All that's sweet is not sugar

After reading an article about this guy who went off sugar, I started thinking about how I might reduce my sugar intake. He described unpleasant side effects after eating "healthy" foods that contained more than the recommended serving of sugar every day for two months. I started thinking about how I consume more sugar than I need to because I have a sweet tooth. I add sugar to my tea; I put it in muffins and pancakes on a Saturday morning; I follow recipes for cookies and brownies, never questioning how much sugar it calls for. I figure because I was making them from scratch and knew there weren't preservatives and fake sweeteners included, then they weren't so bad for me.

Here's how I've started to reduce the "optional" sugar in my diet:

• cinnamon or vanilla in tea, instead of sugar or honey
• yogurt which already has enough sugar in smoothies
• rice bran syrup substituted for at least half the sugar in muffins and brownies
• avoiding the chia tea mix at work in favour of real tea leaves from home

The results this week have been more in the sense of convincing myself that things still taste good without as much sugar. It's been too short and too small measures to notice any differences health-wise.

Anyone have any other tips for reducing sugar consumption?

'A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his migraines.' – Hippocrates

I have been falling off the less-screen-time wagon lately. After having a migraine yesterday and a severe headache all day today, I am clambering back on that wagon tonight. Instead of collapsing in front of the TV for a few hours before bed tonight, I decided to do yoga for some of that time. About halfway through the routine I felt my mind slow and the frenetic energy of my body ease. It was a wonderful feeling and validated why yoga is better than TV. I've come out of it feeling calmer and, I was going to say in control but that's not accurate, it's really more a feeling of ease with the present.

I have a theory that slower brainwaves, like being in a meditative state more than a stress-response state, is one way to reduce the incidence of migraines. I feel like too much TV gets my neurones firing and makes me wired, which is often how I feel before the lethargy, confusion and pain of a migraine sets in. I did a quick internet search to see if I could find anything on brainwave states and migraines, but I haven't found anything really legitimate and scientific looking yet. YouTube has many clips of 'binaural music', which supposedly 'entrains' deep relaxation or slows brainwaves and thus stops migraines. I'm not holding my breath that it's the magic cure we've all been waiting for, but I might try listening to them sometime.

I guess what tonight is about is breaking out of the easy routine, trying something potentially healthier and maybe learning something new about how my messed up brain works. I succeeded in breaking my normal evening TV-watching pattern, I did a healthier activity, but I haven't found what I'm looking for about the effects of alpha or beta brainwaves yet.