What is the best way to cut out sugar?

OP, i don't like bitter coffee either, but i have not bought sugar since the 1970s, . remember when it was in short supply, so we all just stopped using it. mind you i am not like so many of you here, a domestic goddess. i don't bake anything. i don't buy much cakes either. i think it's not good to have all these popular tv shows about making cakes. why can't they take another theme, eg quick or cheap lunches, like where people had to devise a meal out of certain ingredients. why promote unnecessary sweet foods.
it is possible to re-educate one's taste-buds.
anyway, i don't know how you make your coffee, but i just put less coffee in and more water/ milk, so it's not bitter. i would notice if it had sugar in and would not like it.

I don't have any sugar or sweeteners in my tea or coffee! once I gave it up in tea I could no longer tolerate it in coffee either....your taste buds adapt!

Start now-why wait til after Christmas?

If you are aiming to reduce weight just by cutting out sugars you are on a hiding to nothing. Eating healthily is more holistic than than. Of course it’s good to reduce sweet stuff in your diet, if for your teeth if nothing else, but carbs in food, such as potatoes convert to glucose pretty quickly in your digestive system, and can raise blood sugar quicker than a sugary drink.

Growstuff’s post re plant foods and farming rang a bell ?

The old hunter gatherer diet (meat, eggs, dairy) was a pretty good one and it wasn’t until farming started that we ate wheat products i.e. bread and pasta, rice with starches converting to sugar.

You say you have a taste for bread, have you tried the small sized loafs. My DH loves bread but I reckoned he ate too much. Changed to the smaller loafs and he has lost weight. Very few foods don't have sugar in them including fresh and vegetables. Low fat usually means higher sugar. Plain Greek yoghurt with fruit is a go to for breakfast here. Also cut down but not eliminate carbohydrates foods eg pasta, potatoes. You may just need to reduce the amounts of sugary foods you eat rather than cut out completely to lose weight.

Just don't try to do it all at once or you will quickly fall off the wagon!
Maybe start by cutting out commercially made cakes and biscuits and snacks and the number of spoonsful in tea and coffee.
I actually use a coffee spoon which is smaller than a teaspoon and that has helped me a lot.
Like others have said - the sugar that is put in items that , if making it yourself, you wouldn't , is shocking.

Hi, check out Michael Moseley's Blood Sugar Diet. I bought the recipe book because I wanted to cut down on sugar, it was amazing! Tasty, easy recipes, although I didn't need to loose wait I dropped almost a stone without really realizing it. Felt so much better, my joints are not as 'grungy' feeling. Highly recommend it.

Keto diet (life plan) and intermittent fasting. After your dinner don’t eat til 12 next day. Lost 1.5 stones, following Covid in April, seeking a healthier lifestyle. I’m now following Dr Berg and Dr Fung and Dr Mindy Pells on YouTube and so trim now - from 14 down to size 10. Don’t eat refined sugar - it feeds Covid and Cancer. Seek health. I read “Wheat Belly” first, £3.99 on Amazon books. Have fun experimenting - it works!!!

My dd cut out sugar she purchased a book that was out last year I can’t remember what it’s called, in the book it gives you all the ingredients to substitute sugar along with all the recipes and tips to help you on your way. However she did say they don’t taste very nice and are expensive alternatives.

Sealover

Hi, check out Michael Moseley's Blood Sugar Diet. I bought the recipe book because I wanted to cut down on sugar, it was amazing! Tasty, easy recipes, although I didn't need to loose wait I dropped almost a stone without really realizing it. Felt so much better, my joints are not as 'grungy' feeling. Highly recommend it.

Thank you, I will check this out. It sounds exactly what I am looking for.

Not that it matters, but I am waiting until after Christmas as I want to be fitter and healthier when I start going out again, which is probably not going to be until after Easter. I really need more exercise, but that is difficult when I'm not leaving the house.

I posted to see if there were things I could plan, and was thinking aloud, really. I don't want to get involved in a full-on diet plan, and definitely don't want to sign up to WW or similar. I just thought that cutting out added sugar would be a good way to lose weight and be a healthy thing to do.

I would like to lose about a stone and a half - I am not in danger of getting stuck in the door, so there is no immediate urgency .

Ditto, Doodledog
Perhaps you (or someone) could start a thread after Christmas, - there may be more of us ready to join you and we could chivvy one another along!

I'm off to look up Michael Mosley's diet.

I use stevia which I buy on Amazon
Stevia Stevia is derived from the Stevia plant, an herb native to South America. The leaf of the stevia plant contains compounds that give it sweetness. Some studies suggest Stevia may help to lower high blood pressure. As sweet as: Stevia can be up to 300 times sweeter than sugar Calories per serving: 0 calories per packet/ tablespoon. May be better than sugar because... Stevia has no impact on blood sugar and is virtually calorie-free. By comparison, table sugar spikes blood glucose levels and contains 40 calories per tablespoon.

