So here is my plan, part 1.
Sugar obviously is my first point of call. But I am conscious that just like giving up the ciggies, I am going to have some serious issues just dropping all sugar - sugar consumption is also more complicated than just cutting out the white stuff in drinks.
Katy is particular irked with a whole list of 'no's'; but for me it makes for an easy reference point - eat what I will except...... All products that contain added sugar - either home made or shop bought where sugars/any product ending in 'ose', corn syrup, syrup, treacle, mollasses, appear in the ingredients list - 3rd place and higher.
The kinds of products that are easy to spot are: sweets and chocolate, sweet pastries, cakes, puddings and biscuits - but other culprits would be ketchups, pickles and chutneys, pasta sauces, yogurts, rice puddings and custards, curry sauces and pastes, tinned tomatoes, baked beans, tinned pasta types, ready meals, squirty cream, hot chocolates and malty drinks, almost all breakfast cereals, juices and other soft drinks and some breads
Not an exhaustive list but you can't fail to get the message - and this is why this is part 1 because this is a big ask. I am effectively boxed in with not much in the way of escape or diversionary tactics available to help me out when I get the call. At least smokers can call on nicorettes!
And I don't doubt that I am going to find this hard, I've tinkered around the edges of this before, and it doesn't take long before I am thinking of nothing else. Going in to a shop is like bringing a vampire into the blood bank - and it affects my mood. Without a sugar fix I get really ratty, depressed and lose concentration. Actually having Googled this phenomenon, I really don't know whether this is a real physiological response to sugar withdrawal or all in my mind. But the outcome is not - grouchville here we come.
What I can't quite believe, is that by encouraging my other half to watch the Lustig lecture the other day, he is pretty much with me on this and wants to start looking seriously at incorporating a sugar reduced menu family wide. (My daughter is gutted) but we are hoping that our youngest son will benefit from this approach because of the 3 kids, he is more prone to weight gain and has the crappiest diet. It's not just this though - we are on board with the health benefits and we as a family are pretty 'up' for cooking from scratch, my husband enjoys cooking - and despite what looks like a depressingly comprehensive list of goods on the NO listing - we are committed to filling our lives with quality, fresh food.
I'm not big on new year resolutions - but if I had one this year, it was to work hard at including more veg to our meals generally, having more than one serving per meal and if necessary turning sergeant major on our youngest and force him in to a more healthier approach.
Last nights meal had a bottle of tomato ketchup accompanying it, sat in the middle of the table - and both my youngest son and daughter looked at it forlornly, like an old friend was about to die; because I had said there wouldn't be anymore replacements once it had gone.
I haven't gone mad. The whole family will not be catapulted into sugar oblivion, as I. Not yet anyway.
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