Day 36: Epic FAIL

I’m sure you’ve missed me – I am very sorry for taking this long to update my blog – I have been one very busy woman!  But, I am also saddened to tell all of you that I fell off the wagon…HARD!  As you read from my last blog I was doing so well with my craving meter being a 0 on Day 10; well I kept this momentum up until Easter Sunday (Day 21) – so much for the theory that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit!!!  Anyway, I made it a point to make a low-fat, low-sugar dessert which was a huge success and very yummy – this dessert is not what derailed my previous success – those delicious Reese’s eggs are what did it!  Just the smell of them puts me into a state of euphoria and I assured myself that just having one would be perfectly ok…WRONG!!  Since tasting that very first egg I have consumed a total of 7 Reese’s eggs, yes 7.  And on top of that I have had ice cream numerous times, a pop tart with peanut butter on top (peanut butter makes everything better), sugary cereal (too much of it), all of the girl scout cookies hidden in my desk, and candied coffee.  There are probably others I should list too, but I was in such a sugary state that I can't even remember what I may have consumed (DISCLAIMER: if you ran into me in the previous weeks I cannot be held accountable for anything I might have said or done due to the amount of sugar coursing through my veins).   

(No this is not me - if it were that piece of cake would be bigger and I would be laughing hysterically!)

I’m only airing out this dirty laundry because I need you guys to hold me accountable, but I also need you to see that I’m not perfect and this sugar thing really has a hold on me.  So now, I must basically start over again and wean myself off of sugar, again.  Moving forward I don’t quite know how I will allow myself to have sugary treats (even for special occasions) without it affecting me like this.  I do think that had there not been any sweets in the house after Easter I would have been fine, so moving forward I will have my husband hide the boys' chocolate and candy in an effort to keep me out of it!  Wish me luck...I'm gonna need it!

Day 10: Craving Meter 0

Day 7: Craving Meter 3 – total sugar consumption for the day: 21 g

Day 8: Craving Meter 2

It’s hard to believe that 8 days have already gone by and that I haven’t cracked and had a cupcake or cookie yet.  I guess my willpower is stronger than I give myself credit for and/or what they say is true, the less sugar you eat the less you crave it.  It’s really nice when I get that mid afternoon hunger pang and my first thought isn’t devouring the entire candy jar in the lobby (if you ever wondered why there is never any chocolate in that thing it’s because of me).  I will say though that my diet has never been stricter – it is a lot harder to stick to a regimen of no more than 21g of sugar each day than reduced calories!  And to be completely honest I find it completely unrealistic to expect people to stick to this low of a number.  So many of our foods are saturated with sugar – it’s no wonder there are rising health concerns involving sugar – it’s in EVERYTHING!!!!

I do want to clarify that it is Women who should consume no more than 21 g of sugar per day.  Men can consume 36 grams (damn you!) and children should only consume 12g a day (which most children get in their breakfast alone).  These numbers are from the American Heart Association; however the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) suggests that adults who consume a 2000 calorie diet can consume 40 grams of added sugar each day.  So which is it, 21 or 40?  To add to my confusion MyPyramid.gov says that you should allow a few calories each day for treats that range between 100 and 300 calories.  If you divide your discretionary calorie budget by the number of calories per gram of sugar you’ll know how many grams of sugar you can have and still stay within your daily limits of additional sugar intake.  For example, if you allow yourself 200 calories per day for treats that would equal 50 grams of sugar.  50! 

It’s no wonder so many American’s are so confused about healthy eating and weight management!  So I went one step further and contacted a dietician who I had worked with in the past and she said that your sugar intake should be calculated in conjunction with the calories you consume each day and burn each day while exercising. 

With that being said, my daily intake is no more than 1500 calories and I usually burn anywhere from 500 – 800 calories per day, so according to her I should consume no more than 25 g of added sugar each day.  She also went on to add that it is ok to create a ‘sugar deficit’ and save my sugar grams for a particular occasion (say ice cream at Hartzler’s on Sunday!) and she added that if you prefer sweets its ok to have them but definitely not everyday – she said to consume additional sweets no more than 3 times a week.  This is great news for me!  I do want to add though that if you aren’t physically active on a regular basis then your daily intake of added artificial sugars should be no more than 21 g.  Additionally, sugars from fruit and dairy are natural and not considered added (unless you’re downing chocolate milk of course!).

Total Sugar consumption for day: 26 g (I did have a hot chocolate after dinner – but this is not a bad thing!)

Day 10: Craving Meter 0

I’m almost afraid to write this down for fear that the minute I acknowledge that I actually went one whole day without craving sweets will cause a shift in my brain and turn me into a Gremlin-like animal who seeks nothing more than sweets after midnight!  But its true – I went the whole entire day and didn’t crave sweets once!  And when I started to get a little hungry in the evening my first thought was not a sugary snack but in fact was a more sensible, healthy piece of fruit with some tea.  Go me!

