got on with the rest of my day.
Breakfast: Poached eggs on a bed of baby spinach and pastrami + one cup of green tea
Note: I love salt and pepper!
Morning snack: Soy latte and a (ONE) handful of almonds
Lunch: Smoked salmon with steamed vegetables and a homemade dressing
Notes: I used 100 gm of salmon, broccoli, carrot and green beans. The dressing was made with ½ teaspoon of Dijon mustard, ½ teaspoon olive oil, and 1 ½ teaspoons soy sauce.
Afternoon snack: Yoghurt and fruit
Notes: I used 200gm of Jalna Premium Vanilla yoghurt, two strawberries and passionfruit.
Dinner: Leftover Thai green curry
Notes: This uses white rice, ordinarily I would use brown. It contains tiger prawns, broccoli, green capsicum, beans, buk choy, coconut milk and a Thai green curry paste (from a tin).
After dinner snack: Rockmelon and honeydew melon (2 small cubes of each)
Notes from the day overall?
It was my first day back at work from the Christmas/New Year break and I can honestly say my energy levels were good. I was not hungry during the day, but went to bed hungry. I just kept thinking about breakfast the next day! Bring on Day 2!
Click here to see how I went with Week 1…
Inspired Mood 
Your blog is lovely. Could you post the recipe of Leftover Thai green curry? We have started our sugar free diet, me, my husband, my son of 3 years old and the baby I’m carrying. Thanks for sharing.
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Hi Valentina,
What a lifestyle change for the whole family! I hope you continue to find inspiration to continue on this path.
The recipe for my Thai Green Curry is here: https://inspiredmood.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/special-thai-green-curry-with-prawns-and-rice-noodles/
If you are off seafood during pregnancy, you could replace the prawns with 500gm of cooked and diced chicken or beef or lamb.
Enjoy – and thanks for your comment on my blog!
🙂
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When you say sugar-free, I was under the impression you would be omitting fruit, but I see you didn’t. I am following Jorge Cruise’s new diet Happy Hormones Slim Belly and that diet calls for a completely sugar free 2 days and then a limited amount of sugar the remaining 5. So those 2 days I don’t eat any fruit and basically no carbs. Where did you find the yogurt that you have in the photo? It looks yummy. I like the recipes you’ve chosen here and hope to duplicate them for myself, because the recipes in Jorge’s book are nice, but fairly limiting.
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I haven’t heard of Jorge Cruise but I’ll check it out. The only sugar that you’ll find in these meal plans is from whole foods – like fruit. But only 2 pieces per day, max. Even the yoghurt I use is sugar free (the one in the picture is Jalna Greek Yoghurt, pot set). I think if you’re going to make a lifestyle change for the better you need to keep it simple and realistic but interesting and totally tasty!
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Started 2 weeks ago, feeling good and definitely believe it could be a life changing move to reduce sugar levels! Using lots of coconut, fresh, shavings, oil, milk and drinking coconut water.
Making my own granola as per Sarah Wilson’s recipe and I’m fortunate as I adore Fish and seafood!
Already removed the craving for sugar, just need to step up on the exercise.
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I had Sarah Wilson’s Coco-Nutty Granola for breakfast this morning 🙂 If you want to up the exercise but don’t know where you’ll find the time, start with thedailyhiit.com or bodyrock.tv – there are 12 minute workouts in there and you will be surprised how hard you can work in 12 mins and the results you’ll see!
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Hi Kate, thanks so much for laying out your entire sugar free process! I love that you’ve put down everything you ate as well.
I’m currently in the midst of my own sugar free experiment & it’s going really well. In this weeks post I gave a shout out to you! Hope that brings you lots of new readers 🙂
xo Elise
P.S – Link to the post is here http://www.elisemcdowell.com/2014/02/sugar-free-experiment-week-5.html
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You could definitely see your enthusiasm in the article you write.
The sector hopes for even more passionate writers like you who aren’t afraid
to mention how they believe. At all times go after your
heart.
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Very good blog! Do you have any suggestions for aspiring writers?
I’m planning to start my own blog soon but I’m a little lost
on everything. Would you recommend starting with a free platform
like WordPress or go for a paid option? There are so many options out there that I’m totally confused ..
Any tips? Cheers!
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Hi Erick,
I’ll reply to you personally via email, but in the meantime your comment inspired me to write this post https://inspiredmood.wordpress.com/2014/05/15/one-piece-of-advice-for-bloggers-write-what-you-know/
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Thank you for the wonderful feedback. Your comment inspired me to write this post http://bit.ly/1iOKzAF
Since you are just starting out, I would definitely encourage you to try one of the free platforms first. This will give you a chance to play with the way things look and feel with ease, and practice writing regularly. The great thing about WordPress too is that your blog may come up in users’ WordPress feeds (on the app). And because so many people use WordPress, it will help increase your chances of being discovered by new audiences. Overall, WordPress is very user-friendly and there are some great forums online to help you with any questions you might have. Through WordPress you also have the option to pay for upgrades that allow for greater customisation of your site. I hope this is helpful.
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So gald I found your blog – I have been sugar free but not carb free for over two weeks and I have put on 3lbs – I think the carbs are the problem I will have to have a rethink.
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I’m glad I found this – currently also trying out a no sugar challenge!
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I hope it’s a great resource for you 🙂
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