Happy & Healthy

This is what happened when I stopped eating sugar

Last summer I suddenly caught something resembling a stomach ulcer. You know, the kind of disease that seems more fitting for heavy guys in their fifties with a stressful job in brokerage. I didn’t ask for it, but got it anyway. The only thing I could do was to get some rest and wait it out. And: no coffee, no black tea, an amount of fat intake that wouldn’t even make today’s vegans happy and little to no spices. There I was, hurled up on the couch in fetal position, whining about the horrific pains I had to endure. And without the necessary scapegoat to blame for my misery; you know, some idiot you can unleash all of your anger out on.

Weeks turned into months and still no signs of improvement: I kept having terrible aches in my stomach, I got nauseous after every meal and I couldn’t refrain from having to burp if my life depended on it. Burp. Burp. Burp. Allllll day long. Seriously, I can’t begin to describe how horrible it was. It was time to take some extreme forms of action.

“Well let me tell ya, every Dutchie is latched on to a continuous sugar IV”

The doctor could finally tell me what it was. It appeared to be a really nasty bacteria that was turning my life into a living hell. Even though antibiotics took away some of it, my slowly but surely road to recovery was mostly because of a different eating pattern. I had to stop eating sugar immediately. SUGAR. My precious white poison. That deliciously sweet comforting stuff that I’ve come to know and love. I know you shouldn’t shoot the messenger and all that, but I was really close to actually kneeing my doctor there where the sun doesn’t shine for being the bearer of this bad news.

Once I had gotten used to the idea, I wasn’t so bummed: I never drink soda and I always cook with fresh ingredients. Steering clear from my daily Snickers shouldn’t be that hard, right? Wrong. I started to realize that I rewarded myself with sugar at lot more often than I actually realized: tea with honey to start off the day, piece of candy here and there, some ginger cookies as a morning treat, good quality chocolate over tea with honey around 4PM, another cookie in the evening, French toast with fruit and sugar on weekends… My sugar intake turned out to be endless. Damn it. And I was so blissfully unaware.

“I dream of dancing in a marching band with cotton candy in one hand and a Snickers for a baton in the other”

Anyway, I’ve gotten pretty good at steering clear from my beloved sugar. I hardly eat candy – with the occasional monthly relapse – and I make sure to check the labels on food to see if they contain sugar. Well let me tell ya, every Dutchie is latched onto a continuous sugar IV. Even if you discard the cookies, candy and other obvious suspects, you still have ketchup, mayonnaise, crackers, bacon, blocks of broth and many more products that have quite a dose of sugar in them. The struggle is real. As are my tears.

And the worst thing of all: I feel SO much better. No more gut-wrenching stomach aches, no more burping, hardly any nausea. And a lot less headaches. And a couple kilo’s lighter. And more energy. And did I mention that I feel a lot better? Like myself? Pretty sad, because I’m crying on the inside for all the precious moments I still could have had with sugar. I dream of dancing in a marching band with cotton candy in one hand and a Snickers instead of a baton in the other. I dream of jawbreakers, Willy Wonka’s chocolate heaven and soda in the brightest colors. Oh well, feeling ten times better also counts for something, right? My advice is; don’t try this at home. Getting rid of sugar will hurt more than you know.