I have a problem, or perhaps a challenge for myself.
I mean, this isn’t a huge, end of the world, problem that I
can’t solve. It’s more of a – something I strive to change.
My challenge is Fake Sugar. I’m trying to eliminate fake
sugar from my diet.
Okay, maybe let’s answer this first. Why am I cutting out
fake sugar? This whole time you’ve been talking about losing weight and healthy
lifestyles and shouldn’t that mean you would use those low calorie sweeteners?
Haven’t you been to the Doctor’s office lately and seen that
chart that tells you how much sugar is in popular drinks? (Wait.. lemme just
slap it right here for you. In case maybe you’ve been avoiding the Doctor’s
office…)
Okay, back to avoiding fake sugar. I’m trying to avoid it
because,… well,… because fake sugar is fake.
Our bodies don’t quite know what to do with it. It’s like – WHAT THE HECK IS THIS THING YOU JUST FED ME? But then it adjusts. It elevates blood glucose levels and messes with your digestive health. It can also make foods with natural sugars (think fruit) taste not as flavorful because the fake sugar overloads your body with this unnaturally sweet – sweetness. On top of being chemically created, there is some evidence that fake sugar can lead you to gain weight.
So yeah… maybe not the greatest overall life choice. BUT –
in the words of my Nutritionist. You have to look at this with the lens of
Good. Better. Best. Best would obviously drinking plain water. Good and Better
are all on a weird scale kinda based on what you were doing before. Er, lemme
try to explain.
So, if I was drinking regular Coke (or Pepsi, whatever)
every day, and I switched to fake sugar to help reduce my overall sugar intake
- that’s Good. I’m drinking less calories from sugar.
Somewhere in the fuzzy middle is better – I mean, going from
10 bottles of Coke to 2 would be better technically. But so would switching to
8 bottles of diet Coke. So might also drinking 1 bottle of regular Coke and 5
bottles of diet. Anything that moves you in the right direction of changing a
bad habit or pattern.
I already conquered a big chunk of my addiction. I was using
flavored water packets in my water to make it taste better. I’m not going to
lie, I really enjoyed most of the flavors I was using and I hated giving it up.
But, the frozen berries I put in my water taste just as good as the fake stuff.
Most days.
That cut out a majority of my chemically laden sweeteners in
my life. I don’t drink diet soda
(because if you take the t out of the word diet it spells DIE) so I didn’t have
to work hard cutting that out. Heck, I cut out regular soda awhile back, so
that isn’t even an issue overall.
However, there are still a few drinks I DO like to consume
that are sweetened artificially.
I like the Bai drinks, which are sweetened with Stevia and
Erythritol (made from fermenting wheat-free grain - according to the Google). It
has a little flavor, it’s water-ish, and it only has 5 calories. I also drink
the Sparkling Ice drinks, sweetened with Sucralose (Splenda). Let’s be honest.
It’s fizzy and flavored. Sometimes a girl wants something fizzy in her life.
Both the Bai and Sparkling Ice drinks are treats. I don’t
have them every day so I don’t feel too badly about them.
Nope, my biggest issue is coffee.
Who knew, when I was like 20, that when I turned older than
20 I would like coffee? 20-year-old me certainly didn’t. It’s just a hot bitter
drink that has no purpose in my life.
And then I learned about iced coffee. Yeah. #ThanksDunkin
Also, I started getting up at 5 something in the morning.
Coffee has become essential.
But a little iced coffee needs some milk type product
(Almond milk for me, k thnx) and some sugar. Oddly enough, regular sugar doesn’t
dissolve or sweeten quite as fast as Splenda does. So, I could use 20 tsp of
white sugar or two Splenda packets. What this actually means is that I’ve been
working on drinking iced coffee that is less sweet than I would ideally prefer
(with regular sugar, but in smaller amounts).
DAMN YOU SPLENDA for your sweetness!
It’s like that song by Gnash. I love you. I hate you. I hate
that I love you.
