Hey there,
I hope your first week of our April Sugar/Alcohol Free Challenge has been going well. Remember that this challenge is really intended to bring awareness to your eating habits so DON'T GIVE UP! If you have a set back, skip a day, started late, whatever it may be, try to learn from the experience and then press on.
One thing I learned this week, is that it is really difficult to eat out on this challenge, even when you think you're eating somewhere for a healthy meal. I went to get sushi totally forgetting that sushi rice has added sugar! Sushi is one of my go-to meals when I want something fresh, light and nourishing, so it was a great realization for me to make.
What have you learned? Was there a food you were surprised to realize had excess sugar in it? Have you been surprised about the way that Sugars are labeled on foods?
How is your body responding? Are you sleeping better without that late night sugar spike? Or waking up fresher without that evening class of wine?
I have created a Discussion platform you can join to answer these questions, or get inspiration from others. You can find it HERE.
As promised, I wanted to make my comment on artificial sweeteners and why we are avoiding them as well in this challenge. Part of the goal is to help become less desensitized to sweet flavors, so that when you do bring sugar back again, a little bit will taste really sweet and be enough.
Artificial sweeteners are typically 200 to 600 times sweeter than sugar. They stimulate your taste buds, go to your brain, affect your hormones and slow your metabolism. Even the most naturally derived artificial sweeteners are still ADDICTIVE. They have a tendency to be even more addictive than sugar itself because they are tantalizing without being at all satisfying and can cause you to get hungry, eat more throughout the day and develop diabetes. That isn't even going into some of the studies showing links between chemical sweeteners and other irreversible diseases in the body.
Take a breath, remember that every moment is a moment that you can reset your focus. All is not lost if you make a mistake. If you learn something about yourself and gain awareness during these next 24 days, that is a great start to creating a better relationship with your body and how you decide to nourish it.
Take good care!
Love always,
Dr. Evelyn
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