What I have learned…

Sugar fast, Week 5 people.

This is the longest I have every gone without rewarding myself with Ben and Jerry’s, a brownie (or 3), choc chip banana bread or cookies.  Normally I would let myself eat 1-2 treats after a hard workout, a long run or just because it tasted good.

Now I’m looking at many lifestyle changes for my own eating and my kids’.

What have I learned in all of this:

We never ate that much sugar to start with except in a few areas…

Homemade waffles with PB and syrup (kids favorite breakfast)

PB & J sandwiches

Soy Sauce

What do we do now?  Natural PB, 100% maple syrup, no sugar added jam and just haven’t had soy sauce (much – XS had some tonight on my Thai Noodle dish)

I can live without the headaches, alleluia!

In the past I would get a headache after a long sweaty workout and I’d think I needed a Gaterade.  So I’d drink 1/2 or whole one and “feel” better.  Ick.

Now when I have had a little sugar I feel icky.

I am planning on a big piece of pie at Thanksgiving.  Then taking some Advil!

There are a lot of really good, whole foods out there!

Brian and I cooked turkey the other night and then I got positively giddy thinking of leftovers in soup and turkey tetrazinni.

I love cashews, cantaloupe and bananas.  I eat apples, quinoa, cheesy eggs with homemade hash browns and avocados.  I am learning to put olive oil, apple cider vinegar and salt on my salads.  And I like it.

The running group of moms that are all doing this challenge share recipes and wow, is it fun to find banana bread without sugar added that tastes awesome, meal ideas and where to buy certain things in town.  So so great.

I eat salt.  Lots of salt.

Just tonight Calista smelled the armpit of my shirt.  “I love you even if you smell.”  I am a sweaty girl.  I borrowed a friend’s weight today during class and when I brought it back, I bent over to set it back in his pile and my head dripped all over.

So I love chips, salted cashews, salt on my eggs and turkey and even my salads.

I compensate.

Because I am not eating all those yummy treats in the middle of my day, or for breakfast, I feel like I deserve an extra slice of my sugar free bread, handful of cashews or extra bowl of potato chips. This may be why I haven’t really seen any change on the scale this month.

I still get sick.

I have fought off a sinus infection, bronchitis type of sickness and sore throats for the last 4-5 weeks.  If you tell me sugar makes me sick, I’ll tell you to stick it.

I still have some things that I will always eat that have refined sugars in it.

Ketchup: the other stuff just doesn’t do it.  I don’t like Hunts and I know, Heinz has HFCS in it.  Oh well.

Soy sauce: it’s sugar.  As well as every single Chinese food sauce/flavoring that I have in the fridge.  I won’t throw that away.  XS likes his Chinese food and I’m going to keep making it.

Ice Cream:  Yep.  I’ll always eat it.

The daily allowance is actually a lot…

Considering I have had less than 1t of refined sugar most weeks for a month.  The daily allowance is 6 teaspoons.  One teaspoon has 7.8 grams in it.  So read your labels, watch your portions and it is easy enough to stay under this.

It is now a life change.

Brian says he doesn’t have sugar crashes anymore and since he is eating better food, he doesn’t need to snack later.  Sugar gives that false sense of being full and then you just head back to the kitchen an hour or 2 later.

We will still eat honey, maple syrup and soy sauce.  We will dip our homemade fries in ketchup and probably eat ice cream and enjoy every minute of it.  But in general, we are filling our bellies with food made in this kitchen or flavored the way God intended it.

Calista reveals the fact that it was actually really, really cold in Lake Superior!  One benefit to not snacking on treats: we go outside more and enjoy this autumn weather.