Reducing sugar intake

I have a sweet tooth and find it hard to resist sweet things but, amazingly, no longer have sugar in drinks except half a spoonful in tea first thing and one spoon in my one cup of coffee a day. I have rich tea biscuits to (once a day) but when I long for something sweet will have a Jaffa cake/brunch bar.
My dear sister has always said about weight gain, you don't go to bed weighing 10 stone and wake up weighing 20 stone-it creeps up and when you notice that creep (with your clothes) just "wind your neck in for a few days"!
As for getting used to the difference, again a long time ago, DH had high BP so we cut out salt-don't use it to cook with and don't add it to food. The first couple of weeks were hard but now we don't notice it at all-except when eating elsewhere and salt has been added! So hang on in there!

Good luck

1. Yes will have l or a gin and slimline tonic.
2. Will have fish and skip the chips.
3. Curry I love but have with cauliflower rice.
4. You make many vegetables into vegetable pasta by spiralising it or now many supermarkets sell spiralised veg.

Well tomorrow starts my changed eating patterns as I will be knocking back the steroids for the first time.

I'm so grateful for all the helpful info, but a few questions have come to mind.

1. If you go out to a pub what do you think ? Do you ever have a glass of wine?

2. Do you ever have fish and chips in a restaurant ?

3. Have you given up curry as rice and naan bread must be a no no ?

4. What replaces pasta ?

Over to you.

I have had psoriasis for years but it had got very bad and I am not keen on using steroid creams. Mysister sent me a book- Arthritis, Allergy, Nutrition & the environment by Dr. John Mansfield. This contains a diet that cuts sugar down to a minimum and combines it with encouraging a healthy gut. Bring on the good bacteria!
It wasn't easy but , readers I did it. I lost weight, felt better and more energetic and my psoriasis got so much better.
It was a bit of a struggle at first to eat unsweetened rhubarb and yoghurt for breakfast but now it's one of my favourite things. Your palate adjusts fairly quickly and now I find that although I eat sweet things as a treat I don't NEED them.
Gin and vodka don't have any sugar! So a gin and fever tree tonic isn't too horrendous.

One cuppa with one biscuit a day is probably OK. But if you get to twenty or thirty cuppas a day then you're probably on the road to ruin.

I find all this information about food very confusing!!!!

We were told years ago that pasta rice brown bread was could for us as it cut out fats, now we are told it is ok to eat butter as the soft spreads have palm oil in them.

Eggs were limited also but now apparently they are ok.

I try to eat healthy plenty of fruit salads and vegs. Lean meat and fish although that is usually tinned.

We try to have red meat ie Liver or braising steak once a week for iron

I dont buy crisps or sweets and limit cake baking to special occasions ( i really miss my baking sessions) but neither my husband or i can give up our biscuits. Digestives for him and Rich tea for me, are we really that bad to enjoy those with our cuppas????

Yes. Whitewave it does matter. I'm with you on low carb 99% of the way, but I have tried and failed to give up sweeteners in my coffee. I only have one or two good coffees a day, but I do love it strong and sweet.

I can resist cakes, biscuits, etc. but this is my one failing and please don't ask me to give that up

That should be wean!

We followed the book written by the Dr on Trust me (can't remember his name) and husbands blood sugar level reached normal in about 6 weeks. It is worth going for it and does it matter if you don't take sweeteners? Much easier to seen yoursel off any sweet stuff. You don't get so hungry not eating sweet stuff.

Shysal I wouldn't take that Trust Me programme as definitive. it was carried out on a very limited number of people. Not all of them showed that 'spike' reaction and it hasn't been duplicated in any other 'experiments'.

Here is a list of books I have read that I have found interesting and informative.

I've gone down form a size 20 trousers to a size 14. eating plenty of real food

Sweet Poison, Why sugar makes us fat. - David Gallespie.

The Sweet Poison Diet Plan, How to kick the habit and loose weight - David Gallespie

The 2016 British Sugar Free Shoppers Guide – David Gallespie. I haven't seen this book. Or the 2014 edition.

Pure, White and Deadly, How sugar is killing us and what you can do to stop it. – John Yudkin

Youtube videos.

I 've watched the 2 Robert Lustig videos long but interesting, and the begining of The Secrets of Sugar. I haven't looked at the other videos.

Best Documentary 2015. The Secrets of Sugar. Science Channel National Geographic

Robert Lustig – Talks at Google - Recomended for you.

Sugar the Bitter Truth - Robert Lustig. UCTV

The Sugar Film - Michael Legner

The Truth about Sugar. New Docmentary 2015 Science fiction Doc.

