Food Stories - cutting out sugar

Overall, I ate carefully to be sure I was getting the right vitamins/nutrients.

Within 2 weeks my chronically dry (from an early age) skin had all but cleared up and my hair was lustrous enough to elicit compliments. These unexpected changes were motivation enough to continue! Other changes I noticed:

• I was far far less thirsty, and no longer woke up in the morning with a horrible dry mouth.

• Weight dropped off (even though I’d had to stop running in 2009 so wasn’t really taking exercise).
• My bowels regulated; the stomach pains went away.

I stopped the regimen eventually as the weight loss didn’t stop. I also suspected that my relationship to food had become a bit ‘weird’, so … I started eating ‘normally’, which meant permitting sugar. What I now noticed was:

• My relationship to sugar and sugary food had changed. I could observe a packet of Gingernuts on the table without having to restrain myself from grabbing and eating the lot (full stomach or no).
• I didn’t really ‘feel like’ chocolate or sweets any more. I had been a sucker for anything sweet, I was not fussy! Now, I could take them or leave them, and most of the time, I just didn’t feel like eating anything sugary sweet.

What was the cause? I’m not sure. Cutting out sugar eased the pain and helped with other things too.
I'll leave it to others to decide whether I was simply vulnerable to sugar cravings; whether the presence of an organism which craved it (such as candida) caused my sugar addiction; or whether there was some other reason altogether. For my part: I felt ill; I listened to my body, did what it seemed to be asking and then I felt better. (End of :-)).

weekends there’d be jam and butter on white bread with a glass of milk in front of Blankety Blank or The Generation Game …

I exercised heavily - lots of running, mostly distance, and other sports too. I filled the between-meals hunger with sweets, especially after I left home at the age of 17.

At a certain point, I noticed that my digestion was a problem. I visited the doctor with stomach pains (it felt like I was bleeding inside) and the initial suggestion was Fybogel for constipation/wind. This didn’t work. My pains grew exponentially; bowel movements were hit and miss. I had had enough. What I did however notice, one particularly painful Christmas, was that when I ate sugary things or alcohol, especially if they were consumed apart from a meal, my stomach immediately went into paroxysms. I knew a friend who had cut out sugar for health reasons, so decided I would follow her lead!

My regime for 6 months was this:

• no sugar at all including fruit in any form, no alcohol, no pasta, no bread for 2 weeks
• after that, no sugar in any form, no alcohol, no honey, no food containing sugar (so, careful checking of ingredients lists in supermarkets, especially for bread and breakfast cereals with hidden sugar), only very occasionally fruit, fruit juices likewise occasionally and always watered down, little if any pasta/bread
• towards the end, the odd glass of red wine (and I might have had a couple of boiled sweets!).

By Catriona Murray

In my travels through food one thing I have discovered is: sensitivities developed don’t have to be for ever, that listening to the body and feeding it mindfully, with love, with care, may help a painful problem abate. My story here is about my relationship with sugar and how that tied in with some extremely painful digestive problems ... and how they came to stop.

I come from a family where Mum cooked, we ate: main course and pudding. Meals at table during the week, then at ...

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