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Comment by gergnz | Hacker News Reader

While I wasn't overweight or obese I had definitely gained 10+KG a few years back, and was bordering on overweight (according to BMI, which is just one indicator, not the only one, and again, take it with a grain of salt and in moderation). For a while I completely stopped drinking alcohol, soft drink, wheat and refined sugar. Basically meat, vegies, fish, whole fruit (not juice). Lost all the extra weight within a few months, and enjoyed great energy. Being 100% honest, I now find that soda is very sweet, and I now no longer drink alcohol at all. I have re-introduced some wheat and refined sugar, but keep it to a very minimum and try and combine it with other ingredients. (e.g. banana avocado cacao mousse). Never going back to drinking all that soda and buying everything as a sandwich.

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I started putting on some weight after beginning full time work after college (no longer walking around campus, always having a decent lunch--it made a difference!) Two years ago I decided to limit my consumption of refined sugar to two desserts a year. I cut out pop, fruit juice, don't drink alcohol or coffee, avoid white flours and aim for foods made of whole ingredients---fruits, vegetables, meats, nuts, etc. I'm at roughly 10lbs below where I was when that started, which is nice, but also it's transformed my feelings about sugar.

Like gergnz, pop is really sweet! Unbearably sweet. Actually most sweets are just overwhelming concentrations of sugar, and they feel weird to eat.

Sweetness is something that your body adjusts to. Once you're used to eating a brownie a day, brownies no longer seem so sweet to you. But go without sweets for six months and suddenly you'll realize just how pointlessly sweet they are.

The thing that really drives me crazy is how _so much_ food is sweetened, even things where it makes no sense. It's like everybody's palette is so accustomed to sugar that now restaurants have to add sugar to their savory foods just to make them taste normal. It's a disturbing trend.

Reminder: the US government spends $2 billion a year on sugar subsidies.

Because there's just not enough sugar!!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bitter-battle-over-sugar-subsid...

>The thing that really drives me crazy is how _so much_ food is sweetened, even things where it makes no sense.

Yeah.. thats restricted to US :) Visiting US from India, I ended up throwing away a loaf of bread cause it was as sweet as chocolate

Coming from The Netherlands to live in the US for a while, I found the same. It seems like just everything contains more high-fructose corm syrup, and tastes sweeter. Even all breads.

It's not all breads, just most of them, especially the shelf bread from big outside bakeries.

In most stores there will be a few choices in the bakery section that don't have added sugar.

> I now find that soda is very sweet

In a vaguely similar vein, I pretty much exclusively[1] drink "diet" drinks (i.e. sweeteners rather than sugar, not that I think they are particularly healthly). Now, whenever I have the non-diet versions (which is very rare), I prefer the taste somewhat, but find them to be unpleasantly sticky and syrupy. It almost feels like they need more water adding to them, even if it's from a can/bottle so presumably mixed correctly.

[1] Unless it's a mixed alcoholic drink, but those are so different anyway

About that mousse... One mental changed that helped me was to become a foodie. Eating used to be just a chore (simple fuel). Now I cook and eat because it's fun.

Also, people are so clever now, finding recipes like your mousse has been a great joy. I now mostly prefer the more wholesome alternatives. For instance, that mousse is a huge hit, and most people wouldn't know it's non-dairy.

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