I’ll bet you’ll say no. You don’t feed your kids candy, soda or cookies. You know too much sugar is bad. Right? You’re just not a freak about it. Am I right?

Well, listen up. I use to be just like you. A good mama — buying organic, eating healthy, giving my kids Annie’s and Cascadian Farms stuff, all that. Until last week. That’s when I pulled my four year old off sugar and learned the biggest surprise of my life.

Okay, two biggest surprises.

1. Sugar is like crack. Detox is hell.
2. I am a sugar pimp. Who knew?

Here’s a typical eating day at my house for my 4 year old. For the sake of exemplification, I’m going to tell you the sugars for 1 “serving.” See how you compare to me. (We don’t do dairy – but you can be assured that milk also has sugar in it!) P.S. We don’t do veggies well either.

Breakfast:
• GoLean Crunch 13 g or Gorilla Munch 8 g with Pacific organic almond milk 6 g
• Scrambled eggs 0 g
• (weekends: Ian’s French Toast Sticks 5 g plus Aunt Jemima Lite Syrup 25 g)

Lunch:
• Oroweat multi-grain sandwich thins 2 g with Smucker’s Low Sugar Strawberry Preserves 5 g
• ½ apple 7 g
• FruitaBu Fruit rolls 13 g
• Apple juice 28 g

Snack:
• Cascadian Farm Organic chocolate chip granola bar 12 g Or
• Craisins 26 g and cashews 0 g

Dinner:
• Chicken hot dogs 0 g
• Apple juice 28 g
• Cantaloupe / grapes 10g
• Bread 2 g and Olivio spread 0 g

Holy Sugar, Batman! This is between 100 g to 150 g of sugar a day.

I’m not going to lie. It was torture removing sugar from my 4 year olds’ diet. You will hate your life. But it’s only for a few days. (Have you watched those television shows? Expect some serious mood swings.)

Now, you may be wondering why I put myself through this craziness. Well, health reasons like . . . food allergies, concentration, fatigue, headaches, fat storage, hyperactivity, . . . the list goes on and on. Plain and simple, less sugar = a healthier child. For us, I’m hoping it will help my baby girl with seizures, migraines and constant fatigue.

Still not convinced? Email me and I’ll give you a homework assignment of reading to convince you.

Then, when you decide to believe me, here’s what you do . . .

1. Take sugar out of your child’s diet. No sugar. (white sugar, honey, maltodextrin, malted barley, brown sugar, sucrose, fructose and high fructose corn syrup.)
2. Read all labels. Grams of sugar? Ingredients? Look carefully, most prepackaged foods have sugar.
3. White flour and corn act like sugar in the body. Don’t eat.
4. Take up cooking. (Sorry.)
5. Use sweeteners like agave, Stevia and Xylitol.

Where to start? Here’s some suggestions approved by my four year old.

• brown rice spaghetti noodles with Olivio spread
• egg white shake (vanilla)
• eggs – scrambled and hard boiled w/ salt
• So Delicious yogurt (vanilla)
• Think Thin bars (green packaging – white choc chip is a favorite)
• cashews (salted & toasted)
• rice crackers and hummus
• chicken hot dogs
• Ezekiel tortilla pizza: no sugar red sauce + rice cheese
• oatmeal w/ Stevia
• brown rice tortilla or brown rice cake with Sun butter

You will notice a HUGE energy increase in your child – it’s been an incredible difference in my little one. Before the sugar detox, she’d get so tired in the morning she’d say, “Mommy, my legs say they have to lay down now” or “I feel like I need to lay down.” That is not normal four year old behavior!

The good news is that I haven’t heard her say those things lately. She’s not lying down in the middle of the grocery store. (Dirty, I know!) She’s participating in her gymnastics class again instead of asking to lie down. She has energy back in her body. I’m beyond thrilled. I will never give her that amount of sugar again. Ever. (Me, either for that matter!)

Although I’m not a nutritionist, I’m happy to support you if you have any questions. Melissa@imaginationsoup.net May the sugarless force be with you. You can totally do this!

Melissa is an expert parenting and education writer with a M.A. in Education from the University of Denver. As a classroom teacher for many years, she lived the educator’s life. Now, as a mom, she knows and experiences education from a parent’s perspective. In May 2009, she created Imagination Soup — a blog about fun ways to learn at home in math, science, reading and writing. Melissa’s writing portfolio is online at http://melissatayloronline.com .

Wii Fit is scheduled for release in the U.S. on May 19th.  Already released in Japan and Europe, this new “video game system” is flying off the shelves.  The video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, has described it as “a way to help get families exercising together.”  Now, I’m not a big proponent of video games, but anything that will get people off the couch and moving gets a thumbs up from me.

The way that it works is with the the Wii Balance Board.  Step on and it measures your weight and center of gravity and can calculate body mass index when given your height. Neat-o!  There are 40 different activities that include hula-hooping, soccer, dancing, push-ups & yoga poses.

Here’s what the Nintendo people say:

The active-play phenomenon started by Wii Sports now spreads to your whole body thanks to the pressure-sensitive Wii Balance Board (name not final), which comes packed with Wii Fit. The board is used for an extensive array of fun and dynamic activities, including aerobics, yoga, muscle stretches and games. Many of these activities focus towards providing a “core” workout, a popular exercise method that emphasizes slower, controlled motions. Family members will have fun staying active and talking about and comparing their results and progress on a new channel on the Wii Menu.

You can check out screen shots here. 
Nintendo people, feel free to get in touch! I’m happy too WiiFit with my family!