Sugar Slayer Challenge - Week 3

Welcome to week two of the Sugar Slayer challenge! If you've made it through week one, congratulations! This week, we delve deeper into the practice of reducing and eliminating added sugar from your diet. Remember, the goal is to enhance your health by cutting out unnecessary sugars.

Week 1 and 2 Recap

Just in case you've been hiding under a rock the past few weeks, here's where we've gotten so far with this challenge!

Why Are We Cutting Down on Sugar?

Simply put, added sugars offer no nutritional value and can have detrimental effects on your health in the long run. They're also highly addictive!

How Much Sugar is Too Much?

Ideally, the goal is to consume ZERO added sugars. However, the American Heart Association recommends a maximum of 35 grams per day for males and 25 grams for females. Remember, even "natural" and "zero-calorie" sweeteners count towards your sugar intake, as it's the sweetness that's addictive!

Reduce and/or Eliminate Foods With Added Sugar

Once we identify foods we'd like to remove from our diets, then we can start to do it! Week two focused on reducing and/or eliminating unwanted foods in one of three ways:  reducing the frequency you eat that food, reducing the amount of that food you eat each sitting, and diluting that food with another similar unsweetened version.

• Reduce Frequency: instead of eating that food every day, allow taht food to show up in your diet, but maybe two days per week instead
• Reduce Amount: Instead of the entire pint of ice cream, enjoy a small serving size, and then be done!
• Dilute: An effective way to whittle down your consumption of a sweetened food over time is diluting it with a non-sweetened "base". This method works well for things like salad dressing, yogurt, and soda. If you want, you can keep reducing the ratio of the sweetened version all the way down to zero over time!

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Week 3 - Swap!

This week, we’re continuing with the actual work of the challenge.  We will focus on any foods we identified in Week 1 that we want to swap, and start implementing those swaps!

I have some tips and mindset shifts to (hopefully) help you in this task.

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Practical Tips to Reduce Your Sugar Intake Using Swaps

Obviously, there are different contexts in which we eat food! You may need to just alter your grocery shopping habits a bit to achieve healthy swaps, or you may need to also start preparing and cooking food differently. Whatever your needs, here are some tips to get you started.

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At the Grocery Store

Choose Unsweetened: Opt for plain versions of your favorite foods, like swapping Honey Nut Cheerios for Plain Cheerios. Note that you can use the "dilute" technique we discussed last week to reduce your intake of the sweeter version over time.‍

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Be Wary of Labels: "No sugar added" doesn't always mean sugar-free, or more importantly for us, "sweet-free"! Look out for hidden sweeteners!‍

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Swap by *Intention, not food: an apple and cheese stick make a perfectly good swap for your standard on-the-got snack, like a granola bar. It's not a one-to-one swap of the food (anyone out there find a good, low/no-sugar granola bar yet?! Didn't think so!) BUT it's a swap nonetheless!

If you need to, get creative and think though what you're trying to achieve with the food you're swapping out!

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Cooking & Baking

Many recipes can be adapted to your low-sugar lifestyle by reducing or eliminating the sweetener. The caveat here is baked goods, which usually require at least some sort of sugar to set up correctly. For these, if you choose to eat them, look for recipes that use whole fruits as sweetener instead of sugar, syrup, or honey.

Below are a couple of our go-to recipes that we use often. Give them a try, or find something similar that fits your tastes and needs!

Karen's Favorite Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing

Banana Muffins (sweetened ONLY with the bananas)

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At Meal Time

Home Options: When you're at home, try to swap out sugary condiments for homemade dressings, like the Balsamic Vinaigrette shared above!

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Dining Out: Requesting dressings (and even sometimes sauces) on the side is a simple and reasonable request at any restaurant.  You can also always swap that burger bun for a bed of greens instead!

Another good rule of thumb is to choose vegetables that are steamed or roasted over other sides that may be sweetened.  Slaws are usually sweetened, and so are items like a sweet potato mash, that you might order thinking it's the lower sugar option!

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A Note About Total Intake

As we work through this week and last week's assignments, it can be easy to get carried away - especially if you are seeing results on the scale!

We want to make sustainable changes with this challenge - so it's vitally important that reducing our sugar load isn't also reducing our total caloric intake *too much.

Next week we will tackle this head-on, but for now, check in with your total average daily calorie consumption compared to when you first started tracking. Simply note it for now, and be mindful that reducing lots of foods and not replacing them with an adequate amount of calories can backfire in the long term!

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Your Week 3 Assignment

Now that we know some helpful tactics, it’s time to dive in!

This week, track your food for at least three days. Choose 1-3 foods from your "swap" list from Week 1 and apply the techniques discussed here to lower your sugar intake.

Remember, small, consistent steps lead to big changes. Keep up the great work, and let's slay that sugar monster together!

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