Day 54 of 100

DETOUR!!!

I have eaten alot of sugar the last two days. I am having major cravings all of a sudden. I think it is a quadruple wammy. Stress, I'm tired, Holiday food EVERYWHERE!, and hormones fluxing. I certainly didn't eat the 1200 calories of sugar I started out eating before my 100 days without sugar, but enough to start having aches and blurry vision and general bloated feeling again.

I have determined that I do love sweet things. God designed me with that wonderful taste bud and I still feel the need for it. But where was the detour? I was doing just fine without sugar. I let myself run completely out of the foods that I now use to satisfy my sweet tooth: bananas, grapes, pecans, pretzels, crunchy foods. So I'll be taking a trip to the market tomorrow.

I did have a delicious experience this week. Several of my grandkids were over this last weekend and the temperature was supposed to dip below freezing that night, so we headed into the garden to harvest the last of whatever we could find. It is always sad to say goodbye to the garden for the winter, but what a great harvest! I had saved a whole patch of late carrots and it was time to start pulling. It took three of us working a good 15 minutes to get them all pulled, but they were so beautiful. We brought them in with the last of the peas and the lettuce and piled the carrots up across the bar in the kitchen. When we tasted them , we were so surprised. I have never tasted a carrot so wonderfully sweet. Our early summer carrots were not sweet like these. I guess the cold ground made the difference.

Blessing! Harvest! Grandkids! What a great day! .......... I am so very thankful.

Day 46 of 100

I am so thankful to be healthy and to have choices. Choice is a wonderful thing. Have you ever thought about how many choices you get to make in a day's time for yourself? Never take that for granted. It is a rare commodity for so many in this world.

I chose on Thanksgiving Day to eat sugar. A wonderful piece of apple pie. And the next day some homemade caramel corn. And I had a headache both times shortly after eating. And ached the rest of the day. I had forgotten about the aching. I used to ache every day when I was eating so much sugar. I rarely ache anymore since starting my 100 days without sugar.

Inspite of a week of good rich foods I am down another pound. That makes 9 in all. And I notice alot of it is the viceral fat around my waist that I so dispised and that motivated me to start this journey to begin with. I wonder how much more of it will disappear if I continue on my full 100 days?

Viceral fat is the wicked fat that is so bad for your heart and other organs. When we saw the BODY exhibit in Florida I was amazed at how our organs all fit tightly together like a wonderfully designed puzzle at the core of our bodies. And viceral fat snuggles all around them and does its damage. A good graphic reminder in my mind that I CHOOSE LIFE! Tomorrow is day 47 and the next, day 48..... Carry on.....

Day 43 of 100

There are sooo many ways to get fat. Although I have lost 8 pounds and I am not eating sugar, I have already had 5 Thanksgiving dinners with freinds and groups I am involved with in the last two weeks and the actual holiday is still two days away. There is an abundance of mayonaise based foods at these gatherings! I really don't want to gain any weight back, but it its truly wonderful to sit and have a meal with people you enjoy and care about and be thankful together. I find people to be especially grateful this year after such a rough year for so many of us.

Peoples' reactions to going 100 days without sugar have been interesting to observe. I have gotten alot of "Oh, I just admire that so much! I couldn't do that." And yet, it is just one small discipline. I don't have to be diligent in alot of areas. Just this one. And I would imagine most everyone has one or two things that they are vigilent about. It is really no different from a person who goes for a walk everyday, rain or shine, no matter what. Or is at the gym 3 times weekly whether they feel like ir or not. It is really just the same thing. One small area of faithfulness that has a big impact.

I find it to be human nature that when we sacrifice in one area, we find reward in others. We seek the counterbalance. And life is good.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Day 35 of 100

We are creatures of habit. Bill and I went to the movies the other night and I realized I usually take a bag of chocolate covered nuts to the movies with me. So I decided to go check out the sugar free chocolate section at the drug store. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Hershey's now has sugar free chocolate bars and also Reese's cups now come sugar free. I got some of both and when I got home I read the back of the bag. It said that the sweetener used can have a laxative effect.

Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So I took a few of each with me to the movies and enjoyed them all. The peanut cups tasted wonderful. The chocolate bars were like cheap easter chocolate. Not especially rich or creamy. And then I was awake most of the night with my intestines grumbling. Not sure it was worth it, but glad I tried them.

Bill has been experimenting at our house with homemade cinnamon roll recipes for an event we have coming up over the holidays. So I broke down and had one. I passed on the icing and even just the plain roll was sooooo sweet to me. First sugar I have had in a month. It tasted great, but I can tell that my taste buds are really changing. I don't think sweet is my favorite food anymore.

