Given that the author is suggesting that interested people undertake this as a month long exercise, and only claims to have undertaken this exercise twice, it is not clear why you are characterizing this as an extreme diet.
What I've found is that restaurant food all tastes incredibly sweet. All of it. There has to be so much sugar they're putting in food, and I just used to be used to eating that much.
Getting a chai-type beverage, if they add sweetener at all, it's wayyyyyy too much. I've started requesting no sweetener in my chais, and that now tastes normal to me.
I still eat fruit, but no more than one piece a day. Even a whole apple often feels like a little too much sweet for me.
The biggest take-away I have from all this is just how easy it is to get accustomed to foods, one way or another.
The biggest benefit has been weight loss and having my energy throughout the day feel almost totally steady and even now. Even when I get hungry, it's a sensation I can mostly delay gratification of, where I used to get crazy and distracted from hunger.
I don't crave it at all any more, and my doc said I probably added ten years to my life just doing that. I also lost over 20 pounds the first month and with exercise I could probably convert another 10-20 to muscle and bone weight.
I also don't get "sick" as often, as in I've had only one chest cold since I started this diet, whereas in the past I'd have had two or three at least by now. Anecdotal, I know, but it's been a huge boost to my quality of life.
I do occasionally still have black coffee or with just half and half, but that is too much temptation to put "just one spoonful of sugar" in there, and I have to make myself stop.
It has also been difficult giving up cooking desserts; I love to bake and I also enjoy cooking Asian cuisine, which (depending on the dish) can be very sugar-dependent. There are a few fruit-based desserts that don't require much or any added sugar, but when you're diabetic even the natural sugars from fruit can be harmful.
I am convinced that a real change is a lot more realistic when it is part of a larger lifestyle change. Habits are hard to break one by one because they reinforce eachother.
I suggest that you collect all your bad habits together and break them all at once. Or, with the next change in your life (new city, new job, marriage, first child) also change your diet.
It sounds harder but I think it's easier. Baby waking you up three times in one night, and you won't care how food tastes anyway.
I think a big enough change triggers something in your mind that says "this is how life is now".
Another tip is that embarassment and disgust are powerful emotions, so use them. When I got married I was literally too embarrassed to keep my old diet. And if you think about it the right way, sugar everywhere is disgusting. It makes your mouth sticky causes rapid bacterial growth and bad breath.
My wife and I cook quite a lot at home, and tend to under-sweeten and under-salt things compared to the status quo, and my perception is that we're both much more sensitive to salt and sugar levels in foods we don't prepare as a result.
Sodium is essential to being healthy; the reason it's made out to be a big deal is due to how much processed food the average person eats. It's almost as though it's assumed that people are going to eat processed food regularly.
We're not anti-salt or anything, we just tend to use less of it than recipes call for, and the effects has been that we notice oversalting more in other foods.
For anyone who works out or is starting to its good to remember you lose salts while you sweat as well.
As a result of that, and some other dietary changes, I'm also 25 pounds lighter.
Today, almost all restaurant food tastes way too salty and sweet, with the worst offender being pizza. I've noticed that one by one, even the independent or local pizza places have added more and more sugar to the crust and sauce.
I had to switch to Granny Smith and similar. If you don't mind the acidity, they are a real treat :)
Abstaining from sugar really does help reset your preferences; give it a try.
(I made other subsequent changes and got down to 250; moving to SF meant walking more and I got down to 220, though I switched jobs to a South Bay tech company and have started creeping back up since it is far less walkable down there.)
It is fascinating how much sugar some foods have - if you imagine making them yourself and putting like two tablespoons of sugar into a cup... now that just sounds weird and somewhat disgusting. Some over-sugared foods I just can't eat. But it's not a big loss. For many foods there are substitutes that taste even better (at least once your brain is over the "good = sugar" mindset), others you can just do without. Nothing extreme here.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/is-sugar-really-bad...
The issue with "processed sugars" is that they appear in forms which cause you to not necessarily get enough fiber with them, and in form factors that are very easy to overconsume, but biochemically, 19g of table sugar and a couple of Benefiber caps are going to do approximately the same thing as an apple. Being processed doesn't make it magically toxic.
People like to talk about "processed" sugars like it's the sugar itself that has transformed, when really the problem with processed sugars is that it's just the sugar, and it's too easy to consume too much of it.
Naturally occurring sugar is just as bad, but has some other ingredients deemed to have positive impact. The analogy here would be opposing the claim that smoking is bad for you with the statement that some cigarettes can contain menthol or eucalyptus, which are known to have soothing effects and pleasant odors, and therefore are "completely different".
But back to sugar. The usual pro-sugar argument with naturally occurring sugars involves vitamins and nutrients. Unless you have a severe case of vitamin deficiency, your body does not need extra supply of those vitamins, at least doesn't need them urgently enough to justify sugar as a delivery mechanism.
Nutrients can be obtained from zero-sugar green leafy vegetables - watercress and kale tend to be the bomb as far as nutrient load.
Also "naturally occurring" is a misnomer by itself - modern commercially available fruit has been bred to have longer shelf lives and higher contents of sugar to appeal to general public.
So indeed nothing stays natural after a touch of civilization.
In practice, I think the difference between naturally occurring sugar and added sugar is satiety: sugars that occur naturally are bundled with fibers, and fiber makes it more difficult to overeat. That's what's so dangerous about sugar soda (which really needs to be legally regulated).
Eating piles of sugar is stupid, but that doesn't mean I should be legally prevented from doing it.
I no longer miss sugary 'treats', and happily much on apples instead of chocolate bars as I used to.
I sleep better, feel better, concentrate better, control weight better, I'm more productive... the list goes on.
That isn't to say that your sugar-free experience isn't meaningful, significant, or impacts your life.
My point is that your sugar-free lifestyle results are indistinguishable from placebo. Or little green moon men, really.
Honestly, I think it's probably just easiest to limit carb intake overall. Don't bother with the nonsense about subtracting fiber and all that, just set your carbohydrate goals for the day and stay under that. Sugar-heavy foods tend to get naturally eliminated in such a routine because the calorie-to-satiation ratio sucks.
Yes, these are deceptive. You're typically getting all of the sugar, but none of the fiber along with it that slows digestion (along with other benefits). Eating an apple and drinking apple juice are very different in terms of sugar content and the resultant insulin spike.
That said, I doubt anyone has ever experienced negative health effects from eating too many apples.
Edit: wait, so you ate ~53 apples (googled average weight, came back at ~.15kg)? I call BS.
And consider that if one just eats 3 apples per hour, than in 16 hours that gives 48.
You turn into an apple.
At least, according to all nannies & parents.
As far as I understand, the fiber should still stay in the juice because I did nothing to take the fiber out of this mixture.
But even if the fiber stays intact you're going to drink and potentially overdose on a smoothie more easily than a while fruit.
http://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-fruits-and-vegetable...
> The unpleasant parts of a month without sugar are temporary, and they’re tolerable. Some of the benefits continue long after the month is over. If you try it and your experience is anything like mine, I predict that your new normal will feel healthier and no less enjoyable than the old.
This is the extent of the results. NONE of the benefits, expected or experienced are discussed!
The rest is just telling you what to avoid and what to eat. The sugar naturally occurring in fruit, vegetables and dairy are allowed. Author also claims that you can't eat things that have 0g sugar listed because that just means less than 0.5g. You have to read every ingredient for -ose, honey, sugar, agave, etc. That seems a bit ridiculous if you are allowing fructose from an apple (~19g).
Reduce sugar in favor of grain and calorie balance among fat, carb, protein with reduced total intake is generally good. Diets like these are replacing one extreme with another.