In pursuit of sugar-free, day one.

Jacob is the coolest kid.  He’s the hard-working one in our family.  Ask him to do something, he’ll do it. Set him a challenge, he’ll achieve it.  Give him a goal, he’ll reach it.  He was the one that used to get up with me at 5.15am to go to spin class or strive to beat his run record time after time.  Energetic kid, right?  Eeeeh, not so much. 

This boy trains like a beast and sleeps 10 hours a day but just isn’t well.  He’s constantly tired, pale, sick and can’t focus, and following a quiet comment from his trainer last week, I set myself the goal of figuring it all out.

With my mother-tiger hat on, anything for my boy, I did do something a little alternative, but also incredibly scientific.  Jacob had a blood analysis done, which means we got to see his live blood cells under magnification.  HUGE magnification even.  All on the big screen.  It was the coolest thing.

Straight away we saw amaaaaazing stuff, like big red blood cells and different types of white cells but we could see lots of nasties too.  I’ll save the details since Jacob is 14 and probably wouldn’t appreciate his whole medical history outlined on a blog post but in summary it’s surprising that Jacob gets up in the morning.  Among other things, his white blood cell count was low, his red blood cells were weak and unstructured and the amount of zig-zag or stressed out cells was alarming.

I won’t tell you what the arrow is pointing to, but it’s not good.

I wish I could draw on here like a big blackboard because this, although obviously not cool, was amazing and I feel compelled to draw big diagrams to show you.  The doctor could tell us so many things about Jacob’s history by looking at the state of his blood.  What a mess.  Longer story short, Jacob is eating nutritionally well, but none of that nutrition is getting anywhere.  His systems are super weak.

Straight away we moved to causes.  Experience, tests and feedback from Jacob have all pointed towards a hypersensitivity to sugar for a start.  Not the fabulous natural fruit type, or the gorgeous organic honey type, but the no-use-to-anyone-nutritionally-only-there-for-comfort refined white sugar type. 

Sugar has no real nutritional place in our systems.  I see so many of you cringing.  I am too!   We don’t need it.  It serves the purpose of taste and comfort only.  It’s extremely addictive, don’t I know that for sure, and is about as good to us (I want to use the farmer’s expression my Dad uses because it’s the only one I can think of right now but I won’t).. it’s about as good to us as a useless thing that’s really really useless.

And as the doctor is saying this, Jacob is hiding behind her invisibly mouthing “HELP ME!” and doing the cut-throat sign.  He was never a kid that got many treats but he could see the last of the Oreo biscuits and sugar on his weetbix, plus infact the weetbix themselves, slipping away as she was talking.

And so today we start the difficult journey towards getting Jacob healthier.  Step one.  Two weeks entirely sugar free.  And no. I’m not just another person that has jumped on the Pinterest-fuelled bandwagon in order to do something that seems almost cool to do. We’re doing this because we have visual scientific evidence that it needs doing.  We are doing this for health.  For fitness.  For waking up refreshed, for getting rid of dark circles under eyes, eliminating sore tummies and getting a little colour in our cheeks.

So today is day one, and tomorrow will be day two, I'll be posting recipes, updates and poking a little fun at ourselves just to make light of the fact that OMG we really are giving up sugar!  Did I say we?  Not sure I meant to say that.  Jacob is keen, 100% dedicated and looking forward to feeling better.  Today was the day we made lists and figured out recipes.  Tomorrow the plans turn into action. Hope you can tag along.

Laters.

Comments

[Deb]

Good luck with this journey. Have you looked into coeliac disease? My daughter was diagnosed with this and some of the symptoms sound similar.

[Mel]

As the mother of a Type 1 diabetic I know all about things sugar-free. Most people forget about the hidden sugars in things (like white bread, orange juice etc). I know you're switched on to this but if you think 'LOW GI' it goes hand in hand with sugar-free.

Good luck - will be interesting to see his progress

[Lianne]

Good luck Nic and family! Hope the going sugar free helps to improve Jacob's health issue :)

[Judy]

All the best to you all-not fun for a 14 year old to be going through. I will follow with interest and the best of wishes.

[Lainie]

I would never have thought blood could have a history. Good luck and all the best to you (do you still hide the chocolate?) and Jacob. I'll be following with interest 'cos I need to give up the white stuff too.

