Well, 40 days came and went for my sugar fast. A lot went on in the past 40 days. My son started daycare for weeks, my leg got worse and I found out I needed another surgery, I had another surgery, and I was sick for the majority of the 40 days. However, through all of this, I kept to my sugar fast. If you want to know the beginning of the story, go here.
Now, I did not follow it exactly like I wanted to, but I kept the basic principle of no sweets and no sugar substitutes, but my unexpected illness after illness caused me to have some juice to get better around day 30. I made sure there was no sugar added so I felt better about that.
I had thought that during these 40 days that I would get about 8 days in and then I would feel great and no longer crave sugar. This was far from the truth. I still craved sugar until the last day. However, it did get better after about 25 days. My first 10 days I was actually pretty good and days 11-23 were really hard. I got sick and I just never felt good. I snapped at my husband, I was annoyed easily. I was not fun to be around. Not what I had expected either. I thought I would feel great and want to do all this cooking at home and never want sugar again. But that did not happen.
What did happen was that I kept questioning myself for doing this. I kept getting sick, so sugar must be keeping me healthy! I should quit! But no, every time I came close to cheating, I just could not. I even had a dream that I cheated and I woke up so sad that I didn’t make the 40 day fast. I was happy it was a dream in the end.
The last couple of days I knew I was doing better as I was going in for another surgery on my knee. I did not make sure that I had a bunch a treats waiting for me when I got home. I made sure I had healthy options, including Lara Bars to quickly eat if I needed them. I wanted to make sure that I had what I needed to heal my body when I got home. This was such a change from anything I had experienced before. Before I would have thought that I deserved a treat for going through the surgery. But now, I see that food is not a reward for life!
I also did not actually believe that not having sugar was the reason that I kept getting sick. I’m a teacher, I live in New England, it’s winter, and my son just started daycare a month ago. Of course, we are both going to get sick over and over again. Everything my son got, I got and more. I did not get the rest I needed, so that’s what happens. Sugar was not going to heal me!
Most people ask if I lost weight. That should be the added benefit to doing this sugar fast. Yes, I did lose weight, but more than most because I was sick. But the weight loss for me did not show in my body. My clothes are not looser because I still can’t fit into my clothes from before my pregnancy. So I’m still in my maternity pants and will be for awhile. I was not able to workout during my 40 day sugar fast as my knee was a problem and I ended up having surgery. So I can only imagine if I could also workout during this time, that I would have made more gains overall with my health.
Two things I did throughout my whole journey was journal my thoughts each day and write in my gratitude journal. This really helped keep in perspective that sugar should not be the reason you are happy most days. There is more out there in life. I also read the book Full and in the beginning I needed to read it every night and as time went on, I knew I could do the 40 days of no sugar and read it when I had time.
Overall, the experience was great. I’m glad I did it and hope that each year I can do it. I think it reminds me on what is healthy and what are some guidelines that I want to set up as a family to curb the sugar intake and sweets intake so that we can be a healthy family.
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