Ask the Expert: Can You Have Honey on the 21 Day Fix?

Yes, but probably not as much as you were hoping for.

Creating the 21 Day Fix Eating Plan was a balancing act. On one hand, Autumn Calabrese wanted to teach people how to enjoy the taste of real, natural food. After years of being inundated with sugar, your taste buds can adapt to the sweetness onslaught and foods that should be considered sweet, like ripe peaches or fresh strawberries, don’t satisfy your sweet tooth.

On the other hand, she didn’t want to deny those doing the 21 Day Fix an indulgence or two, which is why you’re allowed to exchange the occasional Yellow container for a treat. This really shouldn’t impact your taste buds. (Note the word “occasional.”)

However, we didn’t include sweeteners — even “whole food” sweeteners like honey and molasses — in the 21 Day Fix guide because a yellow container’s worth would be quite a lot. Adding that much to your foods would defeat any attempt to bring your taste buds back from Candy Land.

But we’re not complete sadists. You may have noticed in the Tea & Coffee Bar section (p. 14) that you can have one to two teaspoons of raw sugar, honey, molasses, or maple syrup in up to two cups of tea or coffee each day. In other words you can have up to a maximum of four teaspoons of honey, molasses, maple syrup, or raw sugar a day. This is much less than a yellow container equivalent and not a big caloric impact.

So can you add all four of those teaspoons to foods other than tea or coffee? What about adding it to yogurt or fruit? Technically, yes. Do we recommend it? Not really. Think of it this way. 99% of the 21 Day Fix is laid out for you. No muss, no fuss. But still, you have a few choices. This is one of them. Choosing to use just one to two teaspoons — or none at all — might be a great way to take personal responsibility.

If you are struggling against your sweet tooth, you might use the 21 Day Fix to wean yourself off of sugar. Use three teaspoons of sweetener in Week One, two in Week Two, one in Week Three — and then no sweeteners at all for Week One of 21 Day Fix EXTREME. You were going to do 21 Day Fix EXTREME next, right?