I’ve loved sugar since days of drinking Ribena as a health tonic to improve my eating to teen years regularly strolling to Bee ‘n Bees to buy Kit Kat. Sugar was (and sometimes, still is) an integral part of my life. However, I noticed my addiction to sugar when I started chaining M&Ms as I wrote Wanna B Prez? 10 Life Strategies from President Barack Obama’s Journey to the White House. I’d buy a 2-pound bag of plain M&Ms and stick it in the fridge. Taking a handful at a time, I’d line them up by color or pattern, and slip one after the other into my mouth. I averaged three sentences per piece. I believed M&Ms inspired my writing so, banned the children from taking ‘Mummy’s candy.’ Over the years, I switched to Twizzlers, Kit Kat, Nestle variety, Twix, and M&M Peanuts. In fact, I can tell my writing and life story by my candy choices.

Middle age brought the spread. As I dug into Grandma from Ghana’s jollof rice after work and ‘Item 7’ in the fellowship hall after service, I packed on resistant pounds. The puff puffs, meat pies, Caribbean-style cake, and other mede medes added layers to my waistline. Coupled with the American hazard of constant availability of snacks and poor food choices, my fate was sealed. I ate for comfort, reward, boredom, to stave off sleep, and to socialize at parties where dinner was invariably served late at night.

When a cousin who’d suffered similar childhood asthma, said he’d had no attacks since he stopped eating sugar, I quit. I watched throughout the day, for a reversal of all symptoms. When that didn’t happen, I reverted to my old ways. Then a sister who’d successfully slimmed her waistline said, “Don’t overcomplicate it, just eat less.” I ate less real food but stuck with my diet of candy and cookies. One summer, I lost weight with a personal trainer but couldn’t give up then sugar of choice – granola bars.

A few months ago, I hit 172 pounds (I know a woman should not tell her weight, but full disclosure and all that…). I was aghast. “Never again!” I swore but surpassed it twice more before I came to my senses. I had the distended belly of a processed food addict, inflamed joints, and the looming threat of diabetes which runs in my paternal lineage. It was time to do something drastic. Enter, the NO SUGAR strike. On September 19, 2019, I decided to stop all things sugar – candy, cookies, processed foods, and carbs that quickly converted to sugar. I decided to eat vegetables, beans, fish, and turkey. For snacks, mixed nuts. At first, I thought I’d die but to make it easy on myself, I fasted all day till I got home because once I started eating, I just kept grazing.

A month into my sugar strike, there was a marked difference. My waistline lost a sliver of fat. If I hold it in, it caves. I dropped a few pounds, have sharper focus, and free from lunch planning indecision. But the most remarkable difference is that I can walk away from a free serving of M&M plain, peanuts, or any of the newfangled flavors. Knowing that recovery is only as good as one’s support system, I keep myself motivated by getting tips from The Sugar Smart Diet by Anne Alexander and UK’s Secret Eaters episodes of YouTube. Some tips to pass along are:
• When you feel the munchies, go for a walk. Apparently, a craving lasts only about twenty minutes. If you can ignore it for that long, you’ll overcome.
• When you hit the endless buffets at parties, pick 100-calorie sizes. If you’re conscious of how much you’re putting on your plate, you won’t pile it on. For small chops, pick two and sit down.
• Drinks count too. Avoid liquid sugar.
• Snap a photo of your food before eating. Notice how much you plan to eat before you chomp down. Notice your thoughts and feelings around food. Make sure they’re healthy.
• Above all, avoid blatant sugar in food. It breeds belly fat and illness.
Try the no sugar strike. Who knows, we may both find recovery 😉