Our mantra this week, according to Sarah, was “Replace sugar with Fat”.  Right, ok!?  I must admit to being pretty skeptical at this point.  Surely this is contrary all the healthy eating info out there?  You want me to eat lots of fat this week?  Really?

Apparently the science here is that wholesome, unprocessed fats and quality proteins such as eggs, cheese, nuts and coconuts will fill you up quickly and give you a satisfied feeling (you are not feeling deprived of the food comfort you crave).

Well, turns out it is true.  I experienced feeling full for the first time in ages for most of this week.  By Thursday I even skipped dinner, still full from lunch….. seriously.  I cannot remember skipping a meal voluntarily since high school.

An added bonus for me this week I have definitely trimmed down a few centimetres around the middle.  In 2 weeks.  And after a week concentrating on increasing my fat intake.  Go figure.

We cooked with butter and coconut oil.  We embraced animal fat and whole dairy, whole eggs and ate quite a lot of cheese and nuts.  Blissfully yummy really.

I wouldn’t say my sister and I feel completely different.  We still feel pretty tired in the mornings as well as being our usual exhausted selves after long days of work and family.  And it does take a lot of extra time and thinking to plan all these different meals.  But we do think there has been enough change to intrigue us as to the possibilities of continuing our experiment.

Intrigued.  That is where we are in this process.  Since embarking on this quitting sugar gig it seems everywhere we look is the “sugar is bad” message.

Did you catch Nigel Latta’s take on sugar last week on TV?  Apparently he has now thrown his weight behind the campaign to tax sugary drinks in NZ.  And since going sugar free himself he has lost 8kgs.

Friends, family and acquaintances around the world seem to be sharing their stories too  through the social media grapevine and the message is similar – overwhelming change in health after quitting sugar.

So, delicious recipes tried and enjoyed this week:

• Salted Caramel Haloumi and Apple (page 149)
• Almond Butter Bark (page 174)
• Energy Meffins (page 93)
• Cheesy Green Mish Mash Soup (page 129)
• Cheesy Biscuits (page 153)

And one from Dr Libby’s Real Food Kitchen book (page 181) that we adapted:

Intrigued and enthused we head into week 3 simply entitled “Quit!”.  Guessing this week won’t be as much fun as replacing sugar with fat has been…..