Day three is nearly done; the meals today were scrambled eggs for breakfast, leftover chicken with broccoli for lunch, and for dinner, I splurged on a nice steak with some steam cauliflower. Water all around, of course.
Day three was easier than day two in some ways, but harder in other ways. It was easier in that I had fewer all-out sugar cravings, which was a nice change. On the other hand, it was harder because of monotony. And really, looking back on the three days, that's the biggest challenge: eating according to the very-limited three-day "no sugar at all" diet is just really, really boring, which makes it hard to keep going.
Breakfast options are extremely limited, unless you enjoy eating vegetables for breakfast (I don't). I normally have eggs about once a week, but have now had them three days straight. (I went with mainly egg whites on the last two days, just to try to keep the cholesterol down a bit.) So you get eggs, and you get absolutely nothing with them. No milk, no orange juice, no toast. You can't have a bowl of cereal. You can't have a yoghurt. No bacon, unless you can find some that's not sugar cured (perhaps it exists, I didn't look). So I wound up eating eggs three ways across the three days. That's not what I would call variety.
Lunch and dinner were a bit better, but basically more of the same. Pick a protein, decide how to cook it, then pick from a short list of vegetables to eat with it. For the protein, of course, you can't do anything like marinate it or add other foods that would enhance its flavor. You just get the protein, with whatever spices you think may help. And because you do this with both lunch and dinner, that's six meals that are basically identical.
Three identical breakfasts and six near-identical lunches/dinners. No side items of any sort, no sauces, nothing to drink other than water. BORING! By dinner on day two, I was really dreading meal times, instead of looking forward to them.
I went into this expecting to feel hungry and craving a sugar hit basically 24 hours a day. That wasn't the case at all; I was rarely hungry (though I'm sure I exceeded the specified limit on nuts each day), and only a couple of times (end of day two mainly) were there bad sugar cravings.
But after the first day, I really didn't enjoy eating at all. That makes it really hard to keep going, knowing you're not going to want to eat your next meal. It'd be nice if there were at least a bit more variety during the no-sugar period, to prevent the mealtime hatred I experienced.
Wrap-up
In looking back at the original article that inspired my activity, I know I'm not strong enough to keep to the diet they specify for the next four weeks. I miss my grains. I miss my fruit. I really miss my dairy, and I'm going to add some back starting with breakfast tomorrow (and I won't be having eggs!).
Though I'm not going to try the full plan, it's my hope that I can come up with a modified plan that's much lighter in sugary foods while still allowing for some of the stuff I really enjoy. I will try, for instance, to find a replacement for my juice drink that's much lower in sugars. We'll see how it goes.
So would I recommend others try this? Honestly, I'm not sure. On the one hand, it was interesting giving up sugar completely for three days. I really didn't know if I could do it, and it was nice to find that I could. On the other hand, it was three days of really boring bland food, too many eggs, and not looking forward to mealtimes.
Add in that I know I'm not going to be able to hold to the full diet plan, and perhaps it was a waste of three days. Still, I'm glad I tried…but you'll have to make the go/no-go decision based on your own situation. (Yea, I wimped out and didn't make an actual recommendation. With something this personal, I don't feel right telling someone else what they should do.)