Diary of a Sugar-Eater

What a great start to this experiment - I think I broke a toe today! I hit it fairly hard on a table and it seemed fine at first, but now, a couple hours later, it hurts a little, I cannot walk without experiencing medium pain and it has turned blue. So I will have to see a doctor tomorrow, and more importantly, I will probably not be able to do much cardio over the next days or even weeks. Hooray!

The next couple of weeks are going to suck. Bad.

I have had my last bottle of soda today. I had two bacon cheeseburgers with it, and chips. I finished off some marzipan and some chocolate cookies. That means: I am all out of sugar now. And I intend to buy no new sugary stuff.

I will be trying, once again, to battle my sugar addiction. I have fallen, and fallen deep again, having soda and sweet snacks pretty much every day. For the next at least two weeks, my diet will be very restricted: water, one meal a day, and that meal will be chicken, rice and vegetables. For desert: apples. That’s it.

I will document my development over these two weeks. I know that two weeks are a very short time for changing a body, but I will still try to keep this diary here in order to see what impact such a severe change of diet has. I will also continue to work out every day, with some particularly hard workouts ahead due to my progress being stagnant over the past few months. Inspired by Scott Herman I have begun to incorporate “cheat and recover” techniques to facilitate muscle damage and hence muscle growth. (Yes, I am aware that strict diets and muscle growth don’t go well together, but I am not at any kind of advanced bodybuilding level.)

Anyway, the main idea is to see how much my body can change in two weeks, and if I manage to shake the addiction, I might continue on this strict path until I find something else that tickles my fancy. So far, the aim is to

1. work out every day for 1 - 2 hours (depending on muscle group or training focus)

2. eat only one meal a day

3. make that one meal a chicken, rice and veggies based powerhouse

4. do not consume any crystallized, purified sugar (honey for combating the meanest sugar cravings is okay, as is fruit)

Diet’s still not going fine, I am just too weak at the moment and keep falling back into old habits. I keep trying though ...

Something that has been working fairly well lately is my workout routine, so I thought I’d update my plan with where I am at now. I should also mention that breaks are very, very important – a few weeks ago I did realize that I was not progressing, but my strength seemed to dwindle instead. That happens when you overtrain. So I took a week off my workouts to give my body a chance to fully recover, and guess what? When I got back to the gym, my performance shot up. Good stuff.

Day 1: Pull Warm up: 5 minute run (treadmill) Assisted chin ups : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (increasing assistance: 47, 47, 54) Back ups: 3 sets à 12-15 reps (2x 12 kg) Seated row : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (77 kg, 77 kg, 67 kg) Deltoid push ups : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (60 kg) Cable pull (tricep) : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (35 kg) Bicep crunches (barbell) : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (25 kg, 25 kg, 20 kg) Forearm barbell twists : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (20 kg)

Day 2: Legs & Abs Warm up: 10 minute easy jog (elliptical) Leg press : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (165 kg + 53 kg base weight) Calf crunches : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (80 kg) Leg ups : 3 sets à 8-15 reps Leg curls : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (75 kg) Leg extension : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (75 kg) [Cable ab crunches : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (48 kg)] Leg abductors : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (110 kg) Leg adductors : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (117 kg)

Day 3: Push Warm up: 5 minute run (treadmill) Dumbbell bench press : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (24 kg) Hammer curls : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (24 kg, 20 kg, 20 kg) Inclined dumbbell bench press : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (20 kg) Deltoid push ups : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (60 kg) Cable pull (tricep) : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (35 kg) Bicep crunches (barbell) : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (25 kg, 25 kg, 20 kg) Forearm barbell twists : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (20 kg)

Day 4: Abs No warm up (to give the legs a proper rest day) Leg ups : 3 sets à 8-15 reps Dumbbell side bends : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (28 kg) Cable ab crunches : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (48 kg)

... but who is surprised? I just can’t quite lay off the sugar I guess. Well, I do try a different routine this time around: gradual reduction. What I have done over the past weeks is ignore my diet both in terms of quality, quantity and frequency. So I will try to implement a three step plan to get back onto the road of being healthy.

Step 1: Frequency My first action is to go back into the full-on omad dietary plan. I did allow myself breakfast and lunch for weeks now, and this needs to stop. So the first thing I do is to reduce the frequency of my meals back to one a day again. I have already started this and I am losing weight again. Once I stop losing weight just by eating only once a day, I will continue to

Step 2: Quality Here we meet the old foe, the nemesis, the ultimate evil: sugar. The white lord has taken his crown back, ruling over me more cruelly than ever. And now without the pathos: I eat and drink sugar again. Lots. And that needs to stop. So once I have reinstalled myself as a one-meal-a-day kind of person, and I have stopped losing weight from just that, I will kick the sugar habit again. Or try to, at least. Which means that for the time being, I do allow myself sugary drinks and food, so long as I only have them in the evening. Anyway, once I have kicked the sugar habit and stop losing weight again, I will move on to

Step 3: Quantity This I have not mentioned before, I don’t think, but it is an important part of my transformation nonetheless. Like so many people in the Western world, I am an overeater. Quite frankly, the amounts of food I consume are ridiculous. And I am often too weak to stop. When you get food in a restaurant, you are often faced with a plate filled to the brim, and we have learned to always consume it all and clean that plate. If I ever make it this far (meaning I have successfully killed breakfast and lunch and I have completely kicked the sugar), I will start working on smaller amounts of food per day. By which I mean: reduce portions to normal sizes instead of just eating everything within grasp.

