No Sugar #1 - The Slow Home Experiment

MindfulnessPodcast
Written By

No Sugar #1 - Slow Home Experiment

Today marks the beginning of the Great Slow Living Experiments Experiment on the podcast! In case you missed it, Ben and I have given our bodies and brains to science* in the name of testing a variety of slow living approaches.

Part of the reason we’re tackling these experiments is to simply share our experiences in trying to adopt more slow living into our day-to-day. We’ve been so inspired by the guests on the podcast over the past 9 months and are excited to pull some of their actions and behaviours into our daily lives.

The other reason is a simple one of mindfulness. It’s so easy to slip into a place of mindless living (the exact opposite of mindful living) and actively engaging these changes every month means we’re paying attention, challenging our assumptions and expanding ourselves. And there’s nothing more intentional than that!

So every month we choose one experiment to focus our attention on, and each Monday we release a podcast where we talk about our experience to date. And today is the very first one!

February sees us giving up processed sugar, in an attempt to become more mindful of what we’re eating.

Both of us have been guilty, regularly, of slipping in to boredom/emotional/habitual eating and the conversations I’ve had with various guests on the podcast have inspired us to get back to mindful eating in a very big way. It made sense to cut out sugar first, as that’s one of the biggest drivers for my personal mindless eating (give me all the chocolate in the house right now pleasethankyouverymuch) and one that’s currently very popular.

So a few days ago we began. And it wasn’t pretty…

*Not really science. Just us.

——

Head over to iTunes to subscribe to the show and play the episode.Or you can listen to the show directly, simply by hitting the Play button above. Enjoy!

——

Show Notes

The Rules of the No Sugar Experiment:

    • No processed sugar at all (soft drinks, biscuits, chocolate, white breads etc)
    • No alcohol - even though some are low fructose, we're going the whole hog here
  • Cutting back on fruit but not eliminating it completely. We plan on having  a small amount of blueberries or half a banana in green smoothie.

Coping strategies (possibly effective, possibly not):

  • Drink lots of water
  • Be prepared with sugar-free snack options like carrot sticks and hummus
  • Recognise when I'm bored or stressed and do something else, like slacklining or some deep breathing.

Why we might find it easy:

    • We don't drink soft drinks
    • We don't eat much chocolate, cake or biscuits (because I don't buy it. If I buy it, I eat it.)
    • I've been cutting back on sugar over the past couple of weeks so it should be a gentler entry into No Sugar Town.
    • We both drink our tea and coffee unsweetened with no milk
  • When we drink alcohol, it's usually red wine or vodka and soda, and beer for Ben. None of these are particularly sugar-y so that might help?

Why we might find it hard:

  • One of my favourite snacks is a piece of cheese with a dried date. Dried fruits are out this month. ARGH.
  • When I get emotional/hormonal I tend to go for sweet things. Our kids start school this week so I might be a little emotional...
  • I snack when I'm bored or procrastinating. PROCRASTISNACKING.
  • Tasty, savoury sauces and condiments, like mayo and sriracha are usually packed with sugar so we'll need to find alternatives.

Things to Check Out After Today’s Episode:

Previous

Happiness and habits with Gretchen Rubin
Next

Pretty minimalism with Stacey Roberts