Breaking Up with Sugar: 10 Days In

Sometimes change doesn’t come from chasing a goal-it comes from hitting a wall. For me, that wall was my skin.

I’ve been wrestling with rosacea for a while now. Steroid creams, antifungal creams, antibiotics-some of it helps short-term, but the flare-ups always come back. At one point I thought: if my body is this unhappy on the outside, maybe it’s time to change what I’m putting inside.

That thought led me to sugar.

The Hardest Cut

I’ve always been a two-sugar-in-the-morning-coffee guy. It was my ritual. My treat. The thing that made the day feel like it could start. But I knew if I wanted to make a real dent in my sugar intake, it had to start there.

Black coffee is my new morning reality. I’ve always avoided Tim Hortons unless desperation called, and without sugar it hasn’t improved. But at home and on the road, I’ve found the shift to black coffee easier than I imagined.

10 Days Without Processed Sugar

Here’s what’s happened so far:
• Skin: No miracle cure. Rosacea is still along for the ride, but I’m holding out hope that the inside-out approach takes more time.
• Mood: Way more stable. No sugar spikes, no crashes. Just a steady baseline that feels surprisingly good.
• Energy: Consistent all day, even through long road trips. I drove to Edmonton and back for a wedding and didn’t feel that usual afternoon drag.
• Weight: Down between 10-15 lbs. I didn’t weigh in exactly when I started, but I was hovering around 240-244. Yesterday the scale read 229. Realistically that’s probably closer to 10 lbs lost, but it’s still progress I can feel.
• Sleep: Better. Deeper. More refreshing.
• Movement: I feel lighter-not just on the scale, but in how I carry myself day to day.
• Food choices: Game changer. Instead of grabbing donuts when they show up at the office, I’m snacking on snap peas, cherries, grapes, mandarin oranges. Evenings are no longer chip-and-dip territory. My appetite for junk food has all but disappeared.

The One “Cheat”

At that Edmonton wedding, I did have a chocolate mousse dessert. The portion was small, and it felt more like a celebration than a slip. And honestly, I don’t regret it.

What’s Next

This isn’t a 10-day challenge. It’s not even really about weight loss, though that’s a great side effect. Cutting out sugar feels like part of a bigger realignment. My body feels steadier, my mind feels clearer, and my habits are shifting in a direction I want to keep going.

The skin battle isn’t over – but this feels like a win worth stacking.