How to Do a Sugar Detox as a Family

I’m so excited to share a guest post with you today written by Elisabeth Ensor. I’ve been following her on Instagram for a long time and her content is gold! She loves to learn and share what she learns with others. Keep reading to find out how to do a sugar detox as a family from her first-hand experience!

Disclosure: This post is not intended for medical advice. All opinions are my own.

NEW YEAR FAMILY SUGAR DETOX

I love the start of a new year, I especially love our whole family sugar fast. It might sound strange to be excited about restricting food (notably something so sweet) but I will explain why it’s such a great family experience!

DETOX SUAGR FROM THE HOLIDAYS

First of all, the amount of sugar our kids consume exponentially multiplies during the times between Halloween and Christmas. There are so many times to celebrate, bake desserts and partake of extra sugar from trick or treat candy to the traditional family pies.

I recommend fasting from refined sugar for a few weeks as a way to detox the body, build back up your immune system and finally as an exercise in self-control. 

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WHAT TO EAT INSTEAD OF SUGAR

My kids are 11 and 7 and they do fabulous on our sugar fasts. We plan other treats after dinner that first week like banana nice-cream! It’s just frozen bananas with cacao powder and almond milk in the blender. But usually, by the second week, all of our taste buds have changed.

Fruit tastes sweeter and we transition into that as a delicious treat. What’s really fun is buying winter fruit like pomegranates and pears! Or let your kids pick a new fruit they have never tried such as organic dates. This is also a great time to buy organic fruit because I promise you- all organic fruit tastes better! 

My favorite way to eat pears is to slice them thin on a mandolin cutter and dehydrate them. They taste like candy when they are dried. Maybe your kids will like apples with honey and cinnamon or raisins as a sweet snack.

THE INCENTIVE SYSTEM

We also incentivize our kids with a reward- it could be a new book, toy or experience that they have wanted to try (like a rock climbing gym). The idea is to talk about that thing they are getting when times are tough and everyone is craving sweets.

We always seem to be invited to a birthday party during our fasting so I pack snacks or fruit for them to have at the party- that is always so hard for them to resist.

A LESSON IN SELF-CONTROL

I love this family fast because we are showing our kids that they can want something really bad and can resist. This practice in self-control is my favorite part about it- they see for days, weeks that they are self-controlled. I believe that discipline begets discipline, so this will pour over into other areas of their life- like school (or at least I am praying). Overall, it’s a small way to teach them their own inner strength.

And finally, we know that refined sugar has a negative effect on our immune systems so these few weeks (we do 21 days) help our bodies get stronger for the winter season. Do we even need another reason to prevent colds or sickness in our families? I didn’t think so.

I hope you enjoyed learning how to do a sugar detox and that you are inspired to take a short break from sugar and fast with us this month!