Now, I realise there is a terrible discrepancy between my two main goals, which are to lose weight and to gain muscle, and I also realise that all the actions described above are very likely to reduce my weight, but will probably also halt my progress in the gym. I might therefore, in due time, change my diet again to complement muscle growth, and I am also considering a mixed diet of alternating between “mean and lean” phases, designating phases of reduced calorie intake for weight loss (lean phase) and increased calorie (and protein) intake for muscle gains (mean phase).

Like a proper addict, I have been bad. I have reverted to the way of the sugar. And I am fully hooked again, have been for weeks. Gained back some of that weight, and more importantly, fell back into old habits. So I will try to purge myself again. I may be successful - one day. And not look back.

I did not stop working out though, and I did make some considerable muscle gains while eating normal, so that’s a plus. I also had myself measured to get to know all constituents of my body, and it turns out that my ideal weight is only 10 to 12 kg away. Which sounds doable. So I try.

And my way of trying, at least for the time being, is purging myself of the sugar again. It worked wonders last time, I hope it does again. Today is day one.

I have suffered from a mean headache pretty much all day. And I feel hungry even though I have had sufficient food for dinner. My body is just missing those easy calories. Well mate, you’re not gonna get ‘em.

It is hard though. I wonder if it would really be easier to just not have sugar ever again instead of having to go through withdrawal time and time again. I might consider this in a few weeks, when I get over the physical addiction and can start dealing with the psychological addiction.

I want to be the bacon.

I want to be the bacon.

I want to be the bacon.

I have dialled back the junk food, and I immediately feel better. Water is just more thirst-quenching than cola. And even though I might be less powerful in the gym due to less glucose in my body, I feel better working out. So I thought, why not write about my workout routine?

I change things around every once in a while to try out new stuff and to keep myself invested, but after more than eight months of routine I think I can say I do these exercises fairly regularly. I do change things around spontaneously, as in, if I don’t feel like doing the butterfly I might just add another two or three sets of bench presses. Works for me.

Once more, before I go into detail on my workout, I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL, I HAVE NOT RECEIVED ANY SORT OF QUALIFIED TRAINING, I AM NOT HERE TO ADVISE YOU ON WHAT YOU SHOULD OR SHOULD NOT DO! All I can do is write down what I do and what works for me.

I divide my workouts into four groups of exercises that I do on four consecutive days. I have arranged the exercises in a way that should give each muscle group sufficient time to rest while keeping them busy at the same time. As of today, I have also incorporated a very small dose of HIIT to add to the mix. Let’s see how that goes.

Day 1: Pull Warm up: HIIT (3 min warmup; 20/10 sec splits x8; 2 min cooldown) Assisted chin ups : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (61 kg assistance) Back ups: 3 sets à 12-15 reps (2x 7 kg) Seated row : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (57 kg) (Lat pull downs : 3 sets à 8-15 reps ) Reverse butterfly : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (47 kg) Deltoid push ups : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (46 kg) Cable pull (tricep) : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (30 kg) Bicep crunches (barbell) : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (20 kg) Forearm barbell twists : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (10 kg)

Day 2: Legs & Abs Warm up: 10 minute easy jog Leg press : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (165 kg + 53 kg base weight) Calf crunches : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (60 kg) Leg ups : 3 sets à 8-15 reps Leg curls : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (75 kg) Leg extension : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (75 kg) Cable ab crunches : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (48 kg) Leg abductors : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (103 kg) Leg adductors : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (110 kg)

Day 3: Push Warm up: HIIT (3 min warmup; 20/10 sec splits x8; 2 min cooldown) Dumbbell bench press : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (20 kg) Hammer curls : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (18 kg) Inclined dumbbell bench press : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (16 kg) Butterfly : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (47 kg) Deltoid push ups : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (46 kg) Cable pull (tricep) : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (30 kg) Bicep crunches (barbell) : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (20 kg) Forearm barbell twists : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (10 kg)

Day 4: Abs Warm up: 10 minute easy jog Leg ups : 3 sets à 8-15 reps Dumbbell side bends : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (28 kg) Cable ab crunches : 3 sets à 8-15 reps (48 kg)

I know, my ab day is not very impressive. To be honest, I only started this to have something to do while the other muscle groups are still resting, so I take it easy on ab day. I probably have to step up my game there, but I am honestly happy that I even do ab workouts at all, as I avoided these for the longest time. They are just no fun. Oh, tomorrow is ab day, by the way.

