Did you say NO SUGAR?

If you watch my Instagram stories or my new vlog, you’ll know that I love Psycle. When the (super gorgeous of course) CEO wrote an article about giving up almost every form of sugar for 30 days, a group of close friends and I decided we were up for the challenge. It’s not unknown that sugar is pretty terrible for your body, and more than that, you’d be surprised how many of the things you love to eat are full of sugar. When I started to understand how terribly processed refined sugar is, I know had to do this. Don’t get me wrong, this was no walk in the park. It was very hard. I wanted to give up on more than one occasion.  There was no refined or unrefined sugar in my life and I could feel myself getting clammy, irritable and shakey.  This is coming from the girl who used to (key words: used to) put four sugars in her coffee. About a week into it, something started to change. It got easier, I felt better and I was reaping the benefits of it already. There were three main things I noticed that happened to me when I gave up sugar and they really surprised me. After reading them, I think you might want to try this too.

My Skin Improved Drastically

I have struggled with acne for a majority of my teen years and early 20’s. Nothing seemed to keep it away and any girl knows how insecure a single pimple can make you feel. Well, imagine 30 of them all over your face. Top that with a job that has you on Instagram and your outfit photos all day, the insecurity can really build up. About two weeks into this challenge, I wasn’t wearing any makeup anymore. My skin suddenly cleared up and began to glow. I felt so much more confident and not only did I notice it, but those around me did too. I suddenly heard so many people with a similar story on how sugar is their acne trigger! No cake isn’t worth me feeling horrible about my skin. Now that I know sugar is what is causing my breakouts, I’m controlling my intake of even unrefined sugar post the 30 days. Guess what? I don’t even miss it that much. (Again, coming from the girl who used to eat cupcakes for breakfast. If I can do this you can too!)

Everything You Think Is Healthy, May Not Be

I had tons and tons of “healthy” snacks in my kitchen when I started this challenge. I thought to myself, Shloka, you’re going to be just fine for 30 days with all these goodies! Just in case though, something prompted me to check the ingredients – every single thing had sugar in it. Palm sugar, agave, honey, all of them. Mind you, they were all savory as well! Through the 30 days, I realized that the food I thought was good for me, really wasn’t that great. A friend of mine then pointed out something that really clicked. Just because it’s healthy junk food, doesn’t make it any less junk food! Yes, I’m talking about the lentil chips and all! Essentially, It became a lot about cooking and making my own snacks. I love to cook so this was actually quite fun, and more than that it really forced me to be so much more aware of what I was putting inside my body!

I’m Stronger Than I Thought & I Bet You Are Too

There are two points to this. Firstly, I found that my body had more energy than I thought it would have. I was more active and less lethargic. My body felt so much stronger. Secondly, I was really surprised that my mind was much stronger than I thought. Sugar has always been one of my vices. From a young age, I have had an incredible sweet tooth. Leave me with a cake and it will be gone. To go from dessert after every single mean and chocolate as a snack to nothing at all was no easy feat but I found that my willpower was much stronger than I gave it credit for. I’m not going to lie to you, I wanted to give up a few times. Going for a meal to a restaurant was no easy feat. Every single time we decided to eat out, we would have to intensely scan the massive binder of recipes used to see what we could eat. However, doing this with a group of other people really made the whole thing more manageable and encouraged me to keep going because I wasn’t only letting myself down if I gave up, but them too! You would be surprised at how powerful your mind is!

So my 30 days are over and I thought I would be running back to the sugar. What’s happened instead is that I loved the feeling of how clean and strong my body felt that I am actually much more aware and careful about what I eat. A huge shoutout to my favorites who did this challenge with me Here’s the link to it! Go on, I dare you.

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