For day 31 I cut out all sweeteners.
A Note On The Blog and Challenge
I’m extending #30DaysOfDiscomfort to #100DaysOfDiscomfort. I completed my goal of blogging for 30 days, but for now I will continue blogging. However, I’m not officially committing myself to blog every day.
I’ve found the process of blogging extremely crucial to my growth during the challenge. Most important, the blog makes me reflect on my experience. But it’s time consuming. Because of this, I might blog more for myself and less for my audience. Meaning: less pictures, less clarifications, more passive voice, less transition words, and less promotion of the blog.
Back To The Challenge
Being on a low carb diet, I normally eat a ton of natural zero calorie sweeteners:
- Breakfast: stevia sweetened blueberry cinnamon beef patty
- Almonds with stevia and cinnamon
- Lily’s chocolate- stevia and erythritol sweetened
- Fish salad spiced with stevia
- Dinner, usually spiced with stevia and a Zevia soda.
- Stevia and erythritol sweetened coconut milk ice cream with almond butter spiced with stevia.
- Avocado smoothie with stevia
Writing this out forced me to realize that I put stevia in every single meal and snack I consume…Not to mention, the many herbal teas throughout the day with stevia. Though, I started to cut down on the stevia teas over the past few weeks.
How The Challenge Went
I forgot about my challenge midway through the day because of anger. My dad left a dirty pan out, so I revenge drank his Zevia soda. I only remembered I wasn’t supposed to have stevia 1/4 of the way through the can. Then I put it back in the fridge.
I found some information on how erythritol negatively affects the gut. But I couldn’t find great information on why I shouldn’t have stevia. I’m still looking. I’ve heard people mention that stevia is bad for you, but couldn’t find anything really.
I’m not sure if I noticed a difference. Maybe I craved food less? Not sure. It would be great if quiting stevia over time could make me appreciate other subtler flavors.
The biggest benefit was that I didn’t eat my coconut milk ice cream and Lily’s chocolate, so my calories went to more nutrient dense foods like cashews and avocado. I could see that as a benefit. There might be a mental benefit. Sometimes I feel addicted to stevia. It’s so good!
It’s really hard for me to tell on my own. I’m not very intuitive. I need scientific explanations to back up my feelings.
What I learned
I’m not sure what I learned.
I learned that I want to know what’s wrong with Stevia.
Sometimes, I avoid information purposely because I’m not ready to handle the implications.
In this case for example, I would avoid finding out why stevia is bad because what I discover could imply that I should quit stevia. And maybe I don’t want to quit. So I avoid investigating the subject at all.
But after seeing that I could handle quitting, I’m interested in knowing why I should. But I can’t find the information.
For now, I’ll continue eating stevia and actively look for why it’s bad. This is actually great because people like to get in my business when I’m eating stevia and tell me it’s bad for me. Now, instead of brushing them off I can ask them for the information I’m looking for.
So I guess I learned that sometimes I’m afraid of the truth. But once I accept the implications, I can brave the storm of information.