It's been almost 4 months now since I gave up refined sugar. I stopped eating it cold turkey because I was tired of being sick all of the time. I'm hypoglycemic and any intake of sugar (or caffeine) spurs a battle in my pancreas between my blood sugar and my insulin. Having what I call a "glucose attack", when your blood sugar gets really really low, is the pits. First you feel faint, then you get shaky, then your hands start to sweat, then you begin to sweat all over and eventually, if you don't eat anything to bring your blood sugar back up, you can pass out and go into a glucose coma. All this happens when you have too much insulin and not enough sugar in your system. Normal logic would lead you to believe that you should eat more sugar to prevent this. But actually sugar induces your body to produce more insulin which stays around even after your blood sugar crashes.So I gave up all white sugar, brown sugar and high fructose corn syrup But boy was it difficult to do. We live in a sugar-hungry world and every which way you turn there are sweet temptations just waiting for you. My biggest loss was ice cream. I've tried so many no sugar added ice cream products that were just bleh! I had a particularly bad incident with no sugar added Peanut Butter Fudge Swirl ice cream. Sounded good, but was simply terrible. Recently, upon a co-worker's recommendation I tried Skinny Cow. To my surprise, their products were really good. I love Skinny Cow's Fudgsicles and Mint Ice Cream and Chocolate Cookie sandwiches (see poorly taken picture above). They are sweetened with Splenda (my sweetener of choice) and while they still have sugar, it's the natural sugar of the milk and the cream and not overly refined cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup. What a godsend. Now I don't feel so deprived of my favorite treat!
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3 comments:
hey raquelle
my father in law is diabetic.
he has to deal with that stuff
all the time! it's the pits.
have you lost a lot of weight
since you have given up sugars?
just curious. i use splenda in everything. too bad they don't
use it in the chicken nachos at
little mexico!
have a great week
kelly
Good for you, for giving it up. Sugar is poison anyway; something NONE of us need. Splenda is also my choice of sweetener - it's great isn't it!
Kelly,
No, haven't lost much weight. Sugar fills you up and water makes you eat more (that's what I've discovered), so I find I eat the same amount of calories. Although, I'm trying to work on that.
Bev,
It's definitely a poison. I felt like I was addicted to sugar. I even had withdrawl symptoms and nightmares at the beginning of my no-sugar diet. But now with Splenda, I hardly miss the other white stuff.
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