In 2008 I was pretending to enjoy life as an early 30s single male. I enjoyed a pack of cigarettes a day and pouring two cans of Vanilla Coke into my face cave. But I was wrenched from the clutches of self-destruction just in the nick of time by a nurturing and emotionally intelligent woman.I knew the moment I laid eyes on the radiant, effervescent creature that Cokes and cigarettes were not going to penetrate the health force field that surrounded her.I soon went from consuming around 30 teaspoons of sugar a day to almost none, and two months into this "wooing" process people were commenting on my improved skin and eye brightness. I had lost a few layers of my hibernation suit and the biggest surprise was the effect on my mental state - I felt calmer and more balanced.Three years later, a lot of press was emerging about sugar but the camps were divided. Some used words like "toxic" and "poisonous" whereas others cried "essential for energy". I thought one way to find the truth was to experiment on my own body and film the process .I assembled a team of expertsand set about consuming 40 teaspoons of sugar a day.But we needed a hook, and it came when I discovered that BBQ sauce, hoisin sauce and sweet chilli sauce all had more sugar in them per serving than chocolate sauce. What if I could eat my 40 teaspoons of sugar a day by consuming only products that many people would perceive to be healthy?My team didn' t know what to expect so the film was very low budget in the first few weeks. There was a chance it might amount to nothing.There was a spike in interest when I put on 3kg in 12 days. But the real alarm was sounded when I developed fatty liver disease after only 18 days.This elevated the project to a new level as all the conjecture in the media was around the fact that one type of sugar, fructose, turns to fat in our liver -one in four people in developed countries has non-alcohol-related fatty liver disease.By the end of the experiment I had put on 8.5kg, developed incipient type 2 diabetes and heart disease risks, had an extra 10cm of dangerous visceral fat around my belly and there had been a change in my moods and cognitive functioning.I now understand that sugar lights up the same reward areas in the brain as nicotine, cocaine and sex. The message? Eat real food. "That Sugar Book" is published by Pan MacMillan Australia..