Almost a month ago I started a new 30 Day experiment of going a month without any sugar or fruit. My goal was to once and forever determine if there was a link between sugar and my frequent headaches. I didn’t think there was, but I wanted to run an additional test to confirm.
On day 4, I accidentally consumed a few grams of sugar in a BBQ sauce. Then mid-month I learned that Sriracha sauce has trace amounts of sugar, so there was another gram. All in all, I was doing pretty well. However, the headaches didn’t go away. In fact, they started to increase in frequency. So last Saturday, I ended my 30 Day experiment a few days short. Giving up sugar was easy for me. Giving up sugar while sleep-deprived from headaches not caused by sugar just started to seem pointless.
Photo by brx0
The good news is I can eliminate sugar from the guilty suspects causing my headaches. I don’t consume much and I do think going almost a month without sugar reset my sweet cravings that spiked during the 2nd month of 16 hour daily fasts. Now I am back to normal. I’ll resume eating blueberries and dark chocolate.
Last week I did get a good lead on the cause of my headaches. It is way too soon to discuss, as I only have 5 days of data. When I know more, I’ll share the details. But for now, I’m going to get some chocolate. 🙂
chuck
Mar 29, 2011 — 1:10 pm
i hope you find your solution soon. headaches suck. i had one after this past sunday morning that i knew the exact cause. first time in a while i’ve taken a pain killer.
GWhitney
Mar 30, 2011 — 3:54 am
I increasingly love 100% chocolate. Pralus is the best.
Thankfully I don’t suffer from headaches, so I don’t have any direct advice, sorry to say.
But, over the past two weeks I’ve been moving away from extremely low carb toward moderate carb and am feeling brighter and clearer. My moderate carbs are all Paleo – yams, chestnuts, celeriac, and other root vegetables.
To your roaring good health.
Glenn
MAS
Mar 30, 2011 — 7:42 am
@GWhitney – Sounds like we are heading in the same direction. I’ve been increasing my intake of root veggies too.
GWhitney
Mar 30, 2011 — 8:00 am
And speaking of offal (from your Spring post) – an old expression suddenly occurs to me:
“Healthy as a butcher’s dog.” (And you know those dogs don’t get prime cuts…)
thomas
Mar 30, 2011 — 3:51 pm
“Healthy as a butcher’s dog.”
HA! The dog in MAS’s house would starve to death before he got the butcher’s remnants.
Hey Mike, don’t you straight up steal the dogfood from the dog? I remember some post where you mentioned asking the butcher for dogfood or something.
MAS
Mar 30, 2011 — 5:38 pm
@Thomas – True dat. 😉
Making Meatloaf Using Pet Food
thomas
Mar 31, 2011 — 3:09 pm
Are your cholesterol levels extremely high from eating organ meat? If so, then what do you do to lower your cholesterol?
MAS
Mar 31, 2011 — 3:32 pm
@Thomas – My last cholesterol test showed perfect numbers, but cholesterol is really misunderstood. Why We Get Fat has an excellent chapter that details cholesterol better than I can do in this comment.
The best thing to do for a healthy heart is not to pursue lower cholesterol, but to reduce visceral fat and inflammation. You know – reduce your intake of sugar, grains and seed oils.
Sheila
Apr 2, 2011 — 10:00 am
Going almost a month without sugar as a way to reset sweet cravings is always a good idea. Even going without fake sugar, like splenda helps, although I know you do not drink diet sodas.
MAS
Apr 2, 2011 — 10:05 am
@Sheila – Would you believe I used to be an avid COKE ZERO fan?
Emi
Nov 17, 2011 — 2:44 am
I was wondering. Did you lose weight during no sugar no fruit experiment? I would like to try it myself too since I tend to overeat fruits.
I hope you find the reason of your frequent headaches, mine disappeared when I gave up dairy. I also discovered wheat, bananas and chestnuts give me mild headache. I rarely have them and when I have them it’s because of lack of water or not able to make a decison about something.
And one more thing if you try to be grateful for your headaches I think you can eliminate them more easily. They are a way of your body to give you a message or to warn you. Once you discover the reason they will be gone.
MAS
Nov 17, 2011 — 7:41 am
@Emi – No I didn’t. However, I was already lean. I do think many people would benefit from removing sugar and most fruit.
TheVoyce
Jul 20, 2013 — 6:26 pm
Have you tried Cayenne Pepper? Just sprinkle it on everything you eat for a month straight and you should have less frequent headaches.
MAS
Jul 21, 2013 — 6:28 am
@TheVoyce – Interesting. Haven’t heard of that before. I skimmed a few articles and saw that Cayenne can be used to alleviate a headache.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2007/11/24/can-cayenne-peppers-really-cure-a-headache.aspx
Do you believe it also works as a preventive measure?