Sugar detox: how to get rid of the sugar addiction.

Happy New Year everyone!

2019 will be a year of new beginnings, transformation, changing of old habits and miraculous synchronicity. So all the best to you and may 2019 bring you all your heart desires!

After the holidays and the past festivities, most of us are fed up with festive dinners and we are wondering what to eat.

What I notice in my family is that even though we have tried to eat normally and not exaggerate with the festive meals, we have still eaten a bit too much. And especially desserts have an addictive result. So we need to start the New year with our yearly sugar detox.

Did you know that sugar is as addictive (or even more) than cocaine? And it’s not only the addictive part that is dangerous, it’s also very unhealthy for us! It has a devastating effect on our glycemic index and insuline production, it destroys our bowel, creates fatigue, anxiety, stress disorders, chronic illnesses and so on.

So if you couldn’t resist the Christmas and New Year’s desserts just like us, then now is the right time to detox.

So the first thing to do is to get rid of all the sugars in the house! If it’s not in the house, you cannot be tempted. It’s ok to keep your maple syrup in the cupboard or in the pantry, because this is a natural sugar that is not harmful. But make sure to get rid of everything that includes any type of refined sugars.

Replace all sweet things by alternatives. For example, instead of having breakfast with Honey Pops, replace this by home-made Granola (you can even leave out the maple syrup here for once, to really detox completely). Add as much vegetables as you can to your diet, this will give you energy. Don’t starve yourself! If you are hungry, then eat! Because if you starve your body, it will stock all this holiday “fat” and you will not loose any weight.

But instead of grabbing a snack each time your hungry, grab for some soup (you can make plenty of soup in advance for the week), a glass of water, some tea, a rice cracker, etc.

Now the first days will be the hardest. As I said, sugar is comparable to cocaine, so you will have detox symptoms. Some of us get headaches or get cranky. Others feel tired of weak. Some shake all over and get aggressive. But that’s only the first few days. And you must hang on, because once you’re over the addiction, your body doesn’t long for sugar anymore. And it becomes really easy to say no to sugar. But for the first days, you’ll need a strong will and determination.

Here are some tips to make it easier! Whenever you have this strong urge to grab for something sweet, these tips will definitely help:

• Drink green tea whenever you want a dessert. Green tea takes away the need for sugar. Obviously it works best with high quality green tea, preferably organic and bought in loose leaves. Since the famous brands offering green tea in bags use tea leaves waste, it’s of very poor quality. But try it out! Each cup of green tea will take away your hunger for sugar.
• Drink a tall glass of water: drinking lots of water often also reduces appetite. Did you know that your brain cannot communicate thirst to you? So each time you sense a hunger feeling or impulse, it might really be hunger, but most of the time it’s your body calling out for water. Because, honestly: in most Western countries there is no real hunger. We don’t remember what true hunger means, because we are always being overwhelmed with food everywhere.
• Fix yourself a banana swirl when you feel like you are going to crack. This recipe for a banana swirl is free of refined sugars and very low in fructose (sugar naturally present in fruit) and will leave you with a full/satisfied feeling.
  • Take 2 GREEN bananas (yes, green! Ripe bananas contain lots of sugar, but in green bananas the sugar is not present yet) and mix those with vegetable milk (like unsweetened almond milk or cashew nut milk)
  • Poor this into a glass and clean the blender
  • Now poor some frozen red fruits in the blender, such as raspberries, blueberries, redcurrant, strawberry and add in some water to obtain a liquid “coulis” of red fruits.
  • Poor some of the red fruits coulis in your banana milkshake to sweeten it up a bit. Mix softly with a spoon until you obtain a red and white swirl.
  • Enjoy! You will feel full, satisfied and your need for sugar will have vanished!
• Start your day with a lukewarm glass of water mixed with freshly squeezed lemon juice. It will cleanse your body, take away the need for sugar, detox your guts, bowel and blood. You can easily find all the other benefits of lemons online.

Feel free to contact me if you want any other tips to detox, I’ll be happy to help you out!

All the best,

Géraldine