Happy Birthday to me!

I had a fun and wonderful celebration of my birthday over the weekend.  It started with me getting to pick the Friday night movie.  I picked "Return to Me," which is a heart-wrenching, sweet, funny love story about a man whose first wife died in an accident, falling in love with the woman who had received his wife's heart.  The new girlfriend's grandpa and his old cronie friends bring comic relief to the movie, and another married friend with 5 children brings friendship perspective, healthy married love, and a fair bit of swearing to the movie.  It brought up some great topics for conversation.

Then on Saturday my beloved took me out for dinner while all of our children were otherwise occupied away from the house.  A wonderful date!

And on Sunday our college girl came home for the afternoon to celebrate with me!  My hubby spend the entire afternoon cooking a fabulous birthday dinner, and then we all went to the cheap theater to see the animated movie, "Sing," which we thoroughly enjoyed.

I broke my sugar fast for a small piece of cake and one scoop of ice cream.  Back to it today!

Senior discounts, here I come!!! :)

Sugar Update

I am on day16 of 48 days of no sugar.  I *have* had sugar cravings, but they are not overwhelming, especially if I am intentional about getting lots of protein and making sure that most of my carbs are of the complex, high fiber kind.  I have no afternoon "slumps" and have also, serendipitiously, lost ten pounds!!  Yippee!

I have cut out Snapple, sugary cereals, cookies, ice cream, syrup (on pancakes), and sugar in my tea.

I have added eggs for breakfast virtually every day, loads of snacking on raw veggies (my favorite is sugar snap peas), homemade sugar-free chocolate for my sweet tooth cravings, and lots and lots of water.  (I drank water before, but now it is almost all I ever drink)

So far, so good!  Lord, help me to stay the course!

I Quit Sugar - Days 1 and 2

Two days ago I quit sugar.

I had been feeling moderately convicted to do it for months, but was ignoring the conviction because, well, I knew it would be hard.  And I am tired of doing hard things.  But the conviction got stronger, and the guilt at telling my children to do hard things while I was unwilling to do so, got heavier.  I signed up for this quitting sugar support group, but they weren't starting until October.  So I decided to just take the plunge and do it now on my own.

What that means is that for the next 8 weeks I am cutting out ALL sugar (as much as possible anyway) from my diet.  No pop or Snapple, no Cheerios, no fresh or dried fruit, no cookies or muffins (at least not the way I am used to making them).  No ice cream or orange juice or lemonade! It DOES mean meat, and lots and lots of veggies, bread, cheese, eggs, nuts, and a new way of preparing snacks and desserts.  After 8 weeks I will slowly add back in some low fructose fruits and see how my body tolerates them.

My timing is somewhat ironic, as we are experiencing warmer-than-normal temps and currently have no a/c in the house, so I am already dragging from the heat.  Now I am also dragging from the sugar crash, or withdrawal, or whatever you call it when your body suddenly realizes it's being deprived of the chemical jolt it was used to getting (multiple times) every day.

Day 1 was not too bad, actually.  I made myself an awesome omelette for breakfast, with two eggs and loads of veggies, a bit of cheese and a touch of fresh basil.  So I was all protein-ed up and satisfied for several hours.  My hardest time came before bed, when I wanted a small snack and didn't think I had any good sugar free options.  After a bit of googling, I came up with toast with peanut butter on it.

Day 2, yesterday, was REALLY hard.  My body just wanted sugar sooooo badly!   I made it through the day, but it required every ounce of will power I had, and I was not a very pleasant person that last hour before dinner.

Today I have dinner already prepared, sitting in the fridge waiting to bake tonight.  I will move our toaster oven out to the porch and cook dinner out there so it will not make my kitchen any hotter.  I am trying my hand at my first naturally sweetened, non-bake dessert.  This no-sugar way of eating is requiring adjustments to the way I plan and prepare for meals, but I like that it is really simple.  There is really only one prohibition so it's really easy to remember!

I'll let you know how it goes....