One Year Without Sugar

I was an addict. Sugar was my drug.

Most of my energy came from sugar. I would mix it in everything. Rice, milk, curd… even water.

Exactly one year ago, I stopped. Completely.

The beginning:

I used to read a lot of self-help books and articles. I probably read a thousand self-improvement posts on Quora and Medium. It was like porn. I would get excited for half an hour, then forget all about it.

I was sick and tired of this read-and-forget cycle. I wanted to follow something. Just one good advice.

On one of such days, I was reading Choose Yourself. I stopped midway, and wrote #1 on the palm of my left hand. Then I wrote NO SUGAR below it.   

However, most of the credit for this decision goes to this lecture by Dr Robert Lustig.

It was tough in the beginning. I would get cravings every now and then. Every such time, I had to look at my hand and remind myself of my vow. I wrote until #60. After that, I didn’t need any external motivation. The cravings stopped.

Here are some experience and things I have learned:

• Sugar is everywhere. They have hidden it inside everything. I had to check contents of everything I bought. They mix sugar even in salty products. On #2, I bought a chips packet. I checked its contents and never ate chips after that. You know why. Another example: Nestle’s 100 g milk powder contains about 50 grams of sugar. You already know the truth about soft drinks, packaged fruit juices, and energy drinks. They are just sugar dissolved in water with some additional flavours. So, I won’t talk about that.

• Sugar is highly addictive. I am sure 95 out of 100 humans can’t leave sugar. I tried experimenting with some friends and family members. None of them could do it for more than 30 days.

• Sugar is highly toxic. I am not going to explain why. You know how to use Google. If not, just watch this lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM.

• If you want to go without sugar, know in advance that it’s very tough. Our entire food economy is designed around sugar. You have to make yourself extremely strong, mentally and emotionally, to control the temptations. All of my favourite dishes contained sugar. Making peace with the fact that I will never get to eat them again wasn’t easy.

• More on the above points: Whenever I am making a long train journey, I have to either make alternative arrangements or go hungry for 25-30 hours. It’s impossible to find something on railway stations which doesn’t contain sugar. Plus, I don’t eat junk food too, so I’ve additional difficulties. Not only train journeys, travelling to other places isn’t easy too. One example: After 8 hours of uphill and downhill trekking in 40-degree temperature of mid-June, I was drained of all my energy. I needed some energy to keep myself from collapsing. I searched in around 50 shops and the only consumable thing I could find was bottled water.

• The society isn’t supportive. Sugar is such an integral part of our life that people can’t even think about leaving it. When people get to know about me, most think I’ve some medical problem. Some think I am insane. Others are just jealous because they are addicted and can’t leave it.

• If you leave sugar, you’ll automatically stop consuming 80% of the junk food out there.

• If you are interested in leaving sugar, find a reason bigger than your health. Its toxicity and addictiveness provide good motivation initially. But you’ll soon forget all that. So, find a unique reason that works for you.

That’s it for now. Will share more thoughts on this later.