The Cynic’s Guide to Focus and Food
The Cynic’s Guide to Focus and Food
Sugar Sugar
Lately I’ve been having trouble with real focus. My mind has always jumped around from idea to… vegetable, causing momentary confusion and distraction, but I’ve never considered changing my diet to see if that might improve things. It’s perhaps one of my biggest obstacles to ‘Getting Things Done’ and to become consistent in positive habits.
You are what you eat
My other half always jokes that I’m like a mad scientist, and I empathise with those scientists – I’ve always had a mind in which ideas appear with a fanfare, sit in my Evernote inbox for a while and get usurped by the next big idea. It’s always been the way, and distraction whilst running a business is never a good idea.
If you can relate to my thinking (literally), then this might be for you – I’m starting an experiment and seeing how things go. I’m saying so long to sugar – or at least the amounts I used to consume.
Sugar is known to have a detrimental effect on the ability to focus. In tests with kids diagnosed with ADHD, cutting out sugar from their diet improved their ability to focus by around 70%.
I’m not assuming I have or have had ADHD but everyone is on a spectrum of some kind (constructed by well-meaning academia) and my assumption is that there must be ways to improve focus through everyday means. ADHD wasn’t a ‘thing’ in my day and I guess it’s passes the point that grown adults need this sort of diagnosis, though surely improving focus for everybody would mean a clearer mind, if that’s what you’re after. I’m sure caffeine also is a problem but hey, one step at a time.
So sugar – it’s seemingly in everything – milk, bread, even, yes… cake.
Okay so I’m not going cold turkey – cold sweats and anger management aren’t for me, but I’m cutting out sugar in tea and coffee, countless cookies (which I love), biscuits, M&S ready meals (an everyday occurrence), pastries, cereals, spreads, all forms of chocolate and anything else I can think of along the way. This alone will more than halve my sugar content, which I hope will help with focus and health in general.
The Cynic’s Guide to Focus and Food / Week 1
Free the Sugar
The thinking behind going sugar free (disclaimer – not technically ‘free’) was after I had food poisoning and figured my body had probably thrown out literally everything which could be bad for me. I felt sugar free because I didn’t crave it, at all. I just wanted something fresh and savoury. That’s where the action began.
It’s been initially difficult to completely cut out sweet things – you realise sugar is in pretty much everything and that craving for something sweet is always there, especially after something savoury. Cutting out sugar in tea and coffee was immediate. Tea was easy, coffee and the bitterness that can come, wasn’t as easy. My birthday fell on the last day of my original sugar filled diet so I inevitably ate a big slice of cake my mum had teased me with. I noticed I was a little tetchy but nothing too horrific.
The Cynic’s Guide to Focus and Food / Week 2+3
Lazy I
The grumps set in and I fell off the wagon (lightly). I’d have a blow-out day where I might have a slice of lemon tart (get me) or a biscuit or two. Removing something which your body is addicted to is bound to have physical and mental effects. I’m going for the gradual descent though, so as not to surprise my body too much.
The first thing I noticed was my mood – I did feel less positive for a time. I let a few of my other PD habits fall by the wayside.
The next thing was weight loss. Now I’ve always been fortunate to inherit my father’s high metabolism. In my 20s and 30s I would put weight on through drinking and a carefree attitude to food. Now, with a super low sugar diet, the first thing I seem to burn is fat, not sugar. This is a good motivator for sure. I was down to 10st 7lb after the food poisoning incident and now only at 11st, the lowest for years.
I am still drinking beer / alcohol however. Not much, but it’s still there.
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