The Sugar Smart Diet: Stop Cravings and Lose Weight While Still Enjoying the Sweets You Love (26 page)

In this final phase, we also offer guidance on how to stick to a Sugar Smart Diet when you dine out and on special occasions—and what to do if you notice
your sugar intake creeping up. And as you prepare to rejoin a sugary world, we offer advice for living the sweet life, for the rest of your life. So let’s begin the final leg of your journey to sugar freedom.

When you began the Sugar Smart Diet, you probably felt a little trepidation. Would you be able to reset your sugar themostat? Could you really dial down your intake of Straight-Up Sugars, Secret Sugars, and Sugar Mimics; rebalance your metabolism; lose weight; and live to tell the tale? The answer is a resounding yes!

At this point, I bet you’re noticing a lot of changes: Energy, up. Mood, brighter. Weight, down. Sugar cravings, crushed. And if you could look inside, you’d see your blood sugar and cholesterol levels have improved. More and more, you’re experiencing the benefits of nutritional balance—more whole foods and fresh flavors, and significantly less sugar and refined starches. The pounds should be melting away, too. By the end of Phase 4, our test panelists lost up to 16 pounds, with their sugar bellies receding by as much as 3¾ inches, and 16 inches lost from belly, hips, legs, arms, and chest combined!

Now that those zero-sugar days are long past, and you can bring sugar back into your diet, you probably feel one of three ways: not really missing it (perhaps to your surprise), excited to be able to have treats again, or wondering whether you’ll be able to reintroduce treats without eventually sliding back into old eating patterns. Because sugary foods have not been a part of your diet now for 3 weeks, you are in a perfect position to assess the previous role they played in your life and decide what part they will play in the future.

To do so, recall the sugar sources you identified as key on the first day of the Sugar Step-Down. How often do you think about them? Then have a small portion of one of them as you follow this version of the Sweet Freedom “Eat with Awareness” strategy from
Chapter 7
.

1. Look at your treat. Note your level of anticipation. Recall what you liked about it and how it used to make you feel when you ate it
   (positive or negative). Compare those feelings to the way you’ve been feeling since it’s been out of your diet. How do you think having the treat will change that? Are you looking forward to your first bite? What do you expect to feel after you eat it?
   
2. Take a bite. Notice the flavor and the texture. Does it taste the way you remembered it? Are you getting a rush of pleasure?
   
3. Eat the rest of your treat slowly, continuing to focus on flavor and texture. Do you like what you’re eating? Did you miss it? Would you still say that this is one of your favorite treats?
   
4. After you’re finished, take a few minutes to consider whether you feel the way you thought you would when you started eating. Did the treat live up to your expectations? Do you want more right away, or are you happy with the amount you had? Would you have been just as satisfied with something else?
   
5. Over the next hour or so, monitor your reactions to it carefully. Are you hungry sooner than you might have been otherwise? Do you feel cravings for that treat or another sugary food? Are you feeling headachy or a little tired? Or do you feel good physically and pleased that you treated yourself to something you love?
   

Try this exercise with a few different sugar sources during this week and see how your reactions vary. There are no right or wrong answers—the purpose is to help you become more aware of the effect sugar has on you. Before you started the Sugar Smart Diet, treating yourself with Straight-Up Sugars or Sugar Mimics may have been habit. You may have turned to food to soothe negative emotions, or you may have been caught up in a cycle of sugar highs and lows that drove you to reach for more sugar. But now you’ve broken the habit, found other ways to cope with stress, and stabilized your metabolism. Given all that, where does sugar fit in?

• If your key sugar sources are just as satisfying as you remembered them being, then you should have them—but in a reasonable way. If you can limit yourself to a small portion with 100 to 150 calories, then you
  can have one of them every day in place of the dessert options we list here. (If you want to have bigger serving sizes, wait until after Phase 4 and read the advice on
  this page
  .)
  
• If your conclusion is that your key sugar sources no longer bring you as much pleasure, but you’d still like to have some treats in your life, then
  experiment with some of the quick and easy dessert options in this chapter or the dessert recipes in
  Chapter 11
  . They have a healthy bent, and that may be all you need now.
  
• If you discover that sugar overall has lost most of its allure for you, don’t have it. No one has to eat sugar. Many of our test panelists found their perfect balance during either Phase 2 or 3. Robin said, “If you had told me when I started this plan that I’d be able to walk down the cookie aisle to get my kiddo Fig Newtons and crave absolutely nothing or that instead of longing for a Mounds bar, I now crave Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, I never would have believed it. But it’s true!” And at the start of this phase, Myra said, “I haven’t even looked at the menus, I’m so satisfied on Phase 3!” If you find out that you’d be happy without more dietary sweetness in your life, you can eat that way until you change your mind, if you even do.
  
• If you find that your favorite sugar sources trigger cravings, hunger, or other symptoms, consider replacing those foods with other sweets and carefully monitor your feelings and reactions. If any dessert-like food seems to have the same effect, you should stay on Phase 3 of the Sugar Smart Diet for another 2 weeks and then try again.
  

Now that you’ve determined the sugary indulgences you can’t live without, it’s time to eliminate items that waste precious teaspoons of sugar and identify alternatives that you enjoy just as much. This list of swaps and tips can help.

We’ve presented our swaps by category, so you can zip down the list and find the items most important to you. You’ll find sugar swaps for beverages after this section. Prepare to discover new, better-for-you indulgences!

Sugar has no place in the bread aisle, but you’d never know it by how many grain products contain added grams.

Swap this . . .	. . . for this
Arnold 100% Whole Wheat (1 slice): 110 calories, 4 g sugar	Food for Life Ezekiel 4:9 Flax Sprouted Whole Grain Bread 1 slice): 80 calories, 0 g sugar
Quaker Instant Oatmeal Maple & Brown Sugar (1 packet): 160 calories, 12 g sugar	Trader Joe’s Gluten-Free Rolled Oats ½ cup uncooked): 150 calories, 1 g sugar
Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Crunch cereal (1 cup): 190 calories, 19 g sugar	Post Shredded Wheat cereal 1 cup): 170 calories, 0 g sugar
Bisquick Complete pancake & waffle mix Simply Buttermilk with Whole Grain (½ cup): 210 calories, 6 g sugar	Bob’s Red Mill Organic 7-Grain Pancake & Waffle mix 1 ⁄ 3 cup): 190 calories, 2 g sugar