Sugar is the new cigarettes apparently

I would like to state for the record that I decided I needed to give up sugar before it was hip. I don't know if that earns me any hipster points or not but there you go. I've set the record straight. I have been happily battling my way out of a sugar addiction since this time last year and I was a few months into it before I even read anything that confirmed my suspicion that it might not be doing me any good. Okay, fine so I thought all the chocolate was making me fat which kind of undid my whole plan to get super fit so I gently weaned myself off and found myself in full meltdown mode. Ideally it would have been better if I had just stayed off it altogether but I don't live in an ideal world and I am just one woman with extremely limited will power or so it would seem. Anyway I have already mentioned how for the good of my own health/sanity I have decided to clean my diet up for good this time and leave sugar binges behind and that's all well and good. I'll feel better and be less crazy as a result and I'm sure for that at least everyone will be grateful.

 Over the last few weeks I've noticed something and I don't think it's part of the usual January let's all get skinny phase that people go through. On magazines and social networking sites there seems to be an increasing number of articles from people who have given up sugar or just warning of the potential health risks from consuming it. One of the articles I've read recently was in vogue so yea giving up sugar is trendy now. I wonder will that make me lose interest in it. There's more and more books cropping up on the subject as the public at large becomes more and more aware of this and they are even calling sugar the new cigarettes. Maybe in a few years the percentage of people consuming large amounts of sugar will have dropped significantly but I wouldn't hold my breath.

 One of my friends recommended a book called I quit sugar because they are trying something similar to me and they thought it might be of use. It includes an 8 week detox plan and a whole load of recipes. Admittedly I am only a few pages in but already intrigued.
For instance I discovered last night that a banana (which I had been using daily in porridge) has so much fructose that it's the equivalent of 4-6 teaspoons of sugar. Yea so guess who promptly dumped her bananas (me , I thought that much was obvious) As far as I can gather the detox plan is to gradually eliminate all sugars from your diet over the 8 weeks and this includes sweeteners, dried fruit, fresh fruit and fruit juices plus honey, maple, agave and so on.
There's a whole load of recipes to keep you going in the meanwhile and after the 8 weeks when your body is reset you are allowed to gently reintroduce some of it back into your diet.
I'm actually planning on starting it completely at the end of this week when I can buy some things to replace the fruit because I can't do 8 weeks hungry. In the meanwhile if I do cook anything from the book I'll be sure to post it here and who knows perhaps others will be joining me. Don't you know all the cool kids are doing it 

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