The #FedUpChallenge - 10 days sugar free! - DAY01

Tiger is back on the blogosphere! Being the millennial that I am I couldn't simply embark upon a new adventure without sharing it with the world, could I? So here it goes... a 10 day peek into my life as I rip sugar out of it cold turkey.

As many of you know, I'm a little bit obsessed with nutrition. I'm the annoying person who spends too many hours on the internet and thus thinks they are absolutely qualified to pass judgment on everything that passes your lips. I'm the annoying person who genuinely loves kale. I'm the annoying person who loves kale almost as much as they love talking about how much they love kale. However, despite my apparently healthy lifestyle, there's always been one habit I've never been able to kick: sugar. There's sugar in yogurt, there's sugar in sauce, there's sugar in juice, there's sugar in BREAD and let's not even get me started on my beverages of choice.... Basically, there's sugar bloody everywhere and no matter how hard I try to be healthy ain't NOBODY got time to completely cut it out of their life (and lezbehonest, who really wants to stop eating cake and give up that cheeky glass of vino or five?)

Enter: the #FedUpChallenge. The challenge in a nutshell? Try cutting out sugar for 10 days.10 measly days! Since beating the nicotine monster to death 1 1/2 years ago I'm pretty confident I can kindly show the sugar monster the door for 10 days. Okay. Intro over. Let's get real.

Breakfast
No problems here! I always have oatmeal for breakfast because it's nutritious, quick, REALLY cheap, and so much fun to spice up. What more could you want for brekkie? This morning I made my trusty banana oatmeal from a slightly tweaked recipe I learnt from the lovely Pamela a few years ago.

Banana Oatmeal 

Oats
1 Small Banana
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Powdered Clove
Coconut milk (optional)

Make the oats however you're used to (milk, water, soy milk, in a pan, in the microwave.... so many options!) I usually just boil the kettle and pour the water over them until they are just covered with water. Leave them to one side whilst you mush your banana in another bowl and add the spices. I add coconut milk in to get some healthy fats and because it tastes lush but it's not exactly necessary! Add the contents of the two bowls together, blitz in the microwave if it's not hot enough anymore and enjoy!

Lunch
At work with Lonneke today so we had a kitchen full of ingredients to play around with. We usually enjoy a bowl of soup as it's simply made with tomatoes and some onion but after discovering that our stock had sugar in it (bloody caramel syrup of all things... in a savoury stock cube!) we ditched that idea and went to town with this salad... TIP: my mother always told me presentation is key. The more appetizing you make your food look the more you'll enjoy eating it!

Quinoa salad with grilled veggies & goats cheese

Mixed Salad
Grilled Aubergine & Courgette
Cucumber
Tomato
Sun-dried tomatoes
Goats cheese

Follow your quinoa's cooking instructions adding a little salt, pepper and other spices along the way. Then, put it all in a bowl and eat it. Voila.

Dinner

Not really dinner time yet but I'm going to include our bread recipe here! As we has already discovered that pretty much every single bread in the world contains sugar we googled a few sugarless bread recipes that would be simple to make at home. We stumbled across a fantastic recipe which required just THREE ingredients: yogurt, bicarbonate soda and flour! We made it with normal flour although we'll probably make it again during the week with spelt as I'm not usually a big wheat fan. IT WAS/IS FABTASTIC!

Basic Soda Bread

450g Kwark (check for sugar though! we used AH magere kwark)
1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Soda
450g Flour
Pinch Salt
Herbs

Mix the dry ingredients and the wet ones separately and if you're using fresh herbs, mix them with the yogurt. Pop into a mixer until it forms a dough. Ours was VERY sticky so we added some extra flour however it was still bloody sticky as when it went in the form so fear not if you ever try this out and it's sticky. Pop in the over for 40 mins at 180 degrees and you'll have your very own soda bread.

Wowzers, long post! Well done if you've made it to the end. Today has been an absolute doddle however you do realize just how much sugar you absentmindedly can consume in a day. Within the first half an hour of the morning I'd almost nibbled at a biscuit as I prepared my breakfast, refused some Tuc crackers my housemate was eating and subsequently had to ignore various pieces of cake during my work day! Bring on day 2.

Over und out, tiger Laylay xo