Once upon a time, dessert was an integral part of my diet. A meal felt incomplete at best, and tasteless at worst, if it wasn’t chased by something sweet. It was the norm in my family to finish a meal with a serving of some sort of meetha, until one day, my mother decided that she needs to stop feeding her body so much sugar. She was touching 50, and the threat of diabetes, hypertension, and cardiac issues that seemed like just an idea floating somewhere in our subconscious became real to her. I, being her daughter who wanted to follow in her footsteps, started my own journey of reinventing myself as someone who didn’t have a sweet tooth. But, I didn’t go cold turkey – that never works. It’s been a 10-year-long, multiple-step journey, which has finally led me to the new me whose meals end at the last bite of roti or rice or whatever savoury thing that’s on the menu for the day.
You must be wondering why it took 10 years for me to come to this point, and where’s the sense in it. It’s because I never actually set out to quit sugar until a couple of months ago. It was a series of small changes that have culminated into an almost sugar free diet, and in the process, given me an insight into the philosophy of changing habits. I escalated the process in the last two months, and the results have been remarkable. Here’s my step-by-step guide (which you can speed up, of course).
1. Replace unhealthy sugars with healthy sugar
Ditch the cake for mango. Then, ditch the mango for apple. Then, the apple for watermelon. You get the drift.
2. Reduce the amount you take in, one small bite at a time
On day one, leave one bite of the dessert. On day two, leave two. Keep at it and, soon, you’ll reach the day when you won’t even crave that one bite.
3. Skip the sugar every other time
The next step is to go every alternate meal, or day, or cup of coffee or tea (depending on what you’re taking it with) without sugar. Once you get comfortable with this, try skipping twice for every one time you have sugar.
4. Explore other flavours and tastes
There’s a lot in the diverse world of food that you haven’t tasted yet. For all you know, maybe there’s a flavour out there that you’ll end up enjoying more than sweet. For me, it’s mint or basil.
5. Understand that there are no cheat days, and no taboos
Never tell yourself that you can’t ever have sugar again, and don’t allow yourself cheat days either. The former will make the temptation stronger, and the latter is a slippery slope.
6. Drink water, or suck on a slice of lemon, to curb cravings
Or maybe for you, it’s a leaf of mint, or a piece of cardamom. Basically, find something that you can have that will curb cravings.
The most important lesson I’ve learnt is that cold turkey doesn’t work – not when you’re trying to quit sugar, or a person, or anything in between. You have to phase it out, but every day, you have to move closer to your goal.
