So a group of us just finished our Valentine’s No Sugar Challenge that ended yesterday. I’m not gonna lie. It wasn’t easy cheesy and it wasn’t Great Great Chocolate Cake .. literally – no cake of any kind was involved! Some challengers made it through without one slip, others started over a couple of times, and few just weren’t quite ready to run away from that sweet siren call of sugar. Regardless of where we personally fell on that spectrum, we all learned something that will help us in our future fitness nutrition goals.
For me, I learned that 13 days just wasn’t enough to break my sweet tooth. So I’m going again.
Anybody want to join me??
Maybe you almost joined last time, but backed out. Maybe you joined but life happened and your challenge got dropped. Maybe you knocked out the challenge and are ready for more. Either way I’m in even if I go it alone, but I don’t want to. The support on our Face Book group was incredible during this last challenge. If you weren’t a part of this group let me encourage you to join (Valentines No Sugar Followmefit Challenge). You won’t regret it! Just knowing I was in it with friends kept me accountable even when no one was looking.
The rules are just as simple as before… no added sugar for the rest of February (starting Feb 15th). However, I’m going to add in a little life line — because I’m sweet like that (see what I did there?). Unlike our last challenge, you may have one serving of sweets once during the challenge. I didn’t give you a whole day of sweet treats. It is only one serving. Make it a reasonable serving – not a serving that should come with 6 spoons for sharing.
I added in this life line for a reason. We obviously can’t live our life without any sugar at all. We have to learn to control it and make wise choices. The hardest part of this challenge might not be doing without the sugar but in fact choosing how and when to spend our one free sweet treat card.
Just a reminder of the specifics… (same as last time)
- I will allow up to a teaspoon of sugar / sweetener per day to help you get down your coffee, oatmeal, etc
- You do not have to count the natural sugars that are found in fruits, veggies, and dairy products (low-fat milk is fine, those sugar grams are just the natural lactose)
- You may not eat granola bars, fruit on the bottom or presweetened yogurt, or other items that have over 5 grams of added sugar. Read the labels.
- We are trying to break the sweet addiction so I’d prefer no (or very limited) artificial sweeteners as well. That means water instead of diet sodas. I will let you trade out 1 diet soda for your allowed teaspoon of sugar for your coffee if that helps.
- Let’s retrain our brains to crave fruits, berries, and other naturally sweet whole foods instead processed and overly sweetened food items. Try new recipes and snack foods that have no sugar.
- If you want to reap the maximum benefits of this challenge (hear me say optional on this one), stay away from foods that turn to sugar quickly such as white bread, instant rice, white pasta, ritz and saltine crackers, and other simple carbs. Instead, look for whole grain complex carbs such as old fashion or steel cut oatmeal, Dave’s Whole Grain Killer bread, etc.
- You can also join our Valentines No Sugar Challenge Facebook group if you’d like additional support from the group. We can share our snack ideas, our sugar struggles, and strategies. It’s a closed group so only members may view and share.
