After the half-way point and the week seven screw-up, I’ve had a bit of a chance to examine how I feel about IQS in general and whether or not I think it’s a) worthwhile and b) something I’ll be able to keep up indefinitely – since it is supposed to be a sort of ‘reset’ leading to permanent liberation from sugar binge cycles.

I’ve found it, largely, to be extremely beneficial. There are some caveats and watch-outs that I’ll list below, but on the whole I’ve found that mostly good things have come out of it. Such as:

• Increased energy (eventually – I did have a two week sluggish dip in the middle)
• Improved skin
• A lower susceptibility to bingeing / bloating
• Fewer sweet cravings (I still turn into a carb addict come Lady Week though I can usually stave it off with cheese and oatcakes – soz for the TMI)
• More veg cravings (I always liked them but now I actively crave greens if I don’t get them)
• Rediscovering how sweet certain things – especially fruit – really are (does wonders for your appreciation of them!)

I’ve also lost around 12-14lbs, which has levelled off and stayed stable for a week or two, suggesting that this weight is more or less my natural setpoint. I was aiming for better health, but I’m not going to argue if nature wants me to fit my clothes better. I do still need to work on fitness, but I am walking more than I used to.

On the whole, approached as a programme that is about resetting attitudes rather than going on a mad health purge, it’s a really handy way of structuring a fresh approach to food, and getting into healthier habits. I’ve struggled for years to ‘listen to my body’ and I’m still not 100% there, but without the influence of shedloads of sugar – and I was eating a LOT – I find it a hell of a lot easier than I did. Since completing the 8 weeks I’ve added back 1-2 helpings of fruit per day, usually lower fructose choices like berries, but they’re my favourites anyway; I also nibble on fairly regular infusions of 80-100% dark chocolate and it’s all felt very manageable. I continue to track what I eat out of curiosity, and I can still see patterns of more and less disordered eating here and there (the female reproductive cycle has a lot to answer for), but on the whole I’ve levelled out at around 25-30 grams of sugar a day, and that seems to leave me in a happy place. I had a slice of my daughter’s birthday cake and all was well – and I didn’t want more than a little bit. That was the place I wanted to arrive at, and I’m happy with it.

Now for the caveats.

• Sarah WIlson touches on it in the book, but fat really can be a problem. I think I’m pretty much convinced that there’s nothing bad about fat in general and I’ve made my peace with eating more of it without that automatic feeling of guilt but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing; a few almonds = a good snack, an entire pack of almonds = unnecessary. Now, I refuse to be pejorative about food or eating, and I won’t say that it’s a case of ‘good’ vs ‘bad’, but I do know that there’s such a thing as ‘enough for me’ vs ‘too much for me’. And it’s very easy to blur that line when you’re crowding out sugar with fat. So it’s something to watch out for.
• As a manifesto, the book has flaws. Some of the science is a bit woolly, the (meaningless) word ‘detox’ pops up and there is the inevitable cherry picking of data to support a particular view (and make the book readable, to be fair). I would have liked to have seen a twice as long introductory sector looking into this in more detail. The fact is, I already wanted off (most) sugar, because I find when I increase the amount I eat, I eat more stuff I don’t really want to and feel emotionally and physically crappy. But I missed the detail and delving of something more comprehensive like HAES.
• The other thing to watch out for is unrealistic expectations. Wilson is careful not to make any specific health claims, and simply talks about how the knock on effect of her new approach to eating has appeared to improve her thyroid condition, but be wary of assuming that going low sugar will fix everything. If your symptoms improve, then that’s excellent, and at the very least I can’t imagine that putting a bit less crap into the body could be actively harmful. But don’t fall into the magical thinking trap.
• Although the posters scream “lose weight”, it’s actually (rightly, in my opinion), a very small part of what’s touched on in the book. Wilson basically says some people lose a bit of weight, some people lose quite a lot – ie YMMV. Feeling altogether better is the aim here, not setting any weight or body targets.

This is probably the last I’m going to post about this, apart from if I share a suitable recipe, cos genuinely I think it all gets to be a bit dull and repetitive if all you do is evangelise about some food fad or other. I know that some people asked for an update after the 8 week point, so here’s what I’ve found overall, and I’m really happy to answer any questions here or on Twitter.