Sugar Documentary – One of the best yet. Sugar Lump

How to Kill Your Sugar Addiction Naturally - DrJosh Axe

The secret of Sugar, the Fifth Estate CBS News.

Price of Sugar Documentary . DoUSEEwhat EYEC

I have a friend who is a nutritionist who always recommends alkalising the diet, I.e. No meat, dairy or sugar - which is sometimes known as the anti-cancer diet. Cancer loves sugar.
I alkalised my diet a few years ago and the weight dropped off and I felt a lot better for it, though I'm not extremist about it.

I think the best way of seeing how much sugar we eat is to carefully read the information on the products we buy. I read the amount of sugar contained in each 100g of the product. If possible I keep to under 3.8g per 100 grams. Be careful sometimes the label is recording the amount of sugar per biscuit or a smaller amount.

You will find the less sugar you eat the less you will want. Good luck in reducing your sugar intake.

On the 'Trust Me I'm a Doctor' TV programme they mentioned studies which showed that artificial sweeteners (aspartame, saccharine etc) caused the blood sugar levels to spike higher than sugar does! Natural sweeteners like Stevia, which is from a plant, don't cause this.
I was always under the impression that a calorie free fizzy drink was OK once in a while, but that is not so!

I watched the 'Hemsley and Hemsley' healthy eating programme last night, it looks promising for low carb eaters.

'HALF SPOON' FROM ANY SUPERMARKET

I have been going to Slimming World and have lost over a stone bringing my BMI down to normal and my blood pressure likewise. I can thoroughly recommend it. Easy to follow, not like a diet at all and you can give guests food cooked along Slimming World lines and they will never know they are eating "diet food". I get plenty of support at the weekly group and once you get to your target weight it's free!¬ I'm lucky in that I don't much care for sweet things, my downfall is cheese.You can eat anything you want on SW regime, you just have to eat some stuff in moderation; one biccy with your coffee won't hurt (unless you have lots of coffee breaks. Good luck anyway NanKate. BTW, I don't have a financial interest in SW

Yes. And all of us little girls. (sugar and spice...)

Sugar beet is carbohydrate, but one that is high in sugar and easily processed to refine the sugar out. All plants will contain sugars to a greater or lesser extent.

I was surprised when using organic rice malt syrup that it was made from just rice and no other ingredients. It showed me that carbohydrates are sugar. Its delicious and very nice on buckwheat pancakes (no carbs) but I guess the rice malt syrup makes up for the no carbs in the buckwheat pancakes it's not fair.

Fat free yougurt is the lowest in sugar- never drink fruit juice it's full of sugars - eat the fruit whole as then it releases the engergy slowly. It's hard to work out as food companies will do anything to trick you into thinking you are eating healthily ?!

Nankate you have to be careful with these books that say they are sugar free because there was a report done to prove that they are not as sugar free as they are advertising. My daughter lives in Australia and she purchased the well known one that was all over the media by a well known chef/ author and when dissected the additives she was suggesting you use instead were worse than the sugar itself.Unfortunately the recipes without sugar are fiddley and you have to purchase many alternatives to get the recipe correct.If you don't want to go down that route it would be easier to read the traffic light symbols they have on the food you buy. Beware fructose in fruit is high as well and it's a form of sugar. Good luck

Thanks for all the above advice. I have recently been told that I am type 2 diabetic, so have cut out white bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, alcohol, sweets. I make my own wholemeal/rye bread and eat lean meat and fish, cottage cheese and lots of veg - which my carbs and fibre come from. I've also upped my activity to walks, zumba twice an week and I play badminton on fridays. It is difficult to keep down to 2 portions of fruit a day as I love it! I'm determined to get my cholesterol and Hb1Ac down to normal levels by my next blood tests at the end of July. Keep the advice coming please!

I was diagnosed with diabetes2 when in my eighties. Started off with two tablets a day then reduced to one now am on one half a tablet a day. I read all the labels and if the sugar content is too high then I discard it. I trust the manufacturers to tell the truth about the sugar content. I order on line and therefore have plenty of time to read all the ingredients. I do get a craving for a bit of sweetness sometimes and keep a bag of jelly babies and its surprising what one or two will do to ease the craving. One problem is you can get too low but my doctor gives me a blood test on a regular basis and has been ok so far. Like all problems you can only do your best.

You could download the sugarsmart app,that will tell you how many cubes of sugar are in a produce( if it's been scanned previously )
I just wish producers would put how many cubes or teaspoons of sugar are in the food,then we would all know at a glance