Welcome

Welcome to the Sugar-Free challenge. I have set up this blog as a challenge to my friends, clients, colleagues and anyone else who wishes to try and live 30 days sugar free. This is not a diet program, nutritional counselling system or weight loss idea. It's simply a way to make anyone who takes up the mantle of the sugar free challenge more aware of the things they eat and the pervasiveness of simple sugars and their derivatives in our modern society.
Best of luck on the challenge!

The rules of the Sugar-Free Challenge

I like games where the rules are simple and concise. Let's keep it that way. Here are the basic rules of the sugar free challenge:

Duration of the challenge:

  • 30 days

What are you not allowed to eat:

  • Sugars
    • sucrose, fructose, glucose, maltose, or any other simple carbohydrate with a name ending in "ose"
    • Dehydrated cane syrup, cane sugar, dehydrated rice syrup, date sugar
    • Rapadura, turbinado, sucanat or Florida crystals
  • Sugar-alcohols
    • maltitol, xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol or any other product with a name ending in "itol"
  • Fruit juices
    • natural, from concentrate, freshly squeezed, you name it - if it is called juice it's off the list
    • watch out for concentrated fruit juice as an sweetener ingredient
  • Dried or dehydrated fruit
  • Syrups
    • cane syrup, rice syrup, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup (sometimes listed as HFCS on ingredient panels , confectioner's syrup, treacle, molasses, golden syrup, honey, sorghum syrup, malted grain syrup, agave syrup, invert sugar syrup
  • Artificial sweeteners
    • Nutra-sweet, Sucralose, Aspartame, Acesulfame potassium, Saccharin, Neotame, Stevia, Licorice extract (Glycyrrhizin), Isomalt
  • Any foods containing the above mentioned ingredients

What are you allowed to eat:

Anything else.

    Sign up for the Sugar-Free Challenge

    Why a sugar free challenge?

    I started this sugar-free challenge as a trial for myself several months ago. I wanted to see how difficult it would be to live one whole month without sugars of any kind. I also wanted to see how such a change in my eating habits would affect my health and fitness.

    Several members of my extended family have contracted Type 2 diabetes, without having any of the typical obesity, poor food habits or inactivity often associated with this disorder. When I had the chance of working with Roche Pharma Canada (makers of the ACCU-CHEK blood glucose monitors) on a project to help people suffering with diabetes learn how to increase their physical activity, I jumped at the opportunity.

    In the course of the project (which produced in a DVD), I learned how to test my blood glucose levels, and started testing them on my own. I noticed that though my blood glucose values fell within the normal range, I was almost always at the higher end of the acceptable levels. After undergoing some more stringent clinical tests which alleviated my fears of Type 2 Diabetes, I still thought that a more careful approach to my personal nutrition was in order. I decided to try to eliminate simple sugars from my diet for 30 days as a test to see how my body would react.

    The results on a personal health level and on a social level were at once surprising and enlightening. Try the challenge and see for yourself.

    Sunday, February 8, 2009

    Rats show the perils of sugar addiction, researchers say

    An interesting report from CBC Science and Technology News appeared this past Dec 10 2008. In it reporters spoke to research psychologist Bart Hoebel and his colleagues at Princeton University:

    "Sugar can be addictive, wielding power over the brains of lab animals much like a craving for drugs, according to Princeton University scientists who say their findings may eventually have implications for the treatment of humans with eating disorders."

    The report goes on to show how sugar induces patterns of behavious similar to those seen with drugs traditionally seen as addictive. Such signs as increased intake, withdrawal, cravings and relapse are evident even in rats when exposed to sugar in their diet.

    Check out the original article HERE

    I think that this puts a new spin on the Sugar Free Challenge - perhaps we should institute a 12-step program - though I can't quite see myself asking my friends for forgiveness for the way I treated them because I have a sugar problem (the 8th step of Acloholics Anonymous is "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all."...Perhaps a support group is the way to go...
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