Davina's Five Weeks to Sugar Free - An Update.

So you may remember that I formally decided that I would give up all refined sugar, white flours and grains on my birthday and I did indeed start on my birthday weekend although I have to admit that my last alcoholic drink before starting was a glass of wine on the 3rd of February.

So it's been around a month and I'm entering the 5th week and what can I tell you?  Well you're probably wondering dear reader if I have found it hard and the answer would be, no, not so much, the tricky things have been eating out but I always seem to have found something I could eat and on one occasion I even had fish and chips, though I did of course take the fish out of all of the batter.

Cake avoidance has also been tricky when out with friends for coffee, especially if they're enjoying a scrumptious morsel but I've been pretty resolute and I know now that I definitely have will power and determination when I want to!

I think for me the best thing that has happened is the increase in energy, just after Christmas I bought my first Fitbit and I have gradually seen my activity rates creep up and now I am happy to report that I've never done less than 10K steps since 13th Feb and even when I have had office days and I'm working I've made up for it when I have come home, I've even done the last couple of thousand steps around my sitting room if necessary.

Last week at my official Slimming World weigh in I had lost 6lb since I started the sugar free plan but remarkably for me it's the inches which I seem to have lost, I wish I'd taken measurements.  I took a photo in the mirror when I was staying in Edinburgh earlier in the week and for the first time in ages I didn't totally hate what I saw.

I've 13lb to get to my target so still some way but I think if I can do it my leggies are going to look pretty brilliant.

I thought I would also share with you my favourite recipe I've created over the last month so here it is, I give you Chilli Con Quinoa

So first of all you have to cook the Quinoa, this is tri-coloured but I've also used the normal stuff which is fine also.

So you take your Quinoa, add double the amount of water or slightly more, give it a good salting, peppering and then add a heaped teaspoon of hot chilli power in (the one which contains paprika etc, not just chilli) and then cook until ready, Quinoa when ready goes slightly translucent but it's still got a crunch to it.

Now at this point you could eat it warm and add chicken etc but I like to let it cool down and then I pop it into a large container with chopped peppers and onion and then I keep it in the fridge and eat when required, the above photo I added beetroot and goats cheese and I can confirm that it was a super tasty salad which is syn free on Slimming World (as long as you count your goats cheese as a HEA) really filling, full of the right type of fats and totally delish!

Now I do have to admit that when I was at the bloggers event in Edinburgh on Thurs/Fri I had a tiny bit of alcohol and also some sugars but yesterday I was straight back on the sugar free wagon.  What I did find is that if you don't eat sugar and then you do it's actually quite a high for a while, peculiar how it seems to have a drug like effect, that can't be good can it?