i didn't eat sugar for a month

For as long as I can remember, I have written New Year's resolutions in December. Trying to figure out what in my life is missing, what my goals are for the year, and what I think I should be improving in my day-to-day life. I write them just to forget about them until December next year. Some may think this to be useless, writing your goals and doing nothing for 11 months and checking back to see which ones you accomplished, but I feel very differently. Setting goals is hard; it requires heavy introspection and self-reflection, which I believe most of us neglect in our daily lives. Even if setting goals does nothing for you, it makes you think about yourself. That cannot harm anyone. But I believe it does more than that; it seeds your brain. Setting some time apart to think about the version of yourself you want to be in a year puts that tiny seed into your brain to act upon your goals. That's why I've been doing these for a long time now. But this year I wanted a change. As I mentioned in my last post, I desire to accomplish. I wanted a continuous challenge that I can work to accomplish. Hence, I decided to do 12 monthly challenges for 2026.

The idea is obviously not mine, and as far as I understood, monthly challenges had their moment a few years ago, which I missed, hence the concept really intrigued me when I first saw this youtube video.

I was hooked immediately, ready to switch my long time habit into something new, and started to think about 12 challenges. After a deliberate research, some chats with AI, and some thinking, I came up with a list of ideas (which I prefer not to share for the reasons I will explain).

The first months challenge was to do daily stretches, and if I could, keep that habit throughout the year to do a split at the end of 2026. I always wanted to be that flexible, but never felt inclined to actually do something about it, so it felt like a good starting place. Here came January 1st. The day of hangover. Like many people, I also did nothing exceptional that day, but I cut myself some slack. On the second day, I tried a routine, just to figure out that I need a considerable amount of free space (since I am 193 cm tall), which I lacked in my small apartment. I tried to push through a few days, but my courage was broken, so I lost my enthusiasm. I decided to let this one go and start in February with a clear mind. February'c challenge was being sugar-free for 30 days.

Here's a spoiler: I actually managed to quit added sugar for 28 days. Well, not completely, but for the most part. I did not buy any products that have sugar in them, but I ate meals in restaurants that I knew contained sugar in them, like "general tso sauce". However, those were still very rare. I also quit sugar a few years back after watching the documentary, "That Sugar Film" for a few months. I was immensly affected by the documentary to fully remove any types of added sugar in my diet. I did not even eat some of the salted crackers because they had sugar in them. I was very strict, which also impacted the end results. I saw a clear spike in my quality of sleep, and I had a better mood in the mornings. This time around, I saw none of those benefits. I find it hard to believe the tiny amount of sugar I ate this month has countered all those benefits. Most probably working hard, going to training late at night, and having a worse schedule overall caused the end results to be more vague.

I still consider this last month to be a huge success, because there were some times I really struglled not to give in to my cravings, where my firends were having the time of their lifes enjoying a great dessert. But I managed to complete the first challenge of the year!