I've gotten a lot of questions about what I chose to eat and not eat when I cut out refined sugars. My first rule of thumb was not to eat anything that had sugar in the first three ingredients. This did not include natural sugars (mainly fruit and honey). I had to use my judgment because there are a lot of things that still have sugar as a top ingredient that really don't have much sugar at all. Even the plain, nothing added cheerios with 1g of sugar had sugar as a second ingredient, so I used my own intuition for some foods.
In addition to not having sugar in the first three ingredients, I also did some research about added sugars, and most studies agreed that 5g of added sugars a day was what people should shoot for in their diets. 5g of added sugar is not a lot at all! That's not even enough for a serving of most cereals, but it's what I made my own personal goal.
My main comfort food was 90% dark chocolate, where sugar is the fourth ingredient, and it only has 3g of sugar per serving, so it met my criteria. Besides that I would just change recipes up to include only natural sugars instead of added sugar if I could (usually just replacing the sugar with honey). No-bake cookies and cheesecakes were the easiest to do that with for me.
Also, I listened to my body. One day I got an all fruit smoothie from Jamba Juice, which has all natural sugars, so it fits my criteria. But, I felt really sick afterwards. I realized some fruits have more sugar than others, so I listened to my body, and if a fruit made me sick, I didn't eat it. That's really the base line for most of the foods I chose. How do I feel after eating this? Same goes with some of the recipes where I switched honey for refined sugars. Some times it was still too much sugar, and I didn't eat it again. I feel like the more in tune with your body you are, the easier it is to decide what to eat.
I hope that answers everyone's questions! Feel free to ask any more if I forgot something.
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