My husband is Type 2 diabetic and so has had to adjust his diet. Porridge with berries for breakfast, as others have mentioned, is good. Wholemeal bread is better than white as it takes longer to digest and so does not give your body such a rush of sugar. You may find it worth investing in an electric bread maker. You just add all the ingredients and leave it to do all the rest. No need for any sugar with dried yeast. Avoid orange juice definitely. Whilst whole oranges are good, juicing concentrates the sugar and is particularly bad. We tend to stick to reduced sugar cranberry or blueberry juices. A tip we were given by a dietitian was any vegetable that grows above ground is good and you can eat plenty, but those that grow below the ground (such as potatoes) the should be consumed in more limited amounts. Our daughter has even experimented with pizza made with crumbed cauliflower in the base and says it is nice

My husband was told he had developed diabetes in August the same week Dr Michael Moseleys tv programme on Blood Sugar was on. We watched it, bought the recipe book and followed to the letter together and now 4 months later Ive lost 1st 10lbs he's lost over 2 st and is no longer diabetic. GP was astounded.

If it isn't in the house you can't eat it. Stop buying the things with hidden sugars. Do not buy biscuits or sweets either. Maybe we should have a support thread on here after Christmas for dieting and exercise

STOP buying it! Or other sugary things! If you dont bring them in the house you cant be tempted by them!

For a short while you will have to read the small print. At first shopping will be a bit slower, but you soon get to know what you have to look out for. Also, make it easier by having plenty of decent quality veg, fish and meat so that underlying hunger for those things doesn't drive you to the rubbish
www.bda.uk.com/resource/food-labelling-nutrition-information.html

Hi Doodle! Your reference to soft drinks resonated with me. I lost four stones (and have kept it off) eight years ago. One of my major successes was moving from lucozade to fizzy water. I struggled because I went to plain water first and that was awful. Hated it. When I tried the fizz element - sorted! Still drink it now. I think cordials and regular drinks are pretty grim with sugar/sweetener no matter how they try to disguise it with words like diet and light etc. Good luck. Be kind to yourself and do things gradually. I wish you well and look forward to reading your success story here in the Spring.

Apologies if this has already been said. It is the hidden sugars in food items that increase our intake without us realising it. Tinned soups, bottled sauces etc can be quite high in sugars. Even foods advertised as low-sugar sometimes have a higher level than their ordinary alternative. I have to watch salt intake so I thought I would be healthy making soup instead of buying it. I bought vegetable stock cubes to use in the soups but when I read the sodium level I was horrified by how much salt I was consuming. Read the labels on food or cook from scratch.

If you want to lose weight I think you have to focus on altering your whole diet and lifestyle and not just sugar. I lost 2 st with Weightwatchers and have only put on a couple of pounds during lockdown, despite shielding and being a bit more sedentary than normal. You can't "un-learn" the information on what foods to eat in moderation and which can be eaten more freely.
I'm not connected with WW, Just a grateful ex-member.
The WW points system is easy to follow and takes into account the amount of sugars and carbs in foods without you actually having to think about it and if your weight is connected with medical issues you can get a 12 week free trial (your GP can sign you up).
I need to lose another stone in 2021 in order to be considered as a live kidney donor for my husband, so like you, am going to enjoy Christmas day, and not feel guilty about the choccy liqueurs I intend to demolish, then set about reducing my weight again rather than just maintaining my loss.
Good luck!

My psoriasis was really really bad and my DS who is allergic to almost every food know to man sent me a book by Dr John Mansfield a gentleman who specialised in arthritis.
I did his diet and it is a really low sugar one. His mission is to achieve a really healthy gut. Sugar feeds bad bacteria. It was really quite hard and was very relieved when I got to the second phase and I could have gin!

Long story short, it worked and I am not nearly so flaky. I am not still on the diet but have adopted a lot of the practices on the diet. I have a very varied diet and look upon orange juice, for example, as the work of the ?. If you want an orange eat an orange. You will get the sugar of one orange not the sugar of about 5 without the fibre.
Personally I don’t think that you can live without the white stuff, it’s in most things (not gin though) but you can make choices.

I cannot recommend Second Nature highly enough. Google it and you will see a better description of it than I can give you. It's a whole package, not just a diet, but at its core is the recommendation that you cut sugar out of your diet. I was at the same stage as you 20 months ago. A couple of friends recommended it (it was called Our Path then). I signed up and am so glad I did. I have lost nearly 2 stone, cut down on caffeine and eat more healthily in general, cooking most things from scratch. It also helps you manage sleep and stress.
One thing I would say is, if you possess scales, you can save a lot of money by doing the no tech package, which is what I did.

I cut down sugar by avoiding DH's stash. Cold turkey. I stopped any sort of dessert, even yoghurt. I drink water, unsweetened oat milk and use unsweetened almond milk for tea and coffee.
I did allow myself one spoon of sugar in first coffee of the day.
Along with this I ate on the 16:8 pattern. Brunch late morning and evening meal within 8 hours.
You'll notice the past tense. Having lost 2.5st, I'm on that half stone now as had lots of wobbles. If tired etc I can binge and find it hard to get back on track. I've at least managed to keep 2st + off. Another 2 to go ?
I'm getting back on track now after bad throat.
Btw my sugar and cholesterol levels reduced significantly. I walk a lot.
Good luck. It's not easy to start off

Four years ago I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic. The same day I completely stopped eating as much sugar as possible. No jam, ketchup, mayonnaise, ice cream, chocolate etc. I went to a 'talk' at our surgery and was told that if a food label showed over 5g of sugar per 100g to avoid it - have to say that is very difficult! Within no time I noticed how slim my arms and legs were becoming and within a year I lost over 1 stone in weight (even though I didn't think I was overweight to start with!). So much more energy and feel much better. Don't miss sugary foods at all.