Wednesday, October 24, 2012

no-sugar update

Latte.

Sorry for the delay in updating you on my "no-sugar" project. We have the worst internet, and it just wasn't cooperating when I wanted to do a blog post.  But happily, here I am, at least for the moment.

I'm on day 10 of no sugar/no white bread.  I haven't been perfect, but I've been very very good.  It helps that I announced on the blog and go so much encouragement (thank you!)--and it helps that I gave myself a short-ish timeline.  It also helps that I've started losing weight!  That is the best encouragement of all.  I started at 142 and this morning I weighed at 138.1.  Yay!

As far as how it's actually been going, it hasn't been that hard.  The first 4 days were tough because I was also "counting points" and restricting my calories, so I felt grumpy and hungry.  I wasn't really craving sugar, just feeling deprived generally.  Over the weekend I ate more food and had a minor "cheat" so I felt better, and now I'm getting more into the groove of things.

I'll tell you about the "cheat" first.  On Saturday, Ken and I had a date night and I ordered a wine margarita (it was small!) and afterwards we took a walk around downtown and stopped at Starbucks and I got a tall pumpkin latte (I drank half--it was super sweet--I couldn't finish it).  I rationalized these treats and I'm glad I did.  I wanted to enjoy date night!  (Ken's not drinking or eating sugar for an entire year so he didn't have a margarita and had plain coffee).

What I have been eating:
:: breakfast is a tricky meal.  I rely on sweet so much, even in a "diety" breakfast.  What I have found to work for me is eggs and toast (especially an "egg in the hole" with 100% whole wheat bread) or Grape Nuts with chopped apple and chopped date.  (Grape Nuts is also good as a hot cereal if you microwave it). My normal way to eat Grape Nuts is cold with sugar and raisins or hot with milk and honey so I've been happy to find I can go without the sugar.  Yay!
:: for lunch I've been having whole wheat toast with avocado and salt or with avocado and sardines.  A couple times I took deli ham with iceberg lettuce leaves.  I always take some fruit and raw veggies too.  Sometimes I allow myself a date at lunch but ideally I'd get out of the habit of having something sweet at lunch.  Today I had a dried apricot and that tasted surprisingly sweet as well.
:: for dinner I always make a normal dinner for the family.  Funny story:  the very first night of the project I tried a new recipe for frittata that I'd planned on the menu and it called for cubed white bread!  Arrg.  But I did put it in because I thought it would lighten the recipe and it was really good.  I've found it hard to entirely avoid white flour.  My main concern though is the sweets and I've been good about that.
:: snacks have been either a string cheese and apple slices or a banana.  Today I had a very decadent snack of peanut butter, a banana and some raisins.  Super delicious--it tasted like the best dessert ever.  That shows how easy it is to adjust your tastebuds.

Diet Coke update:  haven't had any and it hasn't been too terrible.  I mainly miss it when we order pizza or go out.  I've been substituting with unsweetened iced tea or sparkling water.

So I said I'd go through the end of the month and I will, and I entirely plan at that point to extend it to November 16th when we go on break.  I'm really enjoying the feeling of being "in control" and not feeling bad/guilty about what I'm eating.

*PS--that picture at the top is a latte at Starbucks--just milk no sugar or syrup.  Delish.

5 comments:

catie said...

mary beth,
do you ever use stevia? i use this powdered stevia in my tea, and we mix up sodas with sparkling water and this vanilla-flavored liquid stevia.
no sugar & everyone's happy ♥

Sarah said...

did you know you can make your own flavors for your coffees with vanilla beans (or other natural flavors), boiling water (or vodka!) and stevia or other non-refined sugar if wanted? One of my favorite local coffee shops has three all natural made in their shop flavors and they're amazing. I've decided that once you go sugar free your taste buds reawaken, I wonder how much of it has to do with your neurons, too as if somehow the flavor was dulled down before. Now when I have a slice of cake I have to take the frosting off or it is too intensely sweet. You should feel really great about how things are going so far, it's not easy to make such a big change. Oh, and my favorite non-fake soda is dry soda. They make unique flavors like lavendar, blood orange, cucumber and rhubarb. Not sure if they're available in your area, but they're my go to "treat drink" for movie or pizza night :)

Kristen said...

Thanks for the update! You are doing so GREAT!

MamaJewel said...

Wow, I am so impressed by how well you are doing. I have wanted to cut back or cut out sugar for a while but haven't found the internal motivation to do it yet. I think the idea of a month is very doable for me. I would be interested to see how it affects my weight too. Congratulations, you are inspiring!

Unknown said...

I love your blog simply for encouraging others to cut down on sugar. My 8 year old as young as she is I believe is addicted... It's going to be tricky but I am going to eliminate sugar from the family diet.