One of the EASIEST ways to lower your calorie intake and drop the pounds is to stop drinking your calories!

The glass of orange juice in the morning, the milkshake with your burger for lunch, that delicious Caramel Frappuccino to keep you awake during the afternoon slump, the beers at your company’s team meeting, the pop with your dinner… that’s easily over 1000 calories in liquid calories you are ingesting! Some people will easily turn down a donut but won’t even think  twice about getting a White Chocolate Mocha at Starbucks. Calories are calories and it’s even worse when they come from sugar because it gets you addicted and sends your hunger and cravings out of control— and it’s one of the main contributors of the obesity epidemic in America.

Sugar is sugar and it’s not only in pop but energy drinks, smoothies that are advertised as “healthy”, fruit juices (sorry, still sugar), alcohol, a lot of coconut water brands (yikes)… these are all calories with none or very little nutritional value.

I remember when I first started my current job, I loved loved loved sugary drinks. I’d get an apple juice every morning, drink multiple bottles of this honey lemon green tea they use to sell at the cafeteria, gorge on all the free pop and juice we get at meetings (although I was fortunate enough to hate beer and avoided that) and dump loads of milk and sugar into my coffee. These were all habits I had growing up and I can’t forget to mention, eating at the 7-11 across the street every single day during art school. YES REALLY.

One day I decided to start drinking more water so I set goals for myself such as “I will drink 5 bottles of water today” and carried a water bottle around with me everywhere and refilled it throughout the day. At first, I really had to force it down but soon drinking water became a natural habit like breathing. Not only did I lose a ton of weight, I actually felt light— I felt cleansed. I felt great.

Nowadays, I mainly drink water, tea and coffee. Of course I will still have my glass of wine or my dozen shots of Vodka when I’m out with my girlfriends but that doesn’t happen very often. Swear. You may think its impossible or it’s gross but I trained my taste buds to crave the bland taste of water. The new me is definitely is a healthier and leaner me, thanks to lots and lots of water!

However if you think drinking only water defeats the whole point of “living” (like how I think being on a strict diet all the time defeats that same purpose), you can occasionally replace sugary drinks with calorie-free drinks such as tea or flavoured water… or even the occasionally diet pop if you are slowly trying to cut out the evil we call sugar if you are really desperate (although you should eventually say goodbye to diet drinks forever).

The past 2 weeks, I’ve been doing a Sugar-Free Challenge. We were allowed to eat natural sugars such as those in fruit in moderation but refined sugars were not allowed and this meant checking labels very carefully because sugar is in everything! Not just in candy, cookies and chocolate but also protein powder, hot dogs, ketchup, soy sauce, whites (bread, rice), potatoes (chips, fries), foods labelled low-fat (fat is replaced by sugars and other additives), sweeteners (Splenda, Equal— but Stevia was ok), canned sauces, most processed foods, etc. We pretty much had to avoid anything with an “—ose” in it such as dextrose, fructose and glucose and also fruits high in the glycemic index like watermelon. This pretty much meant anything and everything processed.

…food and drug addictions have much in common, particularly in the way that both disrupt the parts of the brain involved in pleasure and self-control.

Source: Craving an Ice-Cream Fix

Why I decided to go sugar free: sugar is a drug and it is as addictive as smoking and cocaine!

My eating and hunger was spiralling out of control and I think it was because I was eating fruit like a crazy woman— I really thought I was going to develop diabetes at one point because summer is when all my favorite fruits are in season (lychee, watermelon and cherries). I usually prefer savoury goods but I was also craving for and eating a lot of sweets which eventually turned into cake and ice cream cravings. The sugar-free challenge was an awesome idea at the moment.

Notes & Results from my Sugar-Free Challenge:

• First 4 days was very easy. I didn’t crave for anything and ate SUPER clean.
• I did cheat on Thursday night because my girlfriends and I went out and I chased all my Grey Goose with juice (I’m not hardcore— I don’t drink it straight).
• Weekends were HARD. Had a long bike ride and a kid’s birthday party on Saturday and I cheated very minimally for that situation; many of the cheats were accidental, I swear! I didn’t realize there was sugar in those foods I was eating until Boyfriend comes up to me and screams in my face, “YOU’RE EATING SUGAR!!!” Well at least he was supportive. I did avoid all the yummy lemongrass chicken wings and Korean-style marinated short ribs (because of sugars in the marinade). Sunday was a total cheat day at my girlfriend’s baby shower. We had a punishment on Monday at the gym though (100 burpees, 200 double-unders and 300 squats).
• I had to do alot of explaining to supportive and unsupportive friends and family on why I’m doing the sugar-free challenge and how.
• Second week was meh. I didn’t cheat much during the week but I didn’t really try hard to sustain it either and felt like I didn’t care if I cheated.
• I was forced to eat clean because we were posting everything we ate in our Facebook group and I can’t lie to myself especially when it comes to diet and exercise. I think that helped a lot.
• I use to eat fruit like no tomorrow but I ate so little during the challenge and am not craving for it at all anymore.
• I use to feel hungry all the time even though I ate a lot but after maintaing a clean and sugar-free diet, my hunger actually decreased and I stayed full for much longer.
• I stopped putting sweetener in my coffee and western teas such as Earl Grey. I actually put half a packet of Stevia in the last week and I had to dump it out and make a new cup. It was way too sweet and I couldn’t stand it.
• I ate a cupcake today and I felt sick afterwards. Nauseousness, headache and all (they were much sweeter than the Chinese fruit cakes which didn’t hit me the same way).
• I lost body-fat and got leaner and stronger unintentionally.
• I even had a 6-pack because I was eating so clean. HAH. I would’ve never even tried to get one under normal circumstances because I live to eat.
• My energy levels didn’t get hit. I had just as much, if not more energy during my workouts than before.
• I did miss my protein shakes though. A lot.
• I really think all that hidden sugar I was consuming was throwing my body out of wack.

So after 2 weeks, the challenge ended. What did I break it with? An entire Chinese fruit cake which is my all-time favorite cake— all to myself! Now I know it’s kind of hypocritical to go sugar-free for two weeks and then eat an entire cake (which took me a couple of days) but I planned this and I know my body well enough that I can bounce back to my fit, lean and healthy self fairly quickly. You only live once! And this is only once a year.

Going completely sugar-free is very unsustainable especially when you are like me and train a lot, don’t really like cooking and lives to eat. I think I can easily keep it up on weekdays but I won’t do that to myself on weekends. I need to live, thank you very much. But of course, I will live in moderation.

Although I don’t suggest you do what I did [with the cake], I do encourage you to try a Sugar-Free Challenge for two weeks to a month. It will really open your eyes and make you realize that sugar is in EVERYTHING and how addictive it is. If you stay on track, you will find that you’ll feel healthier, more energized, your cravings will decrease and you’ll get leaner and loose that belly-flab in the process. Going sugar-free is essentially clean-eating and you always get good results with clean eating… within your daily calorific needs that is.

What are you waiting for? Try it! You have nothing to lose.

People ask me all the time: How do I get rid of my turkey arms? How do I get a 6-pack? There is not just ONE solution for these problems but it is a combination of…

DIET

Your arms look like a turkey and your stomach is flabby because IT IS FAT. You can exercise all you want but if you don’t clean up your eating habits, you can guarantee those arms will flap. All. Day. Long. Dieting DOES NOT mean starving yourself… in fact I really hate the word diet because it has such negative connotation. To lose or maintain weight, all you need is a healthy, balanced diet that meets your daily and calorific needs (which also means you have to eat)… and I’m not going to lie; a whole lot of will-power.

People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.

CARDIO

Although I don’t recommend “traditional” and steady-state cardio for anyone because although it’s an inefficient waste of time and it’s boring, it still burns fat. Duh. When I do cardio, I do high intensity interval training or mix it up with weights for an intense metcon workout. But don’t be afraid to dedicate a day or so here and there for a longer and lower intensity cardio session just to switch things up or because you enjoy it— for me, it’s a long bike ride outdoors or even zoning out with my music on one of the spin bikes at the gym.

While you might be imagining everyone around you naked, everyone around you is imagining YOU naked as well.

STRENGTH-TRAINING

In order to increase your metabolism so your body continues to burn more calories after you leave the gym, you need to build muscle. Target body parts you need to work on, like those triceps, biceps and abs. Don’t neglect other parts though because you should be regularly working out all muscle groups and doing compound exercises that targets multiple muscles  is the best way to do it (dips, push ups, pull ups, squats, deadlifts…).

When life gets complicated… I lift.