Experimenting with Quitting Sugar: Week 3

Sorry for the late round up, familial visits and sickness has put me on a bit of a delay (more on that in a moment).

So, week 3. How did it go?

Well... We got back from Paris, I had a minor run in with the snacks on the plane (a bit of sugar in them but the bag was so tiny it won't have pushed me over my mental limit), but so far so good, until bam, Tuesday I came down with some horrible sickness bug. Both The Beard and I weren't feeling great, and I also got a horrible cold on top of that, which is still lingering around.

While this didn't present much of a problem in terms of food (although my usual tactic of drinking a glass of OJ wasn't an option), medicines were also off limits, which has meant I've had to deal with this cold virtually unmedicated. No big deal you might think, but I get colds like nothing else. I won't go into gory details but suffice to say, hot drinks with decongestant are a big help, but they are also loaded with sugar.

What were the biggest challenges?

Having to take some cough medicine that was suspended in a sugar syrup at the weekend. By Sunday my chest was so tight and I couldn't breathe properly so I had to take something. Incidentally I read something a while back about how these cough medicines don't really do much, but they always seem to help me. I figured a temporary solution was to take what I had (no pharmacies open on Sunday) until Monday morning when I could go get something else that was sugar free.

Thankfully the pharmacist was able to help and while the medicine I have is not completely sugar free (it has raspberry juice to sweeten it), it is not as full of sugar as the one I was taking previously. I also have something else to help it work, and both seem to be helping enormously. I feel almost human again!

What benefits have you seen this week?

Well my skin has been pretty crappy this week, but not as bad as the last time I was ill, when I suddenly got a whole slew of cystic spots under my jaw. While I still have a couple of spots there they are not so deeply cystic as the ones before, and the spots on my cheek are probably down to PMS/my period, which I also had this weekend (always the way....). I've introduced grape seed oil into my skin care regime and simplified it further, and that seems to have had an impact as well.

Not much noticeable change in my weight/size either, but I haven't stepped on the scales to look. I do get a little bloating around my period so I expect I would have registed a gain if I had, but that will come off by the end of week 4. I've been eating out all weekend, so a gain wouldn't surprise me!

How does the next week look?


My family are here again this weekend, so there will be meals out again, but I managed this weekend just gone, so I can manage again! So on the sugar front I think I'm cool. But, not to be too complacent, I have decided to reduce my dairy consumption in the pursuit of skin. More on that to follow in a separate post!