Sugar-Free September: How to Get Started

Who can take a sunrise

Sprinkle it with dew

Cover it with choc’late and a miracle or two?

The Candy Man can…

We can’t be the only ones who have dreamed of jumping in Mr Wonka’s river of chocolate, floating along in a sugary sea of warm, rich chocolate. Of course, we all know what happened to Augustus Gloop, the ultimate metaphor for sugar addiction. Poor old Augustus. Unfortunately it is true – sugar really isn’t very good for us which is why Sugar-Free September exists and why we are jumping on board to cut out the sweet stuff. Over the next month we will be following the sage advice of our friends over at Denplan and by October hope to be dreaming of cauliflower clouds and lettuce lawns rather than our cocoa river.

To get started we’ve had a look at a couple of guides that aim to help those addicted to the sweet stuff. Here’s what we learnt:

Embrace Good Fats

This is advice we can get behind. All hail the mighty avocado. Good fats are found in oily fish, nuts & seeds, avocado, cheese, all great filling foods. We particularly like crushed avocado on top of potato rosti, sprinkled with chilli flakes and topped with a poached egg. Delicious.

Don’t Give Up If You Slip

We are the worst culprits for slipping up, eating a biscuit and giving up entirely later to be found curled up on the sofa surrounded by donut crumbs and an empty pot of motivation. Not this time. If we do slip up we will just jump back on the wagon and not give up.

Prepare Ahead

We know our worst time for raiding the kitchen is when we get in after work. We head straight for the cupboards and eat curious combinations of Nutella, biscuits and cheese. So we need to prepare for these moments by drinking a glass of water (often when we are hungry we are actually dehydrated) and having a snack ready, probably just the cheese…

Distract Distract Distract

Sugar is a pretty addictive substance and you might find yourself dedicating an unhealthy amount of time to thinking about it in all its forms which is why distracting yourself is essential to keeping it out of your brain and out of your blood stream. Take up a hobby, learn to knit, kick-box or surf. The one hobby you should probably avoid is baking. This is not your Mary Berry moment, leave that for October…

So there you have it. We will keep you up to date with all our progress and hope you are able to give sugar-free a go for September. Good luck!