One Week Sugar Free

Hello!

So when my head hit the pillow tonight I'll be concluding my first week of being sugar free as part of my 50 Days No Sugar challenge.  That's certainly a milestone so I thought I'd do a quick round up of my findings.

Sleeping better - BIG bonus.  Sleep is so important to me at the moment because it really effects my ability to cope and my state of well being.  So being sugar free has already paid off, on that point alone.

My moods have been less of a roller coaster, and I'm not getting that mid-afternoon slump quite as severely.  I still feel tired, but I make a cup of peppermint tea and it seems to perk me back up and I'm fine for the rest of the day.  

I'm hungry all the time!  This isn't anything unusual, but I'm really hanging out for the promised reduced appetite.  This week, since I've been really truly sugar free I have been ravenous!  I stopped counting my calories and just ate when I needed to - go to snacks were pretty much some pistachios or a few slices of chicken I had pre-cooked handy in the fridge.  

Frozen fruit has been pretty much my saviour in the evenings.  I've been cutting mangoes into squares or slicing kiwi fruit and freezing them ahead of time so after dinner when the sugar monster makes an appearance, I grab a small portion from the freezer.  Why have I never done this before?!  Seriously so much flavour - I am converted for life on this one. 

Half a mango, frozen & delicious & only like 60 calories.  

My other big sugary vice was drinking iced tea.  The Liptons ice tea is only about 135 calories for a whole 500mls, so I was being pretty lax with it and drinking it pretty regularly, only a bottle a day but still, when I consider the ingredients are pretty much water, tea and SUGAR, I really was kidding myself that this was ok to drink so often!  I seriously wouldn't have even a portion of that amount of sugar in a cup of normal tea - in fact, I don't take sugar in tea or coffee normally at all.

So now I've done something I really should have done ages ago, and started making my own iced tea - with not a hint of sugar or artificial sweetener.  So good!  This particular one was made using a berry tea with a squeeze of lemon.  Perfect!  

Iced Tea - Sugar Free!

The other big surprise was yoghurt - seriously, I consider yoghurt pretty healthy for a snack or breakfast, and nearly every single brand I looked at had sugar in it!  Finally settled on Jalna yoghurt and adding my own fruit and some nuts and seeds instead of muesli for breakfast.

So now I seem to have  the sugar cravings under control, and my body's constant demand for food seems to have subsided a little, this week I'll be able to ramp my training back up and really tighten things up on the nutrition side.  

I've already written out my nutrition plan, my training for the week is locked in and I'm feeling really positive.  With one week sugar free done and dusted, the next 43 days don't seem as daunting as they did this time last week!