Total Sugar Consumption for day: 14 g

This personal challenge has helped motivate me to continue with this momentum and make all of you proud!  They say it takes 21 days to make or break a habit – only 11 more to go!

Sugar, the Glue Holds Me Together.

Since my last blog 5 days have passed with many ups and downs, read on to see just how they went.

Day 2: Craving Meter: 3

Well I woke up starved!!!  I normally don’t eat before the gym, but I had to have a banana before I left.  Surprisingly I didn’t have too terrible sugar cravings throughout the day and managed to only consume 18g of sugar for the day.

Day 3: Craving Meter: 6

Today was a little bit harder than days 1 & 2, I’ve felt hungrier throughout the day and have wanted to snack more – so instead of snacking I drank more water and ate some fruit – which does the trick for maybe 45 minutes.  I was still able to stay strong till about 3:15 and remembered I had half a box of Girl Scout cookies tucked neatly in the back of the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet.  Now, I know what you’re thinking but keep in mind I’m a sugar addict and hiding sweets is just something we do … it really is pretty normal.  You’re probably wondering why I didn’t throw these away when I started this challenge (or at least give them away / eat them myself) but I really did forget they were in there.  I however will not be defeated by sugar so easily, so I reached for a piece of Orange Crème Pop sugar free gum that only has 5 calories which did the trick.  And no I did not throw out the girl scouts cookies for two main reasons: 1. Those babies only come around once a year and they are not cheap!  2.  Somebody in this office is going to eventually have a birthday and we may just need cookies to celebrate with!  Total sugar consumption for the day: 16g.

Day 4: Craving Meter: 4

My sugar cravings have been fairly tolerable, however I think my body is going into shock from the lack of sugar because I have been very dizzy and light-headed for a few days now.  Hoping this passes soon.  I’ve also been slightly irritable and edgy.  Total sugar consumption: 22g

Day 5: Craving Meter 4

Again, my cravings on Saturday weren’t too bad, however I have noticed that I can’t go as long in between meals without eating something.  I’m assuming it’s because my blood sugar dips down too low for too long.  Total sugar consumption: 16g

Day 6: Craving Meter 8

Sunday was the hardest day yet!  I woke up with a blurry shiny spot in my right eye which really freaked me out!  It passed after about a half hour, but as my husband put it, “Sugar was the glue that held me together and now that I’m not consuming it I’m falling apart.”  True story!  Later in the day I went shopping for the boys’ Easter baskets and while in the candy aisle at Target I literally started drooling and fantasized about ripping open the Reese’s Easter egg bag and eating every single one.  My heart started racing and I knew I just had to get out of the there – I fantasized about those eggs for the next hour.  I continued to yearn for sweets as the day progressed and was extremely irritable - by 8 pm I couldn’t take it anymore and just had to have something sweet.  So I made the smartest choice possible and had some hot chocolate, which only has 12 g of sugar when made with water (which against my normal routine of making it with chocolate milk I did make it with water).  This put me over my sugar intake by 5 g for the day but it did the trick and kept me well below where I would have been had I had those Reese’s eggs.  Overall this past week has been easier than I would have anticipated – let’s hope the worse of it is over and that I can keep up this momentum.  Total sugar consumption for the day: 26g. 

Oh and I’m also down 2 lbs just from cutting out sugar!

Day 1: Craving Meter 4

I always start my day bright and early with a gym workout starting at 5:30am – however, due to the amount of sugar I ate the day before I didn’t fall asleep till almost 2am!  Don’t judge – I had to get that stuff out of my house somehow and I don’t believe in wasting food!  This put a major kink in my beauty rest and caused me to not go to the gym after all – not a good way to start the day.  I also count my calories and get all of my food ready for the entire day in the morning; I've done this for years and am always aware of the calorie content, but besides that I usually don’t pay attention to any other numbers on the Nutrition Facts.  Now I need to make sure I consume no more than 21g of refined sugars each day (with the ultimate goal of not consuming refined sugars at all).  It’s amazing how hard it will be to continue to eat even the healthy options I’m used to; after looking at the amount of sugar in them they aren’t that healthy after all L. 

Breakfast consisted of whole grain oatmeal with walnuts and strawberries – total of 2 g of sugar.  I normally would have included dried cranberries, but to my surprise they have 28g of sugar in them!!!!  And I usually put brown sugar in my oatmeal as well, but 1 tablespoon has 12 grams of sugar and that is just too many this early in the day!  Had I had a bowl of strawberries with some oatmeal it would have tasted better, but I got through it. 

