I decided to stop having sugar in my tea and coffee. I also decided to stop eating the sweeties at work and cut out the bikkies.
This is because I have osteoarthritis is my knuckles and I googled things to do to improve matters. There’s no cure, and things will get worse over time, but what I read suggested that avoiding sugar could alleviate the symptoms and slow the progression.
The long and the short of it was that I realised I needed to cut down the amount of sugar in my diet.
Step One was to reduce the sugar in my tea and coffee from one spoonful down to half a spoonful. That went well, and after two weeks I progressed to Step Two.
Step Two was reducing the sugar down from half a spoonful to none.
And after three days I couldn’t stand it any longer. Yesterday I found myself sitting in the staff room at work, mug of coffee in my hand, wondering why I was drinking what was basically brown water.
So when I got home from work I made myself a cup of tea – and I put sugar in it. Oh my, that was one good cup of tea. Did I feel bad about it? Yes, a little. Did I feel like I’d failed? Yes, of course.
But – have I fallen off the wagon completely? No. I’m still clinging on.
I only put half a spoonful of sugar in that cup of tea last night, not the full spoonful that I used to have.
I’m still avoiding the sweets and the bikkies.
I haven’t missed the sweeties at work. I haven’t missed the bikkies. But no sugar in tea and coffee turned out to be one step too far for me.
If cutting out the sugar is going to do any good at all, it has to be sustainable over a very long time. And I’m hoping that this will be. Half a spoonful of sugar in tea and coffee, no sweets, and no bikkies, and paying attention to the amount of hidden sugars in the foods I buy – that feels do-able to me.
Will it be enough to make a difference? Only time will tell – but it will be better than doing nothing.
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