I couldn't even eat tomatoes
I know I should eat less sugar. It’s addictive, bad for my skin and can make me feel sleepy, shaky and horrible. Countless books and documentaries warn us of the danger of sugar and its links to diseases – John Yudkin’s Pure White and Deadly, The Secrets of Sugar or even Daisy Lowe’s sugar free cookbook – Sweetness and Light.
But recently, the one everyone’s mentioning is Gary Taube’s book, Case Against Sugar. He talks about sugar like a drug, calling it “the tobacco of the new millennium: backed by powerful lobbies, entrenched in our lives, and making us very sick indeed.” And it’s not just about mood slumps, weight gain or bad skin either. He believes sugar is responsible for high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and even Alzheimer’s.
My diet isn’t particularly unhealthy, but I do eat a lot of fruit, cereal and the occasional chocolate bar. If this regular part of my diet is supposedly so detrimental to my wellbeing, I wanted to see if eradicating it completely would make me feel as amazing as people make out. To really notice a difference, I’d have to cut out the “secret sugars” too. No bread, no pasta, no fruit – even carrots and tomatoes have sugar in them.
Day one
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs
Lunch: Black quinoa and goats cheese
Dinner: Vegetarian chilli (without tomatoes), lettuce, feta cheese
Snacks: Celery sticks and sugar free peanut butter
It’s hard to avoid sugar when it’s in almost everything. Even the pre-made salads from shops have sugary dressings, or things with natural sugars like carrots, potatoes or tomatoes. By 2pm I was having the withdrawal symptoms Taubes had talked about, similar to nicotine withdrawal, so I was tired and irritable. I had sugar cravings all day, and decided that even more unhealthy cigarettes and coffee were the best distraction. That evening, I realised there’s barely anything you can buy in the shops to eat so pre-made a load of vegetarian chilli to eat throughout the week. There was probably more interesting meals I could make if I’d had more time, but I’d got home late and didn’t have the energy.
Day two
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, kale
Lunch: Veggie chilli, lettuce
Dinner: Octopus rings
Snacks: Plain popcorn, celery, sugar free peanut butter from a spoon x 1 million
I was already replacing one addiction with another. I was drinking way more coffee than ever, and my social smoking had turned into at least five a day. I also found out in some cruel twist of fate that even cigarettes have sugar in them. Apparently the tobacco is bathed in a sugary solution to make the smoke less irritable. Oh, great.
People say drinking loads of water and green tea stops sugar cravings, but you know what, those people are wrong. Instead, while colleagues passed chocolate around the desk, I ate peanut butter (it was sugar free OK) from a spoon. It was probably ten times more calorific, but I was too sleepy and hungry to care.
That evening I went to the pub for a friends birthday, and the only thing I could drink was a vodka and soda water. It’s grim without the lime. Because I’d barely eaten that week I was drunk after two, craving the chips and pasta everyone else was eating. The only thing I could have on the menu was some plain squid rings, which I specially requested were made without sugar. I could see it in the waiters eyes, I sounded like an idiot.
Day three
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs and kale
Lunch: Roast chicken, broccoli salad, spinach
Dinner: Cauliflower rice, Salmon, home-made pesto.
Snacks: Nuts, celery and cheese.
I’d become as dull as the food I was eating. “Do you know how much sugar parsnips have in them?!”, I’d say to my friends as they innocently ate their delicious sugary lunch. I’d become a real bitch, raising my eyebrows as someone brought another packet of biscuits, probably because I couldn’t stand the temptation. I’d moan about my sugar-free week to anyone I bumped into, telling them “how much sugar is in, literally, everything” and how I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I could tell nobody cared, but sugar was all I could think about.
I went to a friends for dinner, and had to warn her before that I couldn’t have anything with sugar in. She did pretty well and made some fancy rice out of cauliflower, which was actually really good. Then I spoke some more about sugar.
Day four
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs and kale
Lunch: Chilli and black quinoa
Dinner: More fucking veggie chilli
Snacks: Nuts, celery
By now, I thought I’d be a whole new woman – glowing, leaping from bed with energy and sworn against sugar forever. But in reality, I still felt the same. My sugar cravings were less of a problem, it was mainly carbs I missed. I don’t even really know what gluten is, but I really, really wanted it.
But there were some minor positive changes by this point. I was actually waking up before my 7am alarm which has never happened before. I was still pretty tired and irritable though, and going to a gym class without my normal smoothie before was a struggle.
Day five
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs and kale
Lunch: Pret crayfish and rocket salad (without the dressing)
Dinner: Sashimi, crab, edamame beans, baked avocado, tuna tatare salad, aubergine
Snacks: Almonds, fried chicken
Still so bored. But despite the cigarettes and coffee, my skin was looking great. I was also getting fuller quicker, probably because I’d shrunk my stomach by eating nothing all week, but at least I wasn’t hungry anymore.
I was going for dinner with a friend that evening and he must have thought I was such a princess. Not realising he’d already pre-booked a gin making experience for us, I’d warned him I wasn’t eating sugar so he had to cancel and find somewhere else. I sat there sipping my boring af vodka-soda instead of the insane cocktails on the menu, flipping through the pages to see what I could get away with eating. Yeah aubergine and avocado have a collective 10.5g of sugar per 100gs, but I just couldn’t bring myself to cause any more fuss.
I met some friends at a house party afterwards and obviously I had to drop sugar into every single conversation. Already wasted from my three vodka-sodas, it was so hard to resist the crisps and birthday cake that seemed to be everywhere I looked. At the end of the night we went to a chicken shop, and I ate a piece of chicken.
Day six
Breakfast: A bag of plain mixed nuts
Lunch: Huge bag of plain popcorn
Dinner: Vegetarian sausages, sugar free rye bread and scrambled eggs
Snacks: Sugar free rye bread and butter
Being hungover without sugar or carbs made it the hardest day yet. I woke up late to meet some friends in London, so had a coffee and left the house. I was starving so had to find something to eat quickly while I was out, and settled for a bag of unsalted mixed nuts from a corner shop. They were grim.
Day seven
Do you even care anymore because I don’t
Today was the first day I hadn’t been out doing things, which made things harder. It must be because I naturally go for sweet things out of boredom, and having nothing to do all day made me think about it so much more. I had a friend round for dinner, I cooked her a boring meal of garlic chickpeas which we ate during an equally boring conversation about sugar.
First day back to eating sugar
I wish I could say giving up sugar was incredible and absolutely changed my life, but that would be a huge exaggeration. While I didn’t notice a drastic difference, I did generally feel better. My skin was clearer, I’d lost some weight, I was slightly more alert and I didn’t crave sweet foods as much.
Instead of being sensible and introducing sugar back into my diet gradually, I went strait for a cupcake. I don’t know whether it was a placebo effect, but half an hour later I felt horrible – tired, sluggish and with a headache that took ages to go away. That evening I went out for drinks and ordered some chips and garlic bread, and the same thing happened again.
This week made me realise cutting out all sugar is unrealistic, difficult and most of all incredibly boring. But it’s also made me realise how addicted to sugar I was, refined sugar at least, and the effect it actually has on me. I certainly won’t be cutting sugar completely out of my diet, but from now on I’ll definitely be cutting back.