As it turns out, debauchery is no fun. Absolutely not. Ever since I started eating junk food and sugar again, I am in a world of more or less constant nausea and heartburn. So I decided to end this. What seemed like the trial to me turns out to be the resting place. I cannot believe this - I seem to have kicked the sugar habit!

I bought so much stuff I wanted to eat this week, but honestly, it is just not worth it. I will go back to eating healthy tomorrow, and I will give away all the sweets and the junk to people who can still eat them. I sure can’t. My body has learned what real food is, and it refuses to go back to my old ways.

There still is a corner in my head that keeps me longing for sugar, for cola, for sweets. But that corner is getting smaller by the day, and I refuse to let such a small and ultimately disappointing part of my mind control my life. I don’t say I will never have sugar again. There will be situations when a nice glass of cola is just right. When a dessert is in order, simply because I‘ve had a nice meal somewhere and want to finish it off appropriately. But on a day to day basis, I think I am done with the junk.

It’s very interesting to go back to junk food after a month of only clean eating and restraint. First discovery: None of the stuff I was craving so badly, especially in the beginning of the purge, tastes even remotely as good as I remembered it. I had a chocolate croissant this morning that was utterly disappointing!

Second discovery: Junk food makes my stomach go weird. I don’t know what it does, but it’s not far from dysfunctional. So yeah, when you don’t have it all the time and get used to it, junk food is actually immediately bad for you. Who would have thought?

Third discovery: Caffeine actually keeps you awake. I have never, never experienced this consciously, probably because I had been drinking cola since I was a child, and for most of my life, have drunk nothing but cola or cola related sodas. After a month of only water, I had my first two helpings of cola yesterday and I lay awake half the night! I didn’t even feel sleepy, it was just time to go to bed.

Now, what do I take away from this? Quite simply: I don’t need this. I will continue the junk route for this week, if only to finish all the shit I have bought to treat myself. No, I correct myself: I might even end up throwing some of the stuff away. And then I will go back to healthy eating with the occasional treat. Seriously, these first two days of eating like I did before the purge have kind of opened my eyes to how bad all this shit actually is. I still have a long list of stuff that I want to eat before I go back into clean mode, but I know now that I don’t need to get back as long as I allow myself a bit of sugar every once in a while.

Since I am leaving the country today and won’t be back before the end of the purge, I have decided to summarize the results today. In one month, I have not had any processed sugar (unless it was mixed in with food I may have bought, but I did not eat anything “sweet”). I stuck rigidly to my one-meal-a-day diet except for three days on a business trip. I worked out constantly, only putting in a few resting days every once in a while.

My first result is that I do not miss sugar as much anymore. I have now reached a point where I think I could go on like this, if I don’t take it as seriously and allow myself a treat every now and then. I will still stick to my original plan of having a first July week of abominable debauchery, but I will then return to this diet and routine and see how it goes.

Next result: I am lighter than I have been in years. Four years actually. I still have a long way to go to reach the point where I can say I am my ideal weight, but I will get there eventually.

Now, in numbers:

At the beginning of this month, I weighed 106.1 kg / 233.9 lbs / 16.7 stone at 35% body fat.

Today, I weigh 101.6 kg / 224 lbs / 16 stone at 32.9% body fat.

It’s one of those days. After dieting just like before, working out just like before, starving just like before, I have gained 1.5 kg over two days. How this is possible is entirely beyond me. It is not helping my motivation to keep going, that’s for sure. Not eating, not enjoying the pleasures of sugar, and still gaining weight just seems a little unfair.

I haven’t been on tumblr for a few days, and everyone who knows me also knows it’s a wonder I even came back. I’m not good with this kind of things. But I returned, and it’s still hard as fucking nails. Excuse the language.

Not a day goes by when I do not wish for sugar. I seriously cannot wait for July. That first week of July is probably going to kill me, but I shall be happily dead. Anyway, so far, I’m still off the sugar, keeping the diet up, and I’m down to the lowest weight in years. Plus, I feel like I can see the gains from my workout. I might post a word or two on what my workout plan looks like, but it’s really not that special, and nobody reads this anyway, so yeah ...

I seem to be getting better - second day in a row without massive cravings. Little cravings, yes. But nothing huge.

Today was good. Of course, being the miserable wretch that I am, I did not notice how good today was until I went home after work, but then it struck me: I am fine. Was I hungry? Hell yes I was! But I was far from the starved aggressive lunatic I had been only one day before. I don’t want to proclaim that I have conquered my addiction, but it is good to know that there are better days.

