I went 10 days without eating sugar and it was harder than giving up sex

melia fed up challenge sugar
Melia Robinson/Tech Insider

Anyone who's ever been single, broken-up, or in a long-distance relationship — as I managed to do for a year and half before moving west — understands the gut-wrenching craving for physical intimacy. The transition between regular sex and celibacy can be tough.

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Let me tell you, giving up sugar for 10 days is harder.

I first heard of the Fed Up Challenge when my mom's best friend posted about it on Facebook. Her statuses bragged about how much energy she had after giving up foods containing sugar. She posted photos of her farmer's market bounty with the hashtag "tastetherainbow."

Extra energy? Repurposed Skittles slogans? Yes please.

A couple weeks later I embarked on the 10-Day Fed Up Challenge, a healthy living campaign helmed by Katie Couric, Laurie David, and Stephanie Soechtig, the trio behind the 2014 documentary "Fed Up."

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Given that the average sugar intake in the US is 22 teaspoons per day, when the The World Health Organization recommends no more than six teaspoons — and given my proximity to the office candy jar — I knew this would be a doozy. I didn't know it'd be nearly impossible.

 

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The Fed Up Challenge demands you give up all foods that have added sugars — no exceptions

melia fed up challenge sugar
Center for Science in the Public Interest

The Fed Up Challenge wants you to say goodbye to all foods that contain honey, molasses, agave, artificial sweeteners, and any one of the 56 hidden names for sugar, such as glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, and maltose.

Hasta la vista to liquid sugars, such as sodas, bottled teas, fruit juices, and sports drinks, too.

Why go cold turkey? Sugar has the same addictive properties as tobacco and alcohol, meaning the more you eat, the more you need to be satisfied.

"The best way to cut your sugar cravings are to cut out all sugar at once," the Fed Up website says. "Otherwise you keep triggering the addiction center in the brain."

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Day 0: A last hurrah

melia fed up challenge sugar
Melia Robinson/Tech Insider

I wanted to give my friend sugar a proper send-off. So at an outdoor movie screening the night before the Challenge, I ordered an ice cream sandwich made with two Snickerdoodle cookies and a generous scoop of Lucky Charms-infused ice cream. It. Was. Awesome.

That is, until I passed out 45 minutes into the "Heathers" screening with a stomach ache — a textbook sugar coma. I won't miss these.

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Day 1: Getting started and accepting defeat

tomato sauce grocery store aisle
Melia Robinson/Tech Insider

All day, I craved my usual afternoon Fig Bar (10g), a handful of banana chips (30g), and honey in my hot lemon tea (17g). The lowest blow, however, was the loss of yogurt. I typically scoop a half-cup or so into a blender for my green smoothie in the morning and was shocked to discover that even plain Greek yogurt is forbidden in the Garden of Eden.

When I think of "going sugar-free," visions of cake, soft serve ice cream, and candies dance in my head. But I quickly learned that sugar is everywhere, not just in the sticky-sweet items that line the checkout lane. I'm talking, bagels, skim milk, ketchup, bread, peanut butter, energy bars, and millions more unexpected places.

I came home from work famished and made pasta with lean ground turkey and canned crushed tomatoes on a bed of spaghetti squash. And what do you know? That can of crushed tomatoes had 2g of sugar. Day 1 and I'd fallen off the wagon. I felt angry, especially after actively resisting temptation in the office for nine hours.

But, something good came out of it. I realized I needed to set myself up for success.

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Day 2: Out of sight, out of mind

melia fed up challenge sugar
Melia Robinson/Tech Insider

With the support of my team, the office candy jar was emptied and remained empty through the remainder of The Challenge.

I went grocery shopping after work and stocked up on "safe foods": bushels of spinach and kale, fresh zucchini, more spaghetti squash, a carton of egg whites, cheeses, soy milk, fresh fruits, and lots of proteins, like ground turkey and chicken breasts.

The cravings persisted through most of the day, but surrounding myself with alternative snacks distracted me long enough to get through the urges.

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Day 3: Into the swing of things

melia fed up challenge sugar
Melia Robinson/Tech Insider

By Day 3, I got into a groove with breakfast. I dropped the green smoothie routine and started getting up earlier to make scrambled egg whites with cheese, spinach, and baby portabello mushrooms. And man, did those fill me up.

For lunch I brought an enormous kale salad with chopped chicken breast, avocado, and fresh peppers, which was not unusual for me.

By dinner, however, I figured I might die of boredom if I had to eat one more veggie medley.

