After the ride, the food

^ funny you should mention the sweet, because I ate the best part of a big bag of fruit pastilles before lunch.
So it's just my body adjusting to the exercise increase ?
I have lost weight too.

It's a perfectly normal thing to happen if you start to ride more. Riding food is designed to get you fast-acting sugars. Fruit pastilles aren't 'designed' for riding but obviously contain a lot of sugar.

It's well-known among cyclists that you can get pretty sick from too many bars and gels without eating savoury in between. hippy can tell you all about continuous nutrition on a bike, and probably especially that aspect, since he's the national 24-hour TT champion.