Let’s dive into the nitty gritty of what we’ll be doing over the five days.

Although the nitty gritty is pretty simple. We won’t be eating sugar for 5 days, and hopefully longer.

But sugar can mean lots of different things, so what exactly are you going to be giving up when you look at the ingredients list of food.

Here is the golden list:

• White sugar
• Brown sugar
• Raw sugar
• Cane sugar
• Beet sugar
• Corn syrup
• Demerara sugar
• Caster sugar
• Muscavado sugar
• Coconut sugar
• Maple syrup
• Honey
• Rice malt syrup
• Agave syrup
• And then there are the obvious ones – candy, lollies, cakes, biscuits, pancakes, cocktails, soft drinks and even flavoured waters.

Now I know you might be thinking, honey too?? I thought that was healthy?

And it is!

Just because I’ve put something on my list doesn’t mean it’s going to kill you and it doesn’t mean that you can never ever eat them again if you want to be healthy.

But the reality is, these things are all sugar, and since this is the sugar-free challenge, it never hurts to see how you go without these things for the five days (or beyond).

It wouldn’t feel right to tell you to give up processed sugar only to replace it with more sugar. This just wouldn’t help you out in the long run of reducing your sugar intake overall and eating well. And after all, I am here to help you achieve the best level of health that I know you deserve.

That said, there is still some natural sweetness you can enjoy.

Fresh fruit is on the cards! If you can go for the low sugar options which are:

• Berries
• Kiwi
• Apple
• Pear

I encourage you to stick to fresh fruit (or frozen), instead of dried or juiced as these options generally leave you consuming far more sugar than you would if you had them fresh.

You can also still have stevia (only if this is something you already use), it’s not necessary to add in for the challenge.

So what to do?

First off all, ditch any straight up sugar you are adding to your diet. This includes things like sugar in tea, fruit juice with breakfast, honey on toast etc. Need some swaps? Ask here.

Check the ingredients list of stuff you buy. If this is your first time reading ingredient labels, it may take some getting used to, but my advice is to look at the ingredients list first, and see if you can see “sugar” or any of its other aliases listed above.

Then, stock up on some sugar free replacements, and I don’t mean replacing your white sugar with coconut sugar – unfortunately this will not do anything for recalibrating the tastebuds and helping you say no to junk food long term.

Here is a list of my favourite treats that are sugar free (or low enough in sugar that it is essentially sugar free)

• Fresh fruit, specifically berries and kiwi as these are the lowest in natural sugars
• Peppermint and liquorice tea – it’s naturally sweet!
• Dark chocolate – ideally 90% cacao or above (100% if you are game). While there is sugar in the ingredients, it is in such low amounts that it is almost negligible. You’ll notice that it actually doesn’t taste sweet.
• Coconut yoghurt or Greek yoghurt with cinnamon.
• Almond butter (even better if you pair it with dark chocolate or yoghurt) and a dash of cinnamon.

Other than the above, you don’t need to go too crazy and completely overhaul your diet to a completely new one. In fact I find that often this makes it harder to stick to. My advice is to stick to your normal eating habits just simply without the sugar. Even just that small change will put you in a really great place, nutritionally speaking. And naturally you’ll make healthy choices, because you are here in the first place – I can see you are ready for change.

Good luck!

Liv

Xxx