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I am a recovering addict. I was totally addicted to a white crystalline substance. Sometimes I would “cut” it with other substances such as flour, eggs and baking powder to increase volume and reduce purity. It produced an intense, euphoric feeling followed by an equally intense “crash” or depressed feeling.

My dealer was the local Safeway. Sometimes, I would even show up at work with tell-tale white powder smudges near my nose and mouth…betrayed by the powdered-donut.

Then, nine months ago, I gave up sugar.

I am still alive.

So it CAN be done. Put “No Sugar Tonight” by The Guess Who on endless loop and it will distract you from the withdrawal process. I lie. NOTHING can distract you from the withdrawal process. It’s as much fun as having your nose hairs pulled out one by one. But unlike nose hair removal, it’s very much worth it.

Once I got through that (with the help of vitamins, water and incessant whining), I emerged happier, healthier and thinner. I’d heard about this book by Kathleen Desmaisons, which, in spite of its daft title, is brilliant. I read it. Three times. The case for giving up sugar was made.

I know people who have gone on extreme elimination diets that cause their bodies to “eliminate” at such an alarming rate, entire forests are decimated by the ensuing need for toilet paper. My parents used to go on this “F Plan” diet, which was based on the theory that, with enough fibre, you can effectively blow out your entire colon, and thereby shed a few pounds while you’re at it. Since it appeared to involve eating three bowls of sawdust a day, I gave it a pass. (No pun intended.)

Giving up sugar was radical in the sense that it turns out nearly everything we eat has sugar in it. If I gnawed on random tree bark, I’d surely find some hidden sugars in there too. (But it would be on that F Plan diet somewhere…)

If you do this, and I highly encourage everyone to do it,  get away from the sweet stuff entirely. Don’t go for the sugar-free chocolate or candies; try to get your sweet fix from fruit.  “Sugar-free” often means chock full of maltitol or sorbital – both of which can give you the squits. Which takes me back to the radical elimation i.e. rampant pooping. It always comes back to that somehow…

Now when I decline an offer for dessert, the conversation invariably swings to: “What?! Oh My God! You don’t eat SUGAR? What…how do you LIVE?!” I honestly don’t feel any smugness about it, even though Andy says I give him “the look” when he’s savouring something orgasmically chocolate RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

That’s hard. But nothing worth doing is necessarily easy…