Empowered Living: My Year Without Sugar

This post has been a year in the making.  For those of you recently joining the Neary blog, here is where I was a year ago, and here is where I was six months ago.  I followed the 100 Days of Real Food guideline for refined sugar that said to only eat something where sugar was NOT in the top three ingredients.  I followed that rule, but did eat fruit and goods sweetened with honey.

Truthfully, I'm not entirely sure what I want to say, so I will just begin writing.  I'm finding it incredibly difficult to adequately explain the change in my life over the last year: from one of weakness and sickness and helplessness, to one of empowerment, loving myself, and feeling like my best self.

Now over the last six months since I last reported, this journey has become more than just cutting out refined sugars in my diet.  After those first six months, I realized what a huge difference a small (big) change had made in my life, like cutting out sugar.  I decided to go past that.  I slowly (very slowly) began cutting out processed food entirely from my diet (and that of my family).  This included switching to 100% whole grain foods, making many things from scratch to avoid harmful ingredients, and eating a largely vegetable and fruit based diet.

Now here's where I find myself inadequate to explain the change over the last year.  I have gone from using food as a pleasure outlet, as an emotional bandaid to something that fuels my entire system.  Does that make sense?  I was constantly thinking about food, trying to use food as an emotional outlet, and feeling out of control around food.  I look back now and realize I had a serious problem.  The types and amount of food I would eat was incredibly unhealthy, and it was affecting me more than I ever cared to admit.  Now I'm at the point where I use every piece of food I put into my body to make myself feel better.  I know exactly the effect that each type of food has on me, and it literally has become easy to choose those foods that are best for me.  I know how I felt then, and I know how I feel now.  There is no food on earth that is worth going back to the tired, achy, sick old me.  For the first time in my life I feel healthy--truly healthy!  My body is finally responding to the kindness of the things that I give it.

Now that I've explained how I feel, here is where my body is now:

I literally have more energy than I have ever had in my life.  We're talking double what I had a year ago. I feel like this is what it must feel like to drink energy drinks and coffee all the time, but without the major crash afterwards!  I used to have a really productive, busy day, then I would have to take a few days to recover from it afterwards.  Now I literally have those days 6-7 times a week!  I feel like I am finally giving my husband and my children the best version of myself: the one that can serve, play, cook, love, and laugh all the time!  Obviously I still have days where I get tired, or cranky, or need an extra nap, but they are few and far between (especially when compared to a year ago).

My autoimmune diseases are almost non-existent.  My joints don't hurt from rheumatoid arthritis, and my I haven't gotten strep throat at all this year (a common side affect of my psoriasis).  Now to be fair, I still do have some psoriasis spots that have persisted ever since my last pregnancy.  I can't get rid of them no matter what I do.  But at least I don't have the pain associated with them any more!  Oh, and no more acne.  Who knew?  (I wish my teenage self did!)

Beyond not feeling sick from autoimmune issues, I just don't feel sick, period.  I used to wake up with nausea, stomach pains, headaches, heart burn,  cramps, you name it.  It was always sort of a given for me that I felt that way.  Not any more!  It is very uncommon for me to feel sick anymore, and boy do I love feeling good all the time! 

I know I've mentioned this before, but my whole life has become incredibly more disciplined.  Learning to do what's best for my body has leaked into other parts of my life.  I have been much more able to choose activities based on what is best for me in the long run, rather than what is most appealing at that moment.  My ability to set and reach goals has become much better, and I find it easier to do so.

Last, but not least, I've lost 55 pounds since cutting out sugar.   Truthfully, the weight loss is a side effect of all the other lifestyle changes.  I've found it pretty easy, actually, to maintain the weight loss while eating real food.  Someone once told me that it didn't matter what you ate: calories were calories.  I am here to say that for me, at least, that is very untrue.  I find that I can eat hundreds more calories each day of real food than I could in the past of junk food, and still maintain my weight.

Now don't think this this happened all at once.  It has definitely taken me a year to get here.  But I urge you to take a look at what you eat, and see what small changes you could make to help yourself feel so much better.  It is well worth it!  This change has made such a difference in my life, that I am not going back.  It is simply not worth it.  So what are we going to do now?  Well Joseph is going to eat his candy bar from my sister in Finland, and I'll be over here eating my black bean brownie.  I've decided that I am not going to eat refined sugar ever again.  It's simply not worth it.  I like where I am and am not giving that up for anything.

If you're interested in changing your diet, the 100daysofrealfood.com is an amazing resource.  I almost exclusively get all my resources from that site.  Well that and superhealthykids.com.

Also, I've had a lot of people ask for the black bean brownies recipe. It is seriously the easiest and is my go to dessert when I need something.  I got it from a friend (Thanks Samantha!) so I have no one to credit it to.  Hopefully I didn't steal it!

3 Eggs
1 Can Black Beans (Rinsed)
2 Tbsp Coconut Oil (You can use butter too if you don't need it to be dairy free)
3/4 Cup Honey
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup cocoa powder

Just blend it all up in a blender and cook for 25-30 min at 350.

Now that was the original recipe, but just a few weeks ago we go the bright idea to put in mint extract with it, and it was amazing! Just something to try.