Diet Rules

Some people who know me may realize that I have an odd diet concerning sugary foods. Basically, for 2/3 of the year I don’t eat most sugary foods; for the other third I do. The point of this diet is not to give up sugar, but to eat less of it.

This has worked well for me. I generally stick to it, and as a result I think I’ve at least halved my sugar consumption. I regard it a permanent part of my life, and have no plans to ever go off it. In this blog post I will shares the intricate details of this diet.


The main rule of the diet is that, for the most part, I can only eat sugary foods in the following months. (These are called the Allowed Months):

  • March
  • June
  • September
  • December

I don’t officially limit my sugar consumption in any way during Allowed Months. Unofficially I don’t really drink sugary beverages any more. (Maybe the odd milkshake, or a craft soda once in awhile. I almost never drink juice.)


All other months (which I call the Limited Months), my consumption of sugary foods is limited. In general, I think of these as sugar-free months, but they’re really not. As I said, this is not to prohibit sugary foods but to reduce. In practice, I allow myself certain exceptions.

Here are the exceptions I allow myself during all Limited Months:

  • I can eat fruit that isn’t too sweet. For me that means mostly apples and bananas, but canteloupe and watermelon I sometimes eat too. Maybe even grapes. This applies to fresh fruit only. Not juice, dried fruit, or anything like that.
  • I can add honey or jelly to a peanut butter sandwich.
  • If someone offers me something sweet, I can take one piece. So, for instance, if someone sticks a plastic bowl full of cookies in my face, I’m allowed to take one. But it has to be a deliberate, active offer from someone. If there’s just a bowl of cookies or candy sitting there, I can’t take one. If someone just mentions, “Hey there’s cake”, I can’t take a slice of cake. But if they said, “Hey Carl, I made a cake, why don’t you have a piece”, then I can.
  • I can eat Girl Scout Cookies with impunity, but only if I bought them myself from an actual Girl Scout. (So no second hand cookies, and no buying them from her mother, or from a box at work.)
  • I can take a single breath mint from a bowl after eating dinner at a restaurant.
  • Cough drops with sugar are ok. (Though I prefer sugar-free in any case; the sugary ones make my teeth sticky, moreso than candy. Sometimes sugar-free cough drops are not easy to find, though.)
  • I have a rule that I can add about a tablespoon of honey or syrup to yogurt, which I did a lot when I first started this diet, but I don’t eat as much yogurt as I used to.

In addition to these permanent rules, I usually also give myself a monthly exception. The monthly exception is usually a broad category: “ice cream”, “maple syrup” (unlocking pancakes), “12 ounce bottles of craft soda”, or something like that. Sometimes, if I feel like I didn’t do well during the previous month I won’t give myself this exception, but most months I do.

Here’s the thing about the monthly exceptions: I won’t simply shift all the sugar consumption to that one item. What I try to do is consume the exception at the same rate as I would during an Allowed month, and drop all other sugary foods. (At least that’s the theory; I’m sure I end up at the upper range most months.)

And finally, I waive the limits for sugary foods on major holidays.


In spite of the numerous exceptions, I have not stuck to this diet perfectly. I have eaten sugary foods for comfort here and there. I’ve waived the diet in certain situations (like when travelling). I used to not bother at all when I visited the family, since they always used to leave all kinds of chocolate and candy laying around the house, and at that point it’s hopeless. (Though they don’t leave chocolate out so much any more, no idea why.)

However, by and large this has been successful. At least for me, the exceptions give me a bit of an outlet and allow me to be strong in the face of temptation most of the time. It’s a lot easier to give up something when you know you’ll be able to take it up again soon.


I’ve been doing this in some form since 2011, about eight years now.

When I first started, I was like a statue of stone. I gave up the sweet foods absolutely during Limited Months, did not cheat at all, and gave myself fewer and narrower exceptions. Then, when Allowed Months came, I went crazy. I’d eat as much sugary food as I could, knowing that soon it would be a Limited Month again. I ended up eating more sugary foods than I otherwise would have during Allowed months (although it was certainly still less overall when you averaged it woth the Limited Months).

But as time went on, a very interesting thing has happened. I started adding new exceptions, and also ended up cheating more. But during Allowed Months, I got less and less crazy. Temptation had a smaller and smaller effect on me over time.

Now, I hardly eat more sugar during the Allowed months than I eat during Limited Months, and I eat a lot less sugar in any month. About the only difference now is that I might buy a candy bar while visiting a convenience store during a Allowed month, but won’t during a Limited month.

Basically, by sticking to this diet, I gradually learned to moderate.


I have a few tradtions associated with this diet. The first sweet I eat on an Allowed Month is always a King Size Kit-Kat. The last sweet I like to eat before I go back to Limited Months is an ice cream sandwich from Diddy Riese, but I don’t do that all the time (especially since I moved away from the Westside). And on holidays I usually limit myself to thematically appropriate sweets, so for Halloween I’ll only eat candy, for Thanksgiving, only pie.

Updated: March 25, 2024 — 12:47 AM

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