Mid morning snack: Banana                  

Lunch was a chicken sandwich on low-fat whole wheat bread with lettuce and low fat mayo, trisciuts and a Dr. Pepper 10 – total sugar count 5g.  Not too shabby and the Dr. Pepper has done the trick for now and tamed the sweet craving I usually get right after lunch.

Afternoon snack consisted of two clementines – normally I would have had a granola bar with these but I didn’t want to add too many sugar grams to my earlier count so I drank more water and forced myself not to think about it.  Surprisingly about 20 minutes later my sugar craving had passed.  But about an hour later I was completely ravenous so for dinner I ended up eating chicken breast and a whole entire bag of frozen green beans (3g of sugar total), which only left me satisfied for about 2 hours.  My evening snack would have consisted of a yogurt but my organic greek yogurt has a whopping 22 g of sugar in it!  So I decided to just have a bowl of cereal but my organic granola cereal has 16g of sugar in it!  After reading all the labels on the multitude of cereal boxes in our house (we REALLY like cereal) I was pleasantly surprised to see that Tyler’s box of Honey Bunches of Oats only has 6g of sugar in it!  That coupled with ½ cup of low fat milk and blueberries made my evening snack a total of 12g of sugar – more in one sitting than I wanted but better than what I would have normally reached for.

So my daily total of refined sugar consumed was 22g – which is 1 more than what we should consume in a day however I usually consume over 100 g of sugar everyday so I consider this BIG!  I did go to bed feeling hungry, but not overwhelmed by sugar cravings – this could be due to the fact that I didn’t eat a ton of sugar throughout the day or it could be the initial drive and determination you get when you start something new.  Right now I’m highly motivated, in another week my motivation will probably be tested.  Overall, I’m very pleased with my first day – hoping day 2 is just as good.

And the best part – because I was so cognoscente of my sugar grams I ultimately made better choices and shaved 400 calories off of my normal daily caloric intake! 

Sugary Goodness You're So Bad!

Anyone who knows me knows my love for all things fashion, but the only thing I love more than fashion (or at least equally) is sugar – cupcakes and cakes to be specific, but I don’t discriminate any sugar will do.  My whole life there have always been challenges that I have dealt with head on – instead of avoiding a situation I just embrace it and forge through it.  Drop 60 pounds in 6 months?  No problem.  Quit smoking cold turkey? Done!  Finish Bachelor’s Degree in 2 years – you know it!  But the thought of giving up sugar makes me break into a cold sweat.  You see, I’m not your typical sugar lover I’m a sugar addict.  No really, I read the book and took the quizzes – there are four different types of sugar addicts, most people have one or two types of sugar addictions – I’m all four!  And unlike weight loss support groups and alcoholics anonymous there are no such sugar addict support groups – believe me I looked. 

For those of you that might not understand what sugar addiction is I will briefly explain to you why I’m a sugar addict:

1.       I eat refined sugar every day

2.       I can’t go more than a few hours without eating something with some type of sugar in it

3.       I crave sugar and/or peanut butter at least 4 times a day

4.       If a pastry or candy is around I can’t stop eating it until it is completely gone (even if that means making myself sick)

5.       I will hide sweets around the house so I can eat them later

a.       I’ve even taken candy from my children’s Valentine’s Boxes, Easter baskets, Halloween Candy, and Christmas stockings

6.       I would rather eat dessert at my meals than actual food (and usually do)

7.       Do I really need to go on?

Within the last year I have read more and more reports about the potential negative effects of sugar and why I really should limit my sugar intake to special occasions only, if not give it up completely.  Because I eat healthy, exercise 5-6 days a week, and I don’t drink or smoke I convince myself that having sugar as a vice can’t really be that bad.  But the longer I go without getting a handle on my sugar addiction the worse it becomes and instead of truly enjoying the delectable sweets I actually feel an overwhelming sense of guilt each time I eat them.  Not to mention the fact that those last 5-7 pounds I can never get rid of is a result of this addiction.  So, enough is enough – I’m putting myself on my own Beat Sugar Addiction regimen.  My ultimate goal is to completely do away with sugar, but I also don’t want to set myself up for failure.  According to the National Heart Association I should only consume 21g of sugar each day, so for the next 30 days I will only consume natural sugars found in fruit – as well as no more than the 21g of refined sugars. 

I’m going to keep track of everything I eat and my struggles and accomplishments in this process.  Hopefully, with me tracking this process and with all of you reading it I will be successful in this journey; and juts maybe help others out there who are also suffering from sugar addiction.

So here goes, day 1 starts tomorrow so I need to find all my hidden cookies/candy and eat them now!  J