Day Four: thoughts about sugar

After the mishap with the accidental coffee sugaring, my boyfriend has moved the sugar bowl to the top shelf where he thinks I can't reach it. I totally can if I stretch on my tippytoes... But the thought is a good one - it will prevent a repeat of the unintended calorie intake. He also pointed out that if I'm using sweetener on fast days, it makes sense to use it the rest of the time too. Not only will my palate become more accustomed to it, but I will save on the extra calories during the rest of the week. I did the sums - at 16kCal per teaspoonful, and an average of 3 cups of coffee a day (possibly an underestimate!) I will save around 1500kCal per month by switching to sweetener. This is definitely worth doing - it's like a bonus fast day every month. 

Sugar is pretty nasty stuff. I've read various bits of research over the years on how it is not simply "empty calories" but has some unpleasant side effects too. Apparently eating refined white flour has similar consequences. I'm not promoting the program described here but the health effects make disturbing reading.
http://nancyappleton.com/141-reasons-sugar-ruins-your-health/

In the news this week were the poor American mice failing to thrive when fed a diet consisting of 25% sugar - roughly equivalent to drinking three cans of sugary drinks a day but having an otherwise sugar-free diet in adult humans.
http://www.nature.com/news/safe-levels-of-sugar-harmful-to-mice-1.13555

Apart from the health issues, there is also the fact that the body changes sugar into 2 to 5 times more fat in the bloodstream than it does starch. So I'm feeling pretty good about cutting out as much as possible.

In the meantime, I survived Day 3 quite happily at home, and the day after was fine too. I feel like I'm eating less on my non-fast days ("feed" days?) but am trying not to think about it too much. One additional effect is a slight lowering of my alcohol intake. Yes, those of you who know me are falling about laughing at the thought, and no, I'm not about to give up my Pinot Grigio habit, hence the qualifier "slight". But not drinking on fast days, and not wanting to drink the day before and risk starting my fast day dehydrated, means not drinking 4 days out of 7. Which is an awful lot less drinking days than I'm used to. And of course, alcohol is another form of sugar...