It’s no secret we love a good sugar-quitting success story here at IQS.
So when Amanda Tiffen’s new book, A Life Less Sugar, landed on our desks, we couldn’t wait to find out how quitting sugar changed her life. Here’s a sneak peek…
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My name is Amanda Tiffen. This true story is about me and my journey. I was born in Blenheim, New Zealand, in October 1974. In 1989, I began working in a Dairy (a corner convenience store, full of sweets and convenience foods) at the age of 15. To note that I was working in a Dairy is quite significant now. As I look back at my struggles with weight loss, I can see that the Dairy was where my addiction to sugar began.
I was a slim build in my early teens, but after unknowingly developing a sugar addiction while working in the Dairy, I entered my late teens with an increase in my weight.
In 2002, at 28 years old and 174 cm tall, I married my husband at an acceptable weight of 70 kilograms (note my height to weight ratio: my size = 12) but I fought hard to retain this weight and, shortly after marriage, I became pregnant.
After two children, my weight increased (not significantly, but enough to annoy me). I tried many reputable weight-loss programs, some with temporary success (70 kilograms being the lowest weight I ever achieved) but this success never lasted for very long and my battle for weight loss would begin again.
Eventually I gave up with weight-loss programs — mainly because my husband said they were a waste of our money!
Instead I attempted to just eat well. Or so I thought.
The following is a range of the foods I was eating:
- Muesli bars
- Anything packaged “low fat”
- Fruit muffins
- Sandwiches
- Meat with stir-fry sauces or mixes and plenty of vegetables
- High sugar fruits like green grapes, watermelon, apples and bananas
In addition, I was walking 2–4 kilometres a day and keeping active, but the scales continued to turn against me, and my weight and appetite increased.
In my late thirties, I had given up on ever being 70 kilograms again and I accepted my fate, that I was just a “big boned girl” and nothing was ever going to change that.
By late August 2014, I was 80.5 kilograms, size 14–16 (XL) and still no sign of stopping. I was feeling tired and bloated all the time. I now refer to that bloat as the “sugar bloat”.
In early September 2014, I watched a documentary called, Is Sugar the New Fat?
After watching the documentary, I was dumbstruck. I began checking the foods in my pantry and fridge to see if sugar was in these items. Vegemite, yes. Marmite, yes. Margarine, yes. Milk, yes. Bread, yes. Weet-Bix Bites, yes. Tinned fruit, yes. Spaghetti, yes. Pasta sauce, yes. Tomato sauce, yes… You can see where this is going! All these foods are fine in moderation, but when you start consuming a number of them in one day, it can be a problem. Unwittingly I was consuming sugar on top of sugar.
This was crazy! I wrote down what I was eating and WOW, I was consuming on average 30 teaspoons of both white refined sugar and fruit sugar a day while eating “healthy”!!!
I pondered over what I had seen for a few days and then decided sugar may well be my problem. Not so much eating junk food (yes, I indulged a little, but who doesn’t?) but mostly the hiddne sugars that are found in a great deal of otherwise-healthy foods.
A woman should have approximately 6 teaspoons of added sugar a day, NOT 30!
My “D-day” was 5 September 2014, three weeks before my fortieth birthday. I decided I was going to give this “less sugar” thing a try. I made a few mistakes along the way, but nine months later I was (and still am) a healthy 60.5 kilos (size 8) and in control of my weight. Since September 2014, my health has been amazing; very rarely do I get sick and when I do it’s very mild. My energy levels are fine. If you eat enough protein and fat, and only a small amount of sugar and carbohydrates, you will feel fuller, because you are fuller. If you eat too much sugar, you will feel hungry soon after consuming that sugar and, because you are hungry, you will either eat more or torture yourself feeling hungry.
Over the last few years I have inspired a number of friends and family to make this change and, in doing so, their health has improved and their weight has reduced significantly – in some cases by 10–17 kilograms.
By writing and releasing a book about my journey I knew I could reach out to many more people and help them with their own personal change. This book has been an incredible success in New Zealand and a huge amount of success stories have followed.
Reducing sugar in my life has proven to be the answer to my lifelong battle with weight gain. Reducing my sugar and carbohydrate consumption resulted in an easy loss of 20 kilograms which I have maintained with ease.
Importantly, I have discovered that I am the rule, not the exception… and you will be too.
This is an edited extract from ‘A Life Less Sugar’ by Amanda Tiffen, published by HarperCollins Australia and available now.
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