Posts
I've not updated this blog for a while!
Back in around May 2024, I decided to control my sugar intake, not go on a diet exactly, just cut down sugar. I am no dietician or expert in this field, this is purely my experience, but i thought the story may help you.
I have always had a sweet tooth my whole life, but I’ve never been overweight, yes I’m one of those annoying people! I was diagnosed with hypopituitarism in 2013, had the pituitary macro-adenoma removed in 2013 and have been on hydrocortisone and testosterone ever since as my body no longer makes its own cortisol/testo.
So what led me to think about sugar intake? Energy crashes!
On and off since I’ve started taking hydrocortisone have mid morning energy crashes, which I blamed on low cortisol and solved by taking an early hydrocortisone tablet dose. But this has always been quite random and annoying and if anything was getting worse.
I had been reading about sugar online, which is obviously not always the best place to look, because sugar is somewhat demonised by many. However, it had occurred to me that despite me not being overweight (I’m 5 foot 6” and 63kg/10 stone) I do take in a lot of sugar. I was drinking around 5 cups of tea/coffee each day, each with 2 good teaspoons of sugar in, I like orange squash…so another couple of glasses of that each day. My breakfast was typical of many people, crunchy nut cornflakes or honey nut hoops etc. (i.e. sugary). So I began my journey to a change of diet.
According to the NHS the recommended intake of sugar each day for an adult is 30 grams. A teaspoon is about 4 grams, therefore at 8 grams of sugar per cup of coffee (2 teaspoons-full) and 5 cups per day, I was exceeding my daily allowance on hot beverages alone! So since May I started to reduce my sugar, less than 2 teaspoonfuls, one and a half etc. I am down to about a third of a teaspoon now and mix that with a Stevia sweetener. If I have a coffee out, then I don’t need any sugar in that (who knew that shop coffees are so sweetened!). For me it took over 2 months for my drinks to stop tasting absolutely horrible. Even now, I still prefer the taste of sugar, but I suppose having sugar in tea & coffee is a pretty hard habit to break after 60 years!.
I swapped out my squash for plain water, obvious really. However, I have always hated the taste of water and somehow as time progressed, that has slowly tasted better as my sugar intake has lowered. I don’t understand that one. I do still drink squash but nowhere near as much. The squash is very low in real sugar, but it does have the sweetener Sucralose which means it still tastes VERY sweet.
I swapped out my breakfast for the very popular breakfast of ‘overnight oats’. Just plain porridge oats, but with various things added like almonds, walnuts sultanas, fruit, dates etc. Supposedly oats release energy more steadily throughout the day rather than sugar-spiking you like sugary breakfasts do.
But has this torture done me any good, I am over 3 months into the new regime. I do believe that it has, for me at least.
Reading online about the effects of taking in too much sugar and then having an energy crash, it very much mirrors what I was experiencing but blaming on lack of Cortisol. I have had FAR fewer mid morning energy crashes. I have had a couple of late afternoon low sugar events, which are quite different - I’m not diabetic. These low sugar events are quite different, shaking, sweating, brain fog…..but I’ve had my blood sugars checked and all is well (standard checks for my Pituitary monitoring). These are very rare (had about 3 in 3 or 4 months), and stop as soon as a scoff a couple of biscuits.
There, that’s it. That is my sugar journey so far. I’m hoping to continue with a lower sugar diet and that it continues to benefit me. I do fall off the wagon every now and then with sweet treats, but overall things are looking better.
