Sarah Wilson - I Quit Sugar for Life: Your Fad-free Wholefood Wellness Code and Cookbook

This is my follow-up book to help make cooking, eating and our health more elegant and joyous.

To the 250,000 (and counting) SUGAR QUITTERS who have given this experiment a crack.

THANKS.

You made me keep on keeping on.Mostly on my toes! Thank you for yourquestions and for challenging me robustlyand often. You delivered me my dharma,which is the greatest gift a girl can be given.

Also, a BPA-free bucketful of gratitude to:

Jo Foster and photographer Marija Ivkovic for exceedingtheir briefs (sorry, Dad gag!) and caring. Always caring.Plus, Zoe and the I Quit Sugar team for boarding thetrain with swags of enthusiasm.

Also to the Pan Macmillan team publisher IngridOhlsson (for sticking by me and being a kindred spirit),editor Sam Sainsbury, big boss Cate Paterson andpublicity whizz Charlotte Ree. Kat Chadwick for herfun illustrations. And Trisha and Deb for makingthings so pretty under pretty tight deadlines.

Dearest Reader,

You are cordially invited to join me for a sugar-free life experiment.

Its a casual, all-day affair with a gentle vibe.

No fanfare, no fancy rules, open-toed shoes acceptable.

When I first quit sugar, I treated it as an invitation to try out a new way of living, just to you know see how it went. It went well, thanks! My health was transformed and in a matter of weeks I experienced a mood change. Actually, more accurately, I experienced a mood stabilisation. Since quitting sugar Ive experienced a steady, calm happiness that has previously eluded me. I then shared how I did it with an eight-week detox programme, and a stack of you joined me at the party. Three years on and Im asked almost hourly, So you quit... then what happened?

The expectation, I think, is that surely by now Id have toppled off the wagon and descended into a guilty, sugary pit. Because thats the value we give to diets, right? They work for a bit, but then self-control packs it in and we tumble back to base, having nasty chats in our head on the way down.

But this is the thing Ive learned from my new, gentler way of living:

QUITTING SUGAR IS NOT A DIET.

Its not about crazy draconian rules and restrictive one-off weight-loss stunts. Indeed, it can be distilled into two supremely sensible concepts I reckon we all just get, intuitively:

QUITTING SUGAR IS A WAY OF LIVING WITHOUT PROCESSED FOOD.

When you steer yourself away from sugar, it by necessity cuts out pretty much everything that comes in a packet or box. When people baulk at my no-sugar status, I calmly point out that I simply dont eat crap. Its that elegant.

QUITTING SUGAR IS ABOUT EATING LIKE OUR GREAT-GRANDPARENTS USED TO. BEFORE THE CRAP.

This again by necessity sees us eating whole, un-mucked-with foods that were commonplace before the advent of modern metabolic diseases. One hundred years ago we ate 1 kg sugar a year, now we eat 60 kg a year. One hundred years ago we ate eggs for breakfast, meat at lunch, vegetables prepared simply, fruit as a treat and drank our milk whole. One hundred years ago type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cholesterol issues were rare if not non-existent.

SO. I QUIT SUGAR, THEN WHAT?
MY ANSWER IS THIS: I KEPT GOING. AND GOING.

Its kind of like the way I treat going for a jog. If I pledge myself to a hard-core 1-hour run, I baulk. But if I gently commit to a 20-minute shuffle around the park in the sun, I do it... and chances are, because it feels pretty good, I keep going. And going. And, effortlessly, it becomes a 40-minute workout.

Over time, Ive let these principles that guide my eating of experimenting, crowding out crap with better options and being gentle unfurl a little further. And they began to inform the way I exercise, shop, make decisions (from what dental floss to buy to what city Ill live in next) and the way I keep my life balanced and meaningful.

As my oldest mate, Ragni, said,

WHEN YOU QUIT SUGAR THERES NO TURNING BACK. YOU CANT UNLEARN THIS STUFF. I MEAN, YOU NEVER FORGET THAT A GLASS OF APPLE JUICE CONTAINS 10 TEASPOONS OF SUGAR.

AND YOU CANT STOP IT FROM TAKING YOU FURTHER.

I Quit Sugar for Life is for everyone who wants to keep going. And going.

Its for everyone who wants life to be simple, gentle and... whole. Honestly, Ive written this book for my friends with kids (begging for no-fuss food and health tricks to get their family on a good track) and for all my solo mates who want to be well without the gimmicky diet palaver. Also, for everyone wanting to tread more sustainably on the planet, for this is the guts of real and whole wellness. My friend Georgia said to me recently, Just tell me what the hell were meant to eat and do now... not what we cant eat and do.

OK, I said. Ill write another book.

Im not a scientist. Im a human guinea pig. And an impatient, busy one, hell-bent on finding the smoothest slipstream through life. I dont like fuss or bother or strictures. Im not setting down rules. Nope, Im issuing you an invitation to steer your choices away from sugar. And crap.

With this book, my experimenting has led to a Wellness Code that Ill be outlining shortly. You can choose to follow it closely, or simply use it as a pivot point for reflecting on how to live well your own way. Always, always, I wish all of us to go our own way, listening to our own bodies, responding to our own needs.

Note: This invitation is totally transferable. Theres no expiry date.

RSVP: To yourself, if youre keen to keep going.

Lifelong, simple and whole wellness to you all,

Sarah xx

PS: If youre yet to quit sugar, you might find I Quit Sugar: Your Complete 8-Week Detox Program and Cookbook helpful.
Or you can do the online 8-Week Program at www.iquitsugar.com

Please dont think of me as a beacon of self-discipline. Im not. Other people whove done my programme seem to be far more that way. They tell me they havent touched a speck of the white stuff in six months. Im in awe!

But then, I dont go for restriction. I prefer to let my body choose what it wants, confident that now that its not addicted to sugar, it will naturally choose whats best.

THIS IS THE ULTIMATE AIM OF QUITTING SUGAR: TO RETURN TO OUR NATURAL APPETITE, LIKE WHEN WE WERE YOUNG KIDS.

AND WHEN YOU ACHIEVE IT... GOLLY, ITS FOOD FREEDOM!

A study published through the American Psychological Association found self-control is a limited resource we need to manage through our day so that it doesnt get worn out too early. The scientists advise limiting the number of restrictive mandates in our lives to save our self-control muscle for the stuff that really matters. So: dont diet. Save your muscle for matters of love, career and travel, and who you want to be in life.

Quitting sugar has given me a freedom from food that I never could have imagined. I finally realised its not about willpower, its a real addiction.

SAMANTHA

This is how its worked out for me:

YEP, I LAPSE . I ate a piece of homemade chocolate birthday cake recently. It tasted great. Then it felt overwhelmingly wrong. My ears and eyes and toenails buzzed. I felt