Sugar is almost everything you can buy at the grocery store so getting it out of your diet can be tricky. To help out, here are 9 Easy Ways to Cut Sugar Out of Your Diet.
- Eat Fat, Protein, and Vegetables – Probably the biggest switch in my mindset as I started this journey was that fat was a good thing to eat. After years of avoiding avocados and eggs for fear of having my doctor rap my knuckles with a tongue depressor, I know now that what I should have been avoiding was sweets and breads. Not only is a diet high in fat healthier but you will eat less and feel full faster.
- Eat Breakfast – You were always told that breakfast was the most important meal of the day and they were right! Scramble up a few eggs and fry up some bacon and start your day off right. Lately my go-to breakfast has been a sort of “Scrapple” with half a chopped onion, a chopped carrot, a little kale and a piece of bacon fried up with an egg thrown in at the end. It’s quick and easy and fills me up.
- Switch from Peanut Butter to Almond Butter – I’m a huge peanut butter fiend so it was pretty rough to find out that pretty much every commercial peanut butter on the market has added sugar. Even the brands that say “Natural” on the label are full of sugar. I’ve switched over to almond butter because very few of the almond butters on the shelf have added sugar. (You will still want to read the label to be certain though.) If you still prefer peanut butter over almond butter, try Adam’s Peanut Butter. There’s no added sugar but you will have to stir it to get the oil down into the ground peanuts. (I store Adams upside down in my fridge so the oil kind of seeps through the peanut butter a bit before I open it.)
- Always Have Healthy Snacks on Hand – Until I figured out my different hunger pangs and urges, i was very important to have a snack close so I never felt hungry. My favorite was celery with almond butter because I liked the crunch but I also had a slice of cheese, olives, almonds, and other mixed nuts. I occasionally had a piece of whole fruit but for the most part stayed away from fruit, especially tropical fruit (Pineapple, bananas, grapes, etc.) because of the higher sugar content.
- Take a Multivitamin – Sometimes those cravings aren’t just for sugar, you might be deficient in other nutrients your body needs. Taking a good multivitamin can fill those nutritional holes. I have been a member of the Pure Vitamin Club for about a year now and it seems to do the trick.
- Plan Your Meals Ahead – This was probably the trickiest part of My Sugar Free Journey. I really had to think about what I was going to eat before it was time to cook because I always seemed to run out of time and throw on some spaghetti or something quick. That’s why I started creating my Meal Plan posts and my list of What’s Sugar Free at Restaurants. You can also check out my tips for eating sugar free at restaurants.
- Spice it Up – Make your food taste awesome with flavorful spices but be careful, you will be surprised at how many spice blends contain sugar. I finally had to develop my own Sugar Free Taco Seasoning and have it on hand because you almost can’t find it on the shelf without sugar. Before you buy any spice blend (like Garlic Salt, etc.) be sure to read the label and see if they snuck a little sugar in there also.
- Watch Your Liquids – They put sugar in everything, including what you drink. You probably know that soft drinks are full of sugar but so are sports drinks, flavored milks, flavored or “enhanced” waters, and flavored teas. Fruit juices also need to be avoided as they are full of fructose with no fiber or anything to blunt the impact on your liver. Stick with water if you can. Sugar free drinks are acceptable but if there is anyway to remove them from your diet, you should. I am in the throes of an apparently unbreakable addiction to Coke Zero and if you can avoid this particular hurdle, you should. I kicked sugar way easier than Coke Zero.
- Use Xylitol – If you must use an artificial sweetener, make it Xylitol. The best endorsement I can give you is my wife wouldn’t cut the sugar out of her coffee because none of the sweeteners we bought tasted right. That is until we found Xylitol at our local Whole Foods and she loved it. Now it’s on our Amazon Prime subscription and we get a bag every 3 months.
I hope you found these tips helpful! You might also like the How to Cut Sugar Out of Your Life Checklist I created that will give you a step by step guide for cutting sugar out of your life!
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