21 Day Sugar Detox & Eating from a Place of Empowerment
At the end of 2015, I clearly felt God challenging me in my views toward food and fitness challenges. As I reflected on the upcoming new year, I started to see how at some point, the Whole 30 challenges or not eating gluten/sugar for a period of time became about something it should never be about: eating perfectionism and following a prescribed set of rules. Let me explain what I mean.
As many of you know, I’m all about Whole 30, Paleo and eating real, whole foods. I’ve experimented with this way of eating for the last two years and have personally thrived in all areas of health because of it. I have witnessed how eating this way has changed my life and many of the lives of those around me. Therefore, I have encouraged others to experiment with eating real, whole, and unprocessed foods as well. I’ve advised people to try eating this way for a week, two weeks, and even a month just to experiment and see what work and doesn’t work for them. For many, this has been done through a 30 day challenge – personally and through fitness institutions like Crossfit. And without fail, many of have reported to me how good they felt physically and mentally while eating real food and how good they felt about how they looked. Many lost weight and/or inches, improved their fitness benchmarks, and slept better than they ever have. Many experimented what I would call empowerment, freedom and great success.
However, the temptation then becomes to believe that it is only through a food or fitness challenge will results ever happen. We all are tempted to confine ourselves to a set of rules or “diet” in order to continue to lose/gain/maintain. We then quickly make an experiment that was freeing and empowering, into something legalistic and restricting. We then get frustrated at this restricting diet and blow it off, consequently going back to the way we were before – nonchalant with our eating and exercise and simply not caring about what we put into our body and what we do with it. So where does that leave us? Back in this never ending cycle of defeat in the our health and wellness. This leaves us at square 1.
And if I’m honest, I’m done with square 1. I’m done with this never ending cycle of defeat. It’s tiring, exhausting, disempowering and honestly, it’s a prison. I was made for more than this cycle, you were made for more than this cycle. So, when this January came around I simply said I wasn’t going to do a food challenge because I was tired of restricting myself for the wrong reasons. I told myself that I was just going to eat real food consistently and enjoy treats occasionally. I was going to eat, live, and enjoy my life.
So, you may ask then – where does this 21 Day Sugar Detox in the blog title fit in? Isn’t this a challenge? Doesn’t it go again everything you just spoke about? My answer to you is – yes and no. Yes, this is an eating program where there are strict rules of what you can and cannot eat for 21 days. And Yes, many call this a challenge. But No, this doesn’t not go against what I just spoke about because my motivations and intentions behind this are different than they were before.
You see, I’ve done the 21 Day Sugar Detox before and honestly, my weight nor my measurements barely changed. So if I was going for that, this would be a fail of a challenge. This time around, I’m choosing to do this 21 Day Sugar Detox out of a posture of experiment and empowerment.
In regards to experiment, I recently learned in more detail the affects of sugar on the body and wanted to experiment again on how sugar (even good sugar in foods such as fruit) affect me mentally, physically, emotionally and even spiritually. My goal is to not lose weight, but to be creative and enjoy foods (and even treats) that aren’t too sweet. I want to see what it’s like for my taste buds to evolve and change again. I want to see how sugar affects my sleep, my energy levels, and even my body composition. And with that, I want to share the experience and results of this experiment with others so they could see what it’s like and to then, possibly experiment with the 21 Day Sugar Detox themselves.
In regards to empowerment, I’m choosing to do this detox because I genuinely want to for myself, not because everyone else is doing the challenge or because I’m dissatisfied with myself. I’m doing this because I want to see what happens and also show myself and others that sugar or even cravings for sugar does not have to rule us, that we can overcome. I want to try this simply because I just want to.
So since my start date is March 2nd, in the next few weeks I’ll give a detailed break down of exactly what the 21 Day Sugar Detox is and my plan of action for it. However, for now if you want to learn more about the detox check out the developer of the program (Diane Sanfilippo) and the program’s website here, and my blog post from April last year on my first 21 Day Sugar Detox here.
If you are interested in the 21 Day Sugar Detox and learning how to eat well and experiment out of a place of empowerment, I challenge you to read about the program above, join me if you feel ready and let me know if you have any questions 🙂
Yours in holistic health,
Brianna
