There are SO MANY articles, reports and studies preaching to us about what we should and shouldn’t eat. It’s overwhelming and quite frankly, annoying sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I can get preachy with John about the things we should be eating but I certainly don’t push my food choices on others. When John and I decided to give up sugar, we knew it wouldn’t be super-easy but we were up for the challenge.

OK, let’s start at the beginning.

What prompted this whole thing was Lent. Every year, I try to give up or add something to my life. Last year, I stopped pressing snooze. That experiment was interesting and I stuck with it for a little bit after Lent was over but I’ve reverted back to my old ways. This year, we decided to do something together and that was tackling sugar. Truth be told though, we started Lent a week later than we were supposed to. We were going on vacation and I did not want to think about what we could and couldn’t eat while vacationing. Now that Lent is over, most of us who decide to give up something are faced with the question: do we continue?

Once upon a time, I gave up alcohol for Lent and let’s just say, I probably won’t do it again. I’m kidding…or am I? Anyway the sugar detox was almost as bad as giving up alcohol but required us to be a little more strategic. As you probably know, sugar is in EVERYTHING. Tortilla chips, juice, snacks – you name it, it probably has sugar. Before I share more about my personal experience, I will say that John and I have decided to make a conscious effort to give up sugar as it relates to grocery shopping. That means we will continue to purchase items that are low or no sugar. This is much more difficult when we dine out but we can always just say no to dessert right?

What happened when I decided to give up sugar

I replaced my love of sugar with burritos. That sounds really crazy, I know, but I swear I feel like I’ve eaten so many burritos since giving up sugar. I’m not even sure if this is a real thing but chicken burritos have been my best friend since this whole experiment. Ugh.

I began to crave sugar more than ever. Before we made a decision to give up sugar, I would crave a treat every now and then. Somehow, once I told my body that I couldn’t have any at all, I craved it even more. It was bad.

Grocery shopping took a little longer. I love going to the grocery store and not consuming a lot of sugar has opened my eyes to the fact that everything contains sugar. Grocery shopping now consists of me reading all of the labels and being so shocked at the things that have so much sugar.

I found a delicious organic, sugar-free ketchup. Ketchup was going to be a big deal for me once we started this journey. If you’re a friend of mine, you know that I LOVE ketchup. You probably also know that ketchup has a ton of sugar. Lucky for me, Heinz (my favorite ketchup brand) makes an option that we fell in love with. We’ll definitely keep buying it.

Overall, this process has taught us that sugar is in everything. Even though we’ll probably continue to buy low or no sugar items for our home, I can’t say I won’t indulge in a sweet treat every now and then. Have you ever given up sugar? How was your experience?