I sort of naturally did this in my life.. while I don't avoid sugar in and of itself, I do try to eat healthy, and many recipes of mine involve no-sugar things.. I'd take a list of foods you like with sugar in them, and your habits of eating them, and build from there.
No sense in seeing a perfect peach pie no sugar recipe if you hate peaches.. ya know?
But, to take some examples... Let's say you know you get some midnight munchies for sugary stuff. Particularly after a long work week.
We can work with that. How about some sugar-free baking, frozen and ready to go.. a cupcake will thaw in about an hour's time from the freezer.
Or, how about you do better eating a dessert every day?
We can work with that. A fine
Banana Pudding - The Secret Ingredient Recipe! Banana pudding made in advance in multiple batches, split up into small tupperwares, can be grabbed out of the fridge each night. Next week, make a new thing.
Maybe you don't like much prep work and are on a tight budget...
Some cheap store-bought unsweetened applesauce, cinnamon, a hint of vanilla bean, and you've got yourself some instant yummy fruit with no prep work at all. A straight up piece of mango with fruit seasoning on it will make a lovely, rich dessert in and of itself. And don't forget dates--they're calorie-packed, super sweet naturally, and lovely plain or mixed into things.
The point is... no matter what you want to do with your diet, as long as you aren't avoiding sweet foods, you'll be okay. You just need to learn your habits, adapt to them, and don't beat yourself up when you 'fail'.. the more restrictive a diet is, some of a few things can happen: the more stressed someone can be, the more expensive it can be, and/or the more zealous someone can be.
Every habit should start small. I say this because studies prove that if this is what you want long term, you'll need to do it small and slow and consistently. Don't quit all sugar tomorrow and expect to be there 10 years from now. Science is against you on that.... but let's say you notice most of your sugar comes from a nightly dessert, or a mid-work craving, or temptation from the grocery store aisle, who knows... These are things you can start with, and learn from, and expound upon. Does a sugar-free hummingbird cupcake help you get over a midnight craving? Does sugar free pudding make you feel better about eating dessert, or leave a half-assed void of where dessert once was? Does fruit feel like a sweet to you or an obligation? Why? Did it start off great but taper off because variety is expensive and you can't afford a box of dates every week?? Does your lack of esteem in cooking keep you from trying new things?? These are the sort of questions that you can brainstorm with..
If I were going to start this.. I'd start with:
- What's my biggest source of refined sugar? (a dessert each night for me)
- When do I crave this? (usually at breakfast time or before dinner)
- Change this thing once a week for a 2 weeks (I'll eat a sugar-free dessert with some health benefits)... and then twice a week for 2 weeks.. and build up a goal of eating this way 4x a week... as in, greater than half the week.
- Things I won't do during these build-ups.. is violate them one way or the other. I won't eat the sugar-free way the rest of the days of the week out of excitement... because I won't know if it works long term or not that way.. so I eat how I used to the rest of the days... If I notice myself eating double-desserts on 'off' days, then obviously my change isn't working. Re-adjust.. if it feels fine 3x a week but that 4x a week makes it feel odd, adjust. If I am doing well then I'm doing well.. keep a steady pace.. 4x a week sugar-free, 3x a week sugar-okay.
- Use a check mark recording system to see how consistent I am with my mini goals. (A paper with check marks and room to write notes.. set an alarm to fill it out before bedtime.)
- Re-evaluate this and see how consistent I truly was on paper, and what happened when I wasn't. (Turns out, eating a piece of fruit is incredibly boring to me, and it has to LOOK like dessert.. so a sugar-free paleo peach pie? Much better for me than just eating a peach. Also, turns out, I don't need a lot of other added sugars later on in the day when I have whipped cream available to eat with my dessert.. not exactly 100% sugar free if made this way, but a good step in the right direction and keeps me on track, so I'll keep it until my taste buds adjust. It's a small compromise to get rid of all the other added sugars involved in desserts and breakfast foods. And, turns out I like chia seed jelly more than regular jelly! Sweet! I can make that transition quite easily. Also, turns out I had 3 birthdays in a row that week to go to, so while I was a bit off that week it was an anomaly and not really true to the data... though something to consider in the future is how to deal with events like that.)
..Just to create an example. Adjust this the following month with your results, and once you feel accomplished in a mini goal see if you can keep this up for 3 consistent months. No extra goals, no extra changes, just keep it up... Once you can, and it feels effortless? Try the mini-goal experiment again... keep the habit you created, but make a new one.. maybe that's you transition to daily sugar-free desserts, maybe you decide you need to learn to cook with sugar-free stuff, just .. make a new goal, adjust, finalize, and go for another 3-6 months.. Then in nearly a year's time you've created and stuck with 2 new major goals. And just keep going... Maybe you replace store-bought jelly with homemade chia-seed-fruit jelly, simple, easy peasy, keep it up for 3 months. Maybe you start buying sugar-free condiments like ketchup and such. You'd be surprised at some lifestyle adjustments made from something as easy as no-sugar-added ketchup buying... (Do you have to carry a small bottle of it in your purse? Or car? Do you end up making your own because it's too expensive and your homemade one tasted better? Did you realize you cut out favorite foods doing this, and maybe cutting the ketchup 50/50 for a while helped adjust your taste buds?)
You'll find a million blogs with sugar-free recipes.. some great, some okay, some awful. So that part's pretty easy..... but finding what works for you is very individual, and I'd start with a single habit and do that until it feels very second nature to you.
You'll naturally get an extra boost of support with mother's cooking and adjusting to a pre-diabetic lifestyle... so you'll already be doing yourself a great service passively through that.. but just start small, and be active in your habits and honest with your thoughts and cravings, and see them as learning opportunities vs things to work against. You'll be a lot happier and less stressed that way.
I see so many people beat themselves up because they ate a piece of birthday cake after eating well all week. That sort of mentality destroys healthy lifestyles. Slow and steady definitely wins this race, and if you're committed to no-added-sugar, it can get very restrictive very quickly..... if it feels too easy, that's good, it should. It should be easy to do a baby step. It's doing many baby steps all at once that makes walking feel natural.