Sunday, August 5, 2012

Climbing my own mountain

Who said being healthy was good for you? It's totally exhausting is what it is. Quitting smoking was hard, quitting sugar is almost just as hard.

Day 1 and 2 of sugar free living were not too bad and I figured I had it in the bag - bit of a headache which coincided with a migraine that started the morning of Day 1 but nothing major.

Day 3 woke up feeling okay, quite happy with the absence of hunger pangs during the day which usually has me eating nasty little snacks to keep me going. Appetite has decreased majorly, this giving up sugar is a piece of cake.

Then Friday afternoon, the end of day 3 and oh boy. The headache from hell descended on me. Driving home from work and I felt decidely crap, nauseous, dizzy - yech. I planted myself on the lounge because I felt so bad and dozed on and off on the lounge for about 4 hours with a headache that no painkiller could touch. Not like a migraine either.

Day 4 and today day 5 and the headache has been there but not as bad, it's definitely improved somewhat. Coffee intake has halved from 6-8 cups down to 3-4  which is possibly half the reason for the headaches. Energy levels are pretty low but I'm starting to come out the other side of feeling so yech!

Not one smidge of sugar has passed these lips since Wednesday morning. I did almost give in Friday night but only to get rid of the horrid headache. Quitting the sugar has been fine, it honestly hasn't bothered me, it's being aware of what has sugar in it and dealing with the headaches which has been bothersome.

The dwindling appetite and healthier eating will certainly have it's benefits, in fact I'm quite amazed by how much my appetite has balanced out. Who would have thought.

For example, just in case you've never given sugar much thought. One of my favourite things to eat was lime cheesecake flavoured yoghurt  - I mistakenly believed because it was yoghurt that it was healthy. For a small single serve I discovered it has 25.6grams of sugar per serving. Now if you consider the following fact:

Total sugars are shown in grams per serving, listed in the Nutrition Facts on the back of packets.  4 grams of sugar equals 1 teaspoon.

That means each 'healthy' tub of yoghurt I was having (at least one a day) was 6 teaspoons of sugar. That's a whole lot of sugar in something that I thought was healthy. I'm not a big sugar eater normally, in that I don't usually eat cake or lollies but even the 'innocent' things have sugar so is it any wonder that my body is a little bit stressed at the moment.

Well that's all my words for the moment, my next post should hopefully be sugar free, both my post content and my body because I'm totally over writing about how it's messing my body up and I'm sure you're over hearing about it..

Before I go, does anyone have any clues on de-toxing and how to help your body repair quicker? I'd love any tips that anyone has to share.

Cheers, Fi


8 comments:

  1. Wow, that is really surprising about the yogurt! I knew it was higher in sugar than it really should be for a healthy snack, but that is really gross. I will definitely be finding a different snack that has less sugar!

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    1. 'Gross' is definitely the best description I've heard, after all there's not many more than 6 teaspoons in a tub of yoghurt

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  2. that is surprising!!! and now... no yogurt. as to detox -- I buy a product from Wild Rose -- it's Canadian so I doubt you can get it there. I find it works -- health food stores are great for detox packages

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    1. I'm planning on doing a little bit of research with Aussie solutions hopefully - thanks.

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  3. I think lots of water and maybe green tea would be helpful. I'm not the best one to ask though because I suck down black tea with Equal and whole milk all day : )

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    1. I'm drinking more water and tea instead of as much coffee

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  4. Water, water and more water. I also heard water and a bit of lemon juice and cayenne pepper is a good detox. Never tried it though. I am so proud of you. And I knew that fact about yogurt which is why I rarely give it to the kids as a snack becasue it is not really as healthy as they make it seem. I have compared tons and tons of yogurts and even the healthiest ones still have tons of sugar. Sugar is so hard to get away from. Keep it up and keep us posted.

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    1. I hear you on the water and have been drinking heaps more. I was talking to my chiro yesterday and she's a health freak. She says any pot yoghurt is made with no added sugar and she uses dates, apples, coconut and agave to naturally sweeten. She says in Australia it's a brand called Jalna but not sure if that's available outside OZ.

      Learning so much

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