How Sweet It Is - Part 2

About a month ago I decided to try something new: I eliminated sweet foods from my diet. My motive was frustration. I had gained ten pounds over the last year, mostly due to an increase in snacking at night as a way to deal with work stress, and no matter what I did, I could not get those pounds off. I couldn’t seem to eat less either. Then one day, I noticed a connection between my appetite and eating things that were sweet, and – voila! – the idea was born. It seems only fair that I give you an update on how this very unscientific experiment has worked out.

As might be expected, the first few days were awful. I felt so DEPRIVED. I drank tea without sweetener. Ate my morning oatmeal without sweetener. I gave up Diet Dr. Pepper. Let me repeat that. I GAVE UP DIET DR. PEPPER. Believe it or not, that was the worst part of the deal, giving up my afternoon diet soda habit. And everything tasted so blah. I thought I would have to abandon the experiment but I told myself I would stick it out for at least a week. At the end of that week, a funny thing happened.

I stopped thinking about sweetness.

It was a subtle shift. My evening food cravings seemed less intense. I started noticing the actual taste of the foods I usually added sweetener to. Plain yogurt was suddenly pretty yummy all by itself. Not only that, but water quenched my thirst way better than a carbonated soft drink. I continued to eat fruit, which was the only sweetness I allowed in my diet, and it began to taste fantastic. I remember one particular peach that left me moaning in gastronomic ecstasy. And my weight dropped two pounds. I don’t think I lost those two pounds because sweet calories are more fattening than non-sweet calories. I lost them because I ate less without that non-stop sweet rush to stimulate my appetite.

Now after about a month, my weight is down five pounds and I don’t miss sweetness at all. I did have a piece of cake for my birthday last week, and then another piece for my husband’s birthday two days later. They were good and I enjoyed them, but they seemed like a special indulgence, nothing more. I had stopped drinking wine for the first few weeks also, but I’ve had the occasional glass of dry red recently without a problem. I think I’m going to keep doing this for a while.

We are told that the way to keep a healthy diet sustainable is to allow yourself a regular treat; often the advice is to work in that treat on a daily basis. (By the way, the word “treat” is usually code for sweet.) I think that’s wrong. If you eat too much chocolate, for example, and decide to deal with that by eating just a little bit of chocolate every day, you are keeping alive your beliefs about how much you need chocolate and the temptation will always be there. I don’t think we humans do so well in a state of constant temptation.

I’m sure some of you will read this and think it’s complete nonsense. After all, what is life without chocolate? But it works for me. Maybe someday I’ll be evolved enough to handle a daily dose of sweet tooth. Until then I say: How sweet it ain’t!

How Sweet It Is

In my last post, I got all misty-eyed about cake, probably a result of having recently eaten a small piece of cake at a gathering. I was really proud of myself for having only a tiny serving, but I couldn’t help but notice how much I desperately wanted a second and also how much willpower was required to resist a second. That got me thinking. Like how one grilled chicken breast doesn’t automatically make me crave another. Same with a cup of steamed broccoli. But cake is different. Strangely, I’ve observed this same effect when drinking diet soda, or if I put Splenda in my iced tea. There is something about the sensation of sweetness that is different from other tastes, something that makes me yearn for more.

I don’t think I’m alone in lusting after sweetness. Just look at what happened to poor Michael Bloomberg. When he announced his proposed ban on 32-ounce servings of sweetened soft drinks, he set off a firestorm. Yes, of course, the beverage industry hit back in full force, appealing to the sacred American right to kill ourselves with bad health habits, just because we can. But a lot of regular folks got outraged too. You want to take away my big soda? Really? Now, Mayor Mike was targeting non-diet drinks only, but I can say from personal experience that soft drinks, even diet soft drinks, can be highly addictive. My drug of choice is Diet Dr. Pepper. Diet Dr. Pepper has no sugar in it whatsoever, but it does contain aspartame and it is profoundly, outrageously, otherworldly sweet.

If you read food labels (and for those intent on maintaining a large weight loss, it’s a habit that must be cultivated), you’ll notice something: everything has been sweetened in some way. It’s as if no modern processed food can respect itself unless it contains at least one of these as an ingredient: refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, cane juice or no-calorie sweeteners, such as aspartame, saccharin, sucralose or stevia. I have had difficulty finding even whole wheat bread that does not contain a sweetener of some sort. And I have to say that there is something profoundly disappointing about searching for a hearty, chewy whole grain bread only to find that the second ingredient listed is high fructose corn syrup.

To be fair, it must be noted that it has become ultra-chic to lament sugar as one of the most damaging of the diet demons du jour. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that sugar be classified as a toxin, confirming every conspiracy theorist’s worst nightmare about what all those cute little “grandmothers” are doing in the kitchen (Can you imagine the movie title? Crouching Cookie, Hidden Calorie!). Yet I’m starting to think that there may be no difference between actual sugar and the sensation of sweetness. Both the full and no-calorie versions of this taste sensation produce the same toe-curling ecstasy that just makes us want more. And more. And more.

What would happen if food wasn’t sweet? If we weren’t being bathed in the syrupy nectar of the Saccharin Goddess, day in and day out? Would it make a difference in the obesity rate? Would it make a difference for me, in my struggle to maintain my weight loss? I don’t know, but I’ve decided to try something. I’ve sworn off sweet. I’m still eating fruit, but nothing that has added sugar or artificial sweeteners. That includes my beloved Diet Dr. Pepper. And already, about a week into the experiment, I’ve noticed I have less food cravings in the evening.

Now that’s sweet!