After scrounging around, I found a Weight Watchers brand oatmeal bread that has less than 1g of sugar per slice. I sandwiched a lean ground turkey patty, made with chopped mushrooms, spinach, and garlic powder and topped with shredded part-skim mozzarella, between two slices of the bread.

It was a compromise, but the protein left me satisfied for longer.

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Day 4: Hey, it's kind of working

melia fed up challenge sugar
Melia Robinson/Tech Insider

By now, I could already start to feel the increased energy. I felt purged somehow. Getting up in the morning seemed easier, and I hit the snooze button less.

It's cool when you go into something with an expectation — "I will have more energy" — and that expectation is realized. It didn't feel like the placebo effect.

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Day 5: Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey

melia fed up challenge sugar
Getty Images/Buda Mendes

I'm a twenty-something who enjoys happy hours or the occasional beer with dinner. My go-to hard cider and seasonal wheat ales were loaded with sugars, which was, to say the least, depressing.

But a quick Google search revealed that plain, hard liquor is most often in the clear.

I began ordering whiskey on the rocks, which was easier on my wallet because it took fewer drinks to get buzzed. Let's count this swap as a win.

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Day 6: "Do you think the candy jar is lonely?"

m&m candy
Flickr/rooneydom

I started to feel like I could run a marathon. A triathlon. A decathlon!

I'm not kidding. Boundless energy. I woke up with vigor (granted, I had been getting seven hours of sleep most nights), only needed one cup of coffee in the morning to stay focused, and made it through most of the day without yawning.

Unfortunately, for those of you keeping score, I still craved a handful of M&Ms from the office candy jar like Charlie craved heroin in Season 1 of "LOST."

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Day 7: I fell off the wagon and couldn't get up

melia fed up challenge sugar
Melia Robinson/Tech Insider

I experienced my first major cheat. And I didn't just dip my toe in to see how the water was. I strapped on my swim cap and dove headfirst into Willy Wonka's chocolate river.

Our intern brought in cookies from Momofuku Milk Bar. A press gift from ManCrates delivered maple-cured bacon jerky. When I got home, my self-control completely unraveled and I cut a slice from the chocolate-chip zucchini bread buried in the freezer.

Something remarkable happened. It tasted ... disgustingly sugary.

This is my mom's chocolate-chip zucchini bread recipe. I've been eating it for two decades, and now that I can replicate it in my own kitchen, it's one of my greatest vices.

But when I bit into the bread, it made my teeth itch. It tasted too sweet to finish. I couldn't believe that in seven days, my palate had changed, when it took 20 years for me to eat a mushroom without gagging.

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Day 9: My Oprah "ah-ha" moment

campbell's chicken noodle soup can
Flickr/jeepersmedia

A cold came on and I became more concerned about contracting the plague than sticking to the Challenge. I drank a lot of hot toddies with my canned chicken noodle soup.

Sometimes you get sick. Sometimes a tsunami of stress hits. Sometimes your willpower slips, and I decided, that's okay.

But for this sugar-free lifestyle to work, I would have to be more proactive about stopping the cycle. If the intern brings in s'mores-flavored cookies, I don't have to throw in the towel and declare it a "cheat day." It can be a "cheat moment."

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Day 10: Reflection

melia fed up challenge sugar
Now, instead of going out for an ice cream cone, I blend a banana, strawberries, blueberries, fat-free powdered peanut butter, skim milk, and "sugar-free" chocolate pudding into a decadent smoothie. Melia Robinson/Tech Insider

Over the course of the Fed Up challenge, I reduced my daily sugar intake from 45g on average to about 2g a day. I significantly increased my consumption of complex carbohydrates and cheese, which are far from immune to the magnetic pull of my hips.

Still, I lost four pounds in 10 days.

Pros: I shed some weight. Since consuming sugar may stall the hormone that lets your body know "I'm full," I felt less hungry during the day and felt satiated sooner. More importantly, I gained massive amounts of energy I didn't know my body could tap into.

Cons: I experienced noticeably more indigestion, likely from eating more complex carbohydrates, cheese, and massive amounts of fruits and veggie. (Apologies, desk mates.) This seems manageable with a Beano regiment and drinking more water.

Since completing the Fed Up Challenge, I've reunited with sugar-free chocolate pudding (because artificial sugars were banned, too). But I try my best to maintain the rules otherwise. Candy cravings persist, but pass more quickly.

Still, I've become lazy about reading nutritional labels and instead rely on my judgment. The scale at the gym tells me that my judgment is, more often than not, wrong.

Regardless, I'm glad I did the Fed Up Challenge for the sheer satisfaction that comes with completing it.

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