Marygrace Taylor is an everyday contributor to EatClean.com and a contract well being author and recipe developer for Glamour, Redbook, Prevention, Ladies’s Well being, Health, Vegetarian Instances, and different nationwide titles. She has many self-taught travails in clear consuming and likes to dwell wholesome—besides when she’s stuffing her face with fudge brownies.

Marygrace Taylor

We’ve all learn the tales the place a sugar addict chronicles his or her makes an attempt to cease consuming all candy stuff, solely to feign shock when stated addict discovers that each packaged meals merchandise beneath the solar incorporates added sugar. After which, she or he should overdramatize the withdrawal signs. Relaxation assured, that is not that story. (Lose as much as 15 kilos WITHOUT weight-reduction plan with Eat Clear to Get Lean, our 21-day clean-eating meal plan)

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As somebody who writes about diet for a residing, I’m properly conscious that added sugar lurks in every thing from tomato sauce to protein bars. It’s one of many causes I purchase few processed meals and why I’m capable of preserve my added sugar consumption to a median of 6 teaspoons per day. (In case you’re curious, it comes largely from placing honey in plain yogurt, in addition to a couple of darkish chocolate chips after lunch, and—my Achilles heel—a small ice cream bar after dinner.) On occasional deal with days, I could get slightly extra sugar, within the type of Ben & Jerry’s or a fudge brownie.

I’ve lengthy admired individuals who’ve give up added sugar utterly and envied the laundry record of enhancements they cited after ditching the toxin. Lastly, my curiosity received the perfect of me: What if I—somebody at a traditional weight, who already eats fairly healthily—stopped consuming added sugar, what advantages would I achieve? I made a decision to chop the stuff out of my weight loss plan for two weeks to seek out out. 

For those who’re into clear consuming, going a measly 14 days with out added sugar won’t sound like an extended enterprise. However for somebody who enjoys a couple of, occasional sweets as a lot as I do, it felt like a god-awful eternity of deprivation. My morning yogurt and fruit wasn’t as scrumptious with out the small swirl of honey. My do-it-yourself tomato sauce, which usually will get a spoonful of granulated sugar, tasted flat. Changing my nightly ice cream bar deal with with alternate options like dried figs or a pomegranate simply didn’t lower it. (Fruit is incredible, however to me, it’ll by no means be dessert.) Sriracha, which incorporates added sugar, was now not an choice to squirt into scrambled eggs or veggie bowls. And my weekly cocktail—an Previous Usual, full with a sugar dice and maraschino cherry—was a no-go.

MORE: 5 Methods to Strip Sugar from Dessert

The worst half was Friday nights, when my husband and I virtually all the time share a dessert. Normally it’s ice cream from the aforementioned Ben & Jerry’s or cookies from the Italian market down the road, however clearly, these treats had been now forbidden. Not desirous to miss out on our custom utterly, I attempted making a Paleo-style espresso cake sweetened solely with pureed apples. Which, in truth, would’ve been nice for breakfast smeared with some almond butter. However as a dessert, it was dismal.

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Quitting sugar didn’t appear to supply any magical bodily results, both. My pores and skin, weight, and power ranges all stayed the identical. This was more and more disappointing. (A lot sacrifice for thus little achieve!) Once I requested NYU medical affiliate professor of diet, Lisa Sasson, about it, she wasn’t stunned: Advantages are largely accorded to not clear eaters like me (and also you, maybe), however to common People who absorb as many as 25 teaspoons of added sugar per day. In the event that they reduce to the American Coronary heart Affiliation’s suggestions of 6 or 9 every day teaspoons of added sugar for girls or males, respectively, they’d see some adjustments. I used to be already on the AHA’s really helpful degree of 6 teaspoons, so reducing right down to zero wasn’t going to get me amazingly clear pores and skin or a six pack.

That realization was large. I used to be depriving myself solely to be at 0 teaspoons of added sugar. And if slightly little bit of sugar contributed to my happiness? Properly, that’s price one thing, too. “We shouldn’t overlook the pleasure that we get from meals,” Sasson says. “Utterly villainizing added sugar is stepping into excessive territory, and for what? To dwell three weeks longer?”

That was the (candy) music to my ears on a Friday evening on the finish of my 14-day added-sugar ban, as I dug into my first dessert in 2 weeks: a slice of do-it-yourself pumpkin pie with contemporary whipped cream. I savored it slowly—and thanked the sugar gods my experiment was over.