[Lisa Henderson]

Funny enough, I started a week with no more than 1 tbsp. of sugar each day on Sunday! And my friend and I made the 1 tbsp. rule because its so difficult to get away from these days. I'd love to see some of the recipes you come up with--especially snack ideas!

[Kim]

Hi Nic, there are some great recipes and tips on this site - you have probably seen it, but just incase...http://www.iquitsugar.com/, as well there is another site I get recipes from too - http://www.petite-kitchen.com/...all the best :)

[Linda L]

Good luck to Jacob. It will be worth it! I accidentally took a sip of my husband's sugared tea this morn - blaaaah - it was so disgustingly sweet. Twelve months ago I thought I couldn't drink tea without sugar now I prefer it. Rotten addictive stuff!

[Susan Kopp]

Thanks for sharing this and I for one will be extremely interested in this because I struggle with taking weight off and if truth be told I am a sugar addict. Thanks to Jacob for being an inspiration and a shot in the arm for me.

[Dolly]

GOOD LUCK!! I know you can do it Jacob and it looks like you could inspire a whole bunch of folks!! Please keep us up on your progress!
I hope your son finds his energy and good health and I hope you get something out of it too Nic!! :D

[Rachel]

Go Jacob!!! Good luck with the journey ahead and Jacob you rock I hope in just a short time you will be feeling the benefits of your efforts and then your mum will not be able to keep up with you in the spin class or out running ;-)
Go you Nic for all your Super Mum stuff!

[Lina]

You're such an awesome mom Nic, with a super awesome kid. Did I mention awesome? Here's to it all going easy and smoothly.

[Gela]

I was listening to a podcast that was saying that we eat 10x more sugar than we did 100 years ago. Yikes! It is not only regular sugar, refine sugar but also artificial sweeteners. I never though myself as a carb addict but when I gave it up it took about 3 weeks detox my body from sugar. It took another 3 months to reset my brain. Now, almost 3 years later, 50 lbs lighter, and at almost 50, I feel better than ever. Good luck Nic.

[Louise Nakkan]

I found this really interesting Nic, I have ben reading so much about this very thing lately. Im super keen to see how you go and if Jacob symptomatically FEELS better and looks better. If you could post links or recipes you discover that would be awesome. Good on you for taking it further to get to the bottom of the problem, a mothers intuition!!Good luck to you both.

[Topkatnz]

Wow thats a BIGGIE. Best of luck!

[Kim G]

You will all feel better for it Nic, I have cut out sugar (for the most part) for about 3 years now and I love it... It is hard to get your head around it all so if you haven't done it already I highly recommend reading Sweet Poison... David Gillespie is on to something for sure! I hope you see the results you are looking for <3

[Shani]

Good luck with it....we are having to look at it for my son....its the getting your head around what to have. I will be following with interest. :-)

[Rach]

Its amazing how food affects us!! We too took finn off weetbix + milk over 6mths ago and have seen a huge improvement. Its scary to think the government is now giving out free weetbix + milk to nz kids.....I think the days of weetbix kids is going!! Wheat allergies are really high in NZ, along with dairy!! We all have porrigde everyday all year round in this house. Just porrigde, peaches in clear juice (but they still probably have sugar in it in small amounts), coconut oil, blueberries + LSA. I've cut his milk intake too....seeing good results there. Finn now wakes without sneezing 20 times a morning + hardly blows his nose. His mucus picture is almost sorted + his behave has impoved too!! We don't buy packaged food as in stick in the microwave .....we don't even own a microwave!! McDonalds is limited and Im grateful that we dont have one in our town. I dont buy fish and chips anymore.....thats for me as I react so badly to the deep fried food. I think its great what you are doing for Jacob and you will find you will be doing this if your not already!! We live by the 80/20 rule....eat clean for 80% of the time and the other 20% are for when there is a shared lunch at school or going out for dinner. We dont miss out. The more cleaner we eat the more you will react to foods that arent good for us.....hence my reaction to fish and chips now!! Keep up the inspiring journey!! :)

[Diane]

Cutting out sugar (and adding saturated fat) has made a huge difference to the quality our lives. I hope it does the same for you. :)
All the best.
:D