21 Day Sugar Detox: Prep Week

While I don't eat a lot of sugar typically, and rarely any processed sugar but after a week back on grains a little while ago my carb and sweets cravings came back with a vengeance. I needed to kick those cravings in the booty if I was going to succeed in sticking with eating the way that makes me feel the best so I decided to give the 21 Day Sugar Detox a  try. I regularly listen to Diane Sanfilippo and her co-host Liz Wolfe on the Balanced Bites podcast and have heard about the 21DSD program several times through that show but also from friends in the online community- similar to how I learned about Paleo actually. During the 'prep week' otherwise known as the week before you start the program was mostly about preparation- as the name suggests. I read the first third of the book, downloaded the 1 page cheat sheets to my drop box so that I could view them on the go, took the quiz to see what level I should do, and planned out my meals for the week. I was level 3... no surprise there since I typically eat a more paleo style diet already. I really am going to miss dairy though... sad day. Other than that the plan looked fairly straight forward so I planned out my meals for the week and got ready to go. There is a meal plan in the book (and the recipes look really good) but I am a little bit of a picky eater (working on that... trying a couple new veggies every month!) so I didn't want to stick with the planned meals list because I felt that would make it more difficult for me to follow the program. Instead I am going to be eating from the yes/no food list this week and following the rules as set forth in the book. Next week I will likely bulk cook a few of the recipes in the book though as they look pretty tasty. I appreciated the FAQ section as well as the day by day thought process section and would recommend that anyone who does not already follow a fairly low sugar and/or carb diet read through those sections especially. On another note, my biggest food weakness is my diet soda... it's horrible for me, I know and understand that completely, and yet I still drink it... even though it is way too sweet for me to really enjoy fully at this point. I'm addicted. Admittedly so. This detox gives me an opportune time to kick this habit for good. While I am not looking forward to the withdrawal I am looking forward to saving some money and getting the chemicals out of my life for good. I'll be updating you at the end of each of the 3 weeks of the detox and then reviewing the book as a whole at the end of the program. See you on the other side!

Books from this program should you be interested in doing the detox with me: