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Shadowing practice: I quit sugar for 30 days

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  1. Last year I had developed a bad habit of snacking.0:00
  2. I had lost all self -control in the face of a free donut or plate of cookies, and I made justifications for my actions.0:03
  3. Excuses like, well, I did go to the gym today.0:09
  4. Overall, I eat pretty healthy.0:12
  5. It's not like I do this every day, until I started to do it every day.0:14
  6. I knew something had to change when, even though I exercise often, I noticed I was developing early -onset dad gut.0:18
  7. So I decided to quit sugar for 30 days.0:25
  8. Now, most of us know that too much sugar is a bad thing.0:30
  9. It's something that we've been taught ever since we were kids.0:33
  10. And apart from simply putting a little bit of weight on your gut, there's a lot more serious problems that can come with eating too much sugar.0:36
  11. It can damage your metabolism, cause type 2 diabetes, increase the likelihood that you'll get liver or kidney damage, causes inflammation of the skin, joint pain, tooth decay, and even0:43
  12. problems maintaining an erection.0:53
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  1. So yeah, there's even that as well.0:56
  2. That's probably the main reason, no, it's not the main reason.0:59
  3. Get that out of your head.1:01
  4. So on top of all that, on top of all of these bad things that it does to your body, it's also very addictive.1:03
  5. So I know the first thing that I want to do right now is go through my entire apartment and find all of the things that have added sugar and1:11
  6. get them out of my apartment.1:18
  7. So let's do that now.1:20
  8. I knew I was consuming a decent amount of sugar, but without reading the labels and digging into weekly snacks and meals, I wouldn't know for sure.1:22
  9. There were of course some no -brainers.1:30
  10. Ice cream is loaded, chocolate snacks are packed, my once a month energy drink, but I was also surprised to find a lot of sugar in my protein bars.1:32
  11. My breakfast cereal is basically a dessert.1:42
  12. Even the bread I was buying had five grams of slice.1:45
  13. If you're like me and you have very little self -control, the only thing you can do to regain control is to completely change your environment.1:48
  14. It's impossible to eat snacks that you refuse to purchase and bring into your home in the first place.1:55
  15. So all this stuff needs to go.2:00
  16. The cravings were the worst for the first couple days, but even a week in I was struggling late at night.2:02
  17. All right, so I'm seven days into this no sugar challenge, and this is probably the toughest night so far.2:08
  18. About 45 minutes ago, I had a bit of a sugar craving and instinctively I went to my snack cabinet and I'll show you guys what I found.2:15
  19. That's it.2:24
  20. Organic rice cake.2:25
  21. Nothing, nothing sweet there.2:27
  22. Before I started this challenge, I did a little bit of research, but I still had a lot of questions about sugar.2:31
  23. What kind of sugar should we be avoiding and how much is too much?2:36
  24. So I asked my friend, Bekkah Schoen, to help clear some things up for me.2:39
  25. She's a registered dietitian and founder of Minimal Wellness.2:42
  26. I'm hoping you can help me kind of break down when people decide to get sugar out of the diet.2:46
  27. What does that usually look like?2:52
  28. What kind of sugars are people usually trying to cut out?2:54
  29. Most people when they're trying to cut out sugar, they're talking about added sugar.2:56
  30. So sugar that gets added to a processed food, a cooked food.3:01
  31. That's like table sugar or honey or high fructose corn syrup.3:06
  32. My king, this corn syrup was just delivered.3:11
  33. Generally it's recommended that you're somewhere but under ideally five percent of your calories from added sugar.3:13
  34. So for a 2 ,000 calorie diet, that's 25 grams of added sugar.3:19
  35. And it turns out that added sugar can add up quick.3:25
  36. I noticed the high levels in some of my daily snacks and the occasional foods I might get served on an airplane.3:29
  37. While my old instinct was to throw food in my mouth, my new instinct was to check the back of the package and then throw my food at Natalie.3:35
  38. You're not aiming for 25 grams of sugar every day.3:45
  39. It's like over the course of a week, over the course of a month, like some days are really low, some days are quite high.3:50
  40. So that is where you can get the flexibility to have dessert on a special occasion.3:57
  41. And I think that that's where as a culture we've really like got off track, as we no longer have sugar relegated to desserts or special occasions.4:04
  42. It's like in everything because we eat so much processed food.4:16
  43. Yeah, and it was surprising even for me, I had watched FedUp and these documentaries, and I read a lot of blog posts about how much sugar is in everything.4:19
  44. I knew it but then I was still surprised by certain things.4:28
  45. My granola bar was like 30 grams of sugar and I'm like, that's why it tastes so good.4:32
  46. And it's hard, I think it takes like really like looking at everything you're purchasing and really understanding that if it tastes too good to be true, it's probably.4:37
  47. Yeah, I mean there's a reason why food manufacturers put a lot of added sugar in things.4:48
  48. It tastes good, it makes you want to buy it again.4:54
  49. It's really straightforward.4:57
  50. The problem is it's terrible for us.4:59
  51. Becca thought my 30 day no sugar challenge was a good step to understanding how my body personally responds to sugar, but also stress the importance of maintaining a healthy5:02
  52. and balanced diet.5:12
  53. If I'm being honest, my diet isn't always balanced and it can sometimes look a bit primitive.5:14
  54. Alright, so tonight's dinner can really only be described as a bowl of food.5:19
  55. Here, let me show you guys what we're working with here.5:24
  56. We've got your rice, your chicken and your daily recommended bacon.5:27
  57. I should be eating more veggies.5:34
  58. I just realized that right now.5:36
  59. I'm going to start doing that soon, but first, bacon.5:38
  60. I must not have had a terrible sugar addiction because I didn't experience any headaches or major discomfort outside of nightly cravings.5:42
  61. To combat these cravings, I made some tea as a replacement.5:49
  62. This really helped to keep my mind distracted.5:52
  63. My biggest fear and motivation to go on this 30 day challenge is because I know how small changes make a big difference.5:54
  64. Now, normally when I talk about small changes, it relates to positive change, but it also works in the opposite direction.6:01
  65. Small bad habits like snacking on junk food can build up and compound to something much worse.6:07
  66. What are you looking at?6:13
  67. You're a dog.6:14
  68. You make those early excuses and justifications, but eventually you don't need to make them anymore because the bad habit sticks and you're running on autopilot.6:16
  69. So I'm thankful that I got out in front of it before things got any worse.6:23
  70. In the past, I had relied on smoothies to get most of my vitamins, but as a part of this challenge, I also wanted to cut back on fruit.6:28
  71. While they do include vitamins, nutrients, and fibers that are good for you, I wanted to force myself to eat more greens.6:35
  72. After the first 10 days, I started to prepare and eat healthier meals.6:42
  73. For dinner, I'd have fish with brown rice and sauteed kale.6:45
  74. Salads became my go -to meal because they were convenient and easy to prepare.6:49
  75. We have curry cod with some brown rice and sauteed kale.6:53
  76. In the kale, I actually sauteed it with some chicken broth, which I'm also going to be drinking here.7:00
  77. This is like a bachelor meal.7:05
  78. Natalie's definitely much better around the kitchen than I am.7:07
  79. I primarily eat for sustenance while she cooks and eats for the love of the food.7:10
  80. Natalie's extremely sweet.7:15
  81. I'm so nice.7:17
  82. Look at that.7:19
  83. Double the sauce.7:19
  84. I got no sauce.7:22
  85. I found workarounds and substitutes for all meals that included sugar.7:25
  86. Instead of fig jam sauce, I used mustard.7:28
  87. Instead of vinegar, I used olive oil and a healthy squeeze of lemon topped with some salt and pepper.7:31
  88. Three weeks in, and I noticed that my energy levels became more stable.7:37
  89. No longer did I have huge swings of high to low energy throughout the day, especially as I tried to balance my diet out with protein, carbs, greens, and a7:41
  90. little bit less bacon.7:51
  91. So what you're experiencing there is energy levels, but it's blood sugar fluctuations.7:53
  92. So when you have lots of added sugar in your diet, you can get really big fluctuations in your blood sugar levels, which make you feel like you've got a7:59
  93. lot of energy, and then, holy crap, you're crashing and you have no energy.8:10
  94. And then what you typically do when you feel like you have no energy, especially if you're not paying attention, is to gravitate towards something that will give you quick8:14
  95. energy, which is sugar.8:22
  96. You gravitate toward sugar so you go back up.8:25
  97. You feel good for a little while, and then you crash again.8:28
  98. In addition to more stable energy levels, I also noticed a significant reduction of my dad gut.8:31
  99. It didn't disappear, but the tide had turned.8:37
  100. All right, so the 30 -day challenge is done, and I feel pretty good.8:39
  101. I feel pretty good.8:44
  102. There were a few things that I changed over the past 30 days.8:45
  103. I did start going to the gym more now that I'm not traveling as much.8:49
  104. I also reduced my carbs partly because of the reduction in added sugar, and it's hard to pinpoint the exact percentage benefit that I received from getting rid of sugar8:52
  105. to steal a phrase from Dan Harris.9:04
  106. I'd say maybe I was 10 % healthier.9:06
  107. It definitely made a huge difference in my energy levels and how I felt every day, and it was definitely nice to curb those cravings, because who knows how bad9:10
  108. it could have gotten if I just kept snacking and kept going.9:17
  109. My dad gut could have potentially turned into a grandpa gut, which would have been really scary.9:20
  110. But going forward, I love sweets.9:25
  111. I love dessert.9:27
  112. I'm a big fan, and I don't want to just get rid of it completely because I think in this life we need to actually enjoy things, but I want9:28
  113. to bring it back in moderation.9:35
  114. So starting next month, I'm going to experiment with a once a week cheat meal, and that starts tomorrow.9:37
  115. Sleep deprivation is epidemic in our society.10:01
  116. Sign up today to immediately get 18 videos and 7 podcast episodes with new content coming every month.10:04
  117. And if you want to take part in these 30 day challenges with me, I'm doing them all year and announcing them in 3 places, my newsletter, Twitter, and Instagram.10:11
  118. You can find those links in the description below.10:20
  119. Thanks for watching.10:23
  120. Oh, that was a mistake.10:27
  121. I feel sick.10:28
  122. My stomach hurts.10:31
  123. I ate like a donut and a half, and I still feel horrible.10:31
  124. This is terrible.10:36
  125. Look at this.10:38
  126. This is bad.10:38
  127. I need to give these donuts away to somebody.10:42
  128. Music playing.10:45
  129. You filming me?10:51
  130. Yeah.10:53
  131. You're just gonna ask.10:53
  132. Thanks for taking these donuts.10:54
  133. You're welcome.10:56
  134. Bye.10:56
  135. Happy birthday.10:57

American accent training with a fast, B2 commentary on quitting sugar

This is Matt D'Avella talking straight to camera, not a scene with several actors, so there is one American voice to track for the whole clip. The pace measures 204 words per minute, faster than 65 percent of the catalogue, and the level is B2: mostly everyday vocabulary, with sharper words worked in as the topic gets more specific.

The subject is concrete: he lists the health problems added sugar can cause, then walks through his own kitchen pulling out everything with sugar in it. For english speaking practice with an American accent, that concreteness matters. You are repeating real claims and real objects, not vague small talk, so the words have somewhere to land.

The language in this clip: reductions and blunt asides

The opening minutes mix formal claims with casual asides, and catching that gap is real english listening practice before you try to speak any of it back. It also gives you a chance to improve english speaking by copying stress patterns from a real, unscripted line instead of a written script.

  • Line 5, "It's not like I do this every day, until I started to do it every day." repeats almost the same words twice but flips the meaning with speed and stress. Say it slowly first, then speed up on the second half the way he does.
  • Line 13, "So yeah, there's even that as well." is a short, thrown away aside. Shadow it fast and low, the way you would drop a comment in a real conversation, not the way you would read a sentence out loud.
  • Line 17, the long run on sentence about going through his apartment, "So I know the first thing that I want to do right now is go through my entire apartment and find all of the things that have added sugar and" is one breath at full pace. Break it into two chunks before you try it whole.

How to work through this english shadowing practice, line by line

Work the opening block in order, since the habit he names at the start is what the rest of the clip explains and argues against.

  • Start with line 1, "Last year I had developed a bad habit of snacking." at normal speed, it is short enough to get right on the first pass.
  • Move to line 5 and shadow it twice, once for the words, once to match how the pace picks up on the second half.
  • Try line 7, "So I decided to quit sugar for 30 days." at full pace since it is short enough to speak english fluently on the first attempt.
  • Come back to line 17, the long apartment sentence, and work it slowly before trying it at full speed, it is the hardest single line in this opening stretch.
  • Close the block on line 23, "My breakfast cereal is basically a dessert." and check your recording against his stress before you carry the same english speaking practice into the rest of the video.
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