Don’t get me wrong, I would still love to have some sweets, some chocolate, some cola. But it doesn’t occupy my mind as much, and I am not considering giving up the purge in favour of a quick fix.

While I was not considering the possibility, it actually got harder. Not that I could get more hungry than I was yesterday, but I got ANGRIER. A couple dozen times today I could have picked a fight with any random fellow human being for no reason but for the sake of fighting.

Well, it may have to do with the fact that I was not able to work out today as I planned. I got up at 5:30 as usual, got ready, drove to the gym - and it was closed. A few others were waiting outside, apparently the guy who had the opening shift had missed his shift. So off I went with no workout.

Then work happened with a lot of things not working out as I had hoped they would, but I want to be honest, there have been worse days and it could have been much worse today, too. Actually, I really want to try to stop focusing on the negative and put my attention to the positive that happened today. I discovered a band that I had failed to get into before, even though I was aware of their existence. They released the weirdest album almost 20 years ago, and it was good fun to listen to them changing musical genre every few chords.

I was seriously considering giving up the purge today about two dozen times (not the same dozen moments that almost got me into fights). I was thinking about going to the bakery store after work and indulging in the sweet forbidden fruits of evil. But yay, I powered through the cravings and consoled myself by reminding me I would have proper food at least, something that would seriously satisfy me. And it did.

I still added two apples as a dessert, but hey! :D

Yeah, the title says it all. I had the first seriously bad day today, four days in. By noon I was so hungry that my mind was racing from one lovely piece of food to the next, and I ended up actually making a list of all the things I want to eat come July because I was so desperate to get these thoughts out of my head.

But, I stuck with it. I remained #crystalclear and just finished the food I cooked yesterday (chicken, red peppers and brown rice). As of today, I don’t think I will be able to keep the zero-sugar-policy up for any extended amount of time, but I will try to at least make it through the month. One downside to this though: I will be on a work related trip for two days, which makes it impossible for me to only have one meal a day and quite possibly will also ruin the purge. Unless I can, somehow, muster the strength to not eat dessert and not drink soda while we’re out. I don’t think I can do it though, and more precisely I don’t think I want to.

Leg day turned out pretty good today and I think I’m ready for an increase in most weights. Push day tomorrow and then a day off. I haven’t decided yet what I will do on Thursday, probably abs to keep it short.

Oh yeah - I lost weight again, compared to yesterday. 1.5 kg so far ... or 3.3 lbs or .24 stone, depending on where you live. I am aware though that the rapid weight loss is more a result of the water bound my carbs leaving my body. But still, that counts! :D

Alright, day 3 and the longing has kicked in. Mightily. But I’m still holding up fairly well, and I have now started to lose weight - a trend that hopefully continues to motivate me. I want to be honest, if I don’t keep losing I will probably not be able to go through with this for the whole month. But as of yet, I lost weight and I am still motivated enough to keep at it.

I did have a bit of a setback yesterday night. I had my salad, but I was still so ravenously hungry that I ate a grilled ham & cheese sandwich. Luckily, I did have wholewheat bread so the thing still fits into my schedule, and I have learned something from it: Two nights of no-carb salad is too much. I want to kick the sugar, but I need the carbs, and I will see that I have enough of those in the future.

At the moment, the longing for sugar is seriously dominating my mind though. I still have cookies in the fridge, and every single tasting bud urges me to go get them and finish the whole pack. But I am determined to stay #crystalclear. I will probably treat myself to some apples later.

Yes, it is getting harder. The first day is always more bearable (I have done this a couple of times by now), but from the second day on the hunger becomes immense. And it is not specific hunger for sugar, no particular longing, but just hunger - probably due to the lack of energy that was brought into the system by the sugar.

This morning when I finished my workout, it was so hard not to stop at a bakery store and get some sweet breakfast. And the hunger didn’t let up since then. I cannot wait for my dinner, even though it will only be a bowl of salad. Maybe with a little wholewheat bread on the side to alleviate the withdrawal a little.

Unsurprisingly, I have gained weight compared to yesterday. It is not much, but this, too, I have witnessed before. My explanation is that (a) weight fluctuation is normal and (b) I have eaten a lot more fibre, which stays in the body for longer and might thus distort the results. Let’s see what the scale says tomorrow.

I am glad I chose a long weekend to start this thing off as I do feel the withdrawal with respect to my mental abilities. I feel tired and slow. I think it was a good idea to plan the salads for Friday and Saturday and then go back to more carb heavy food. Complex carbs, mind you, but still carbs. I guess it should already be better once I have some bread with my salad tonight.

Interestingly, so far I do not feel the need for soda drinks. I am fine with the water. Plus, I had two apples for dessert last night, and they were amazing! Even after less than a day of abstaining from processed sugar, fruit has become a lot sweeter.