How much do I win? I have gone without sugar for over 5 years. Also cut out coffee and salt. Sugar plays hell with my system...I get a sugar high and then I crash and burn and feel like crap the rest of the day...not worth it. I cannot even stand the taste of anything sweet anymore. I get really angry when a restaurant brings me sweet tea when I order tea.
BTW, I am about 15 lbs. overweight AND I walk 1.5 miles on my treadmill each night besides walking all over the AF base at work and working in the yard on weekends. I can't take diet pills because I have high blood pressure. Your theory does not fly with me.
You ARE taking in some sugar; you're just taking it in via foods that contain it naturally instead of via foods that have it added (or via dumping Domino Sugar packets into your tea).
I'm wondering if you don't have the same problem a lot of other folks do, including my own fifteen-year-old daughter. You get a lot of exercise, but it's just the kind that tires you out, not the kind that builds calorie burning muscle mass, or aerobic exercise. Instead it makes you too weary to do that extra aerobic or weight-lifting exercise.
Walking around an AF base will give you firm lower-leg muscles, but it won't make your muscles firm all over, and it isn't aerobic exercise. The same is true of working in the yard on weekends. Unless you're digging holes at high speed, you aren't burning up many calories. You may need to change the types of exercise you're getting--for instance, go for a run early in the morning, to jump-start your metabolism and suppress your appetite, then bike after work, or swim, or lift weights. Building up some muscle mass is critical.
No veggies? No fruit? No seasoning on your food? No beer? No milk?
Sugar is in everything. And quiet as it's kept, a small percentage of sugar is probably necessary to remain healthy. I'm sure it's nowhere near the amount of sugar that contemporary America is force-fed.
But 10-15 pounds isn't obese and might just mean the weight charts are wrong at least for many people. I know people who weigh 20-25 pounds more than they should according to those charts who look fine and are very healthy. Some people at the so-called proper weight sometimes aren't as healthy as those who are over. But I've seen 10 year olds who weigh over 200 pounds that can't walk half a block and can't be outside for over 10 minutes in the summer because they're so fat and have a hard time breathing.