Original Post Date: 8/17/2015
At some point, you need to look at yourself and ponder what may be causing some of your health issues, at least, that's where i'm at right now. I have struggled with Asthma as a child, but then seemed to grow out of it, only to have it come back way worse than ever in my twenties. 
I have always had bad allergies, which went hand in hand with the Asthma. But then also in my twenties, I started to see a skin condition come and go called Tinea Versicolor. Per WebMD, it says it can be most common if you have oily skin, live in a hot climate, you sweat a lot, or if you have a weak immune system. My thoughts are primarily the latter, since for the past couple of years, I will notice it getting worse when I have foods higher in sugar.  

For all of the above medical issues I have, I have decided to give up sugar for 1 year (with a couple of minor exceptions), in hopes to rid, or at least better some of these conditions. I have heard that for every year of poison or negative effects you do to your body, it takes one month to reverse it. I am hoping that 12 months of no sugars and very minor processed foods, that I can reverse my health back 12 years ago to my very early twenties when I did not have these conditions.
**exceptions will be made along the way possibly for holidays or rare family get togethers, and also for May 1, my wedding anniversary to have a piece of cake that my wife saved from our wedding. And also the occasional meal out, since it will be difficult to tell if sugar has been added to any of the ingredients of our meals.**

My wife is on board with this as well. It is best if your entire household does any challenges with you in order to help eliminate temptations that they could bring into the home, and also for support during the difficult times of the challenge.  

This is sometimes the hardest part. 
When do you start the challenge? And what will you do with the food in your home that you don't want to eat nor tempt you?

Now. 
The best time to start is now. You're thinking about making the change, you want to do it, but if you put it off in order to finish the food in your home, you may never start.

2.5 weeks of no sugar, and no carbs.

What this really means, is that we are giving up all processed sugars and carbs. No Bread, Pasta, or Rice. No Sugary Sodas or Juices including anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup. No Artificial Sweeteners of any kind. We do not want anything processed during this time. We will however still have natural sugars and carbs from fruits and vegetables.


We have seen others give up sugar for 10 days, but we wanted to go a little further. We would've said 1 month, but we know the temptations will probably be too high on Christmas Day, so we opted for 2.5 weeks, and may then reward ourselves with some Christmas Cookies or Pie.

What will we be eating during the challenge?
We will do our best to get pictures of some of our meals on here, but here are some of the things we plan on eating: Raw Fruits (mostly bananas, apples, strawberries, and mangoes), Veggies (lettuce, spinach, carrots), Eggs, Meat (mostly frozen chicken cubes that we purchased from GFS (no added ingredients)), and Nuts (pecans and almonds mostly). Rereading the above description, I realize it sounds boring, but can assure you that we've done this in the past and enjoyed some very delicious meals.

Today is Day #3 (12/3/2014).
This is where people say they start to have a difficult time with the challenge (between days 3 and 7). So far I haven't experienced any crashes during the day like I normally do when having a soda, or other snack for lunch, so we will see how the rest of the day and week goes. Below is a photo of Dinners from the first and second day. More filling than it looks and than I would have thought, and delicious as well. Also a reminder that in the first few days, it is recommended that you drink EXTRA Water and even add a little salt to your food. This is because when your body is cleansing itself from carbs, it takes a lot of water out of your system with it.

The salad above is on a regular size plate, but the other dinners are on small appetizer plates. We are trying to use smaller portions now. If not, I would keep eating until everything was gone from the plate, even if I wasn't hungry anymore.

Today is Day # 22


Only 3 more Days until Christmas and completing a successful challenge!
Over the past few days we have had dabbled in creating a few new recipes. The best, is probably our Cabbage Crust Pizza, which we baked in a lasagna pan. So delicious, we had it for dinner on Saturday, and again on Sunday for lunch. :)  -- Its been over 3 weeks since we started the challenge, and now only 3 days left.

Today is Day #23
Only 2 more days to complete the challenge. No big updates here. just checking in.

Today is Day #25, Christmas Day!
We have completed the 25 Day no sugar/carbs until Christmas Challenge! Overall, it was a great experience, and we plan to continue for the most part not having much sugar, nor refined carbs. I believe this challenge wasn't as difficult as when we initially started our first journey over a year and a half ago, but still had struggles, especially leading up to Christmas with our family making Christmas Cookies and other goodies.



After Midnight, as a treat for our efforts, we decided to indulge in a special treat to reward ourselves. And because we thought these were so cool and had never seen them before.
Check out our 1 lb Candy Bars below! 
Don't worry, we only had a couple bites.

Throughout Christmas Day we had our fair share of sugar and carbs. I personally feel pretty lethargic after everything. I did manage to have 2 cans of Pepsi as well (made with real sugar, no High Fructose Corn Syrup). After a few sips of the first one, the carbonation was a little much... but again, I did drink it all. And then craved another one later and had that as well. We won't be drinking much of this in the future. Probably just for special occasions when it is available at a get together.

We Highly suggest everyone tries a 10 day no sugar/carb challenge. Or at the least a no sugar challenge if you "need" to eat bread.

Please leave comments below, especially if you are planning on doing a challenge or have attempted one.