I have lost another pound. That is 8 in all. My jeans are very comfortable these days. I would like to lose some more, but it feels really good to lose slowly as I am making permanent changes in the way I eat. It all just seems very manageable.

Day 27 of 100

I've amazingly lost one more pound. I say amazing because I have spent the entire last week indulging in lots of salty snacks. And I really enjoyed it. But my tongue was shriveled up this morning because I ate so much salt yesterday. I did check my blood pressure the other day to see if I was doing harm. It was actually the lowest it has been in a year. So I am attributing that to the fact that I have lost 7 pounds.

I survived a sugary holiday (Halloween) without eating any sugar. It really wasn't so bad. What has been worse is the change in weather. I want to bake wonderful sweet things. Not only am I craving them, but it is my tradition to do so at this time of year. I tried making muffins with just fruit in them to sweeten them. While they weren't terrible, they grew green fuzz on the third day before I could eat them all. I will have to freeze them if I try that again.

Then I ordered a used cookbook off Amazon called "The Best Low Fat, No Sugar, Bread Machine Cookbook EVER!" Then I borrowed my mother-in-laws bread machine. I stayed up till midnight making the first recipe. And when I got up the next morning, I could not wait to eat the bread. I took one bite and threw the loaf away. It was awful.

I am not giving up. I made sugar free brownies with stevia. The chocolate flavor was divine, because I have gone so long without it. But they were bitter, not hardly sweet at all. My granddaughter gave them a thumbs down, picked all the nuts out of them and handed me the plate back.

I stood for 30 minutes in the baking isle at the grocery store reading labels. Surely someone has perfected a sugar free confection. But I came home empty handed because they all had aspartame.

Ahhhh, well.......... did I mention that I lost another pound?

Day 23 of 100

I am enjoying the most amazing sleep! For the last few years I have just not slept well. I have attributed this to many things: a shift in harmones, stress and too much caffiene. In fact, I had limited myself to one glass of tea in the morning to see if I could alleviate the problem that way. I can't say I ever found a good solution.

Imagine my surprise about three days into my one hundred days without sugar when I began to sleep through the night. Deep and sound. And if I did wake up with a full bladder, I was able to get right back to sleep. I can't remember the last time I was able to do that. Usually when I wake up in the night I am up for hours.

I can't tell you how exciting this is. Maybe the wrinkles around my eyes will start to disappear now that I am getting good sleep...... :0) Well, one can hope, anyway.

But even more amazing to me is that I am dreaming again. I never dream. Or if I do, I don't ever remember them. Haven't for years. But now I dream almost every night. In fact, two nights ago I dreamt there was a big spider in between Bill and I on our bed and so I sat up really fast and tossed the covers in the air to send it flying. But of course, that woke both me and Bill up and I felt like an idiot. We had a good laugh the next morning.

I have a freind who called me that same morning and told me she had dreamt that I was giving her a tour of the most wonderful rustic lodge (I owned it) that she had ever seen. It sounded wonderful. I wish I could go visit her dream. I told her that probably means I will be selling her a new house soon ... :0) One can only hope!

Day 16 of 100

Several things have got me thinking about what happens after one hundred days without sugar. I found myself across the lunch table from a woman who is a diabetic and when I mentioned I was off sugar for a while she shared that she has been living without sugar for several years and then proceeded to tell me all her tricks for being able to have desserts and not eat sugar. Mostly, she was depending on artficial sweeteners and I really don't want to do that.


I caught myself wondering this morning what I want to eat on DAY 101. My first thought was of a hershey's chocolate bar (my favorite). But honestly, I am asking myself if I really want to go back to that style of eating. Why am doing this, any way? Just so I can go right back to the habits I had before? I am sure I will not live the rest of my life without desserts, but I am going to start looking for healthier alternatives. I was reading my latest copy of Cooking Light and saw an ad for Sun Crystals. Don't know what that is, but I am going to check it out.

So, by nature I really like building things. And it is the time of year when I want to bake. So I am going to start experimenting with healthy recipes and see what the possibilities are without sugar. And besides that, I get bored if I don't have alot of varietiy, so I need to start branching out in the area of snack foods, because without my sugary snacks I am getting bored eating all the same old things every day. Mmmm... sounds like an expensive trip to the grocery store coming up!

Day 14 of 100

Two weeks. 14 Days. 336 hours. Of discipline. Discipline is the force in life that enables you to accomplish far beyond what you imagined you could. Discipline is what enables me to go 100 days without sugar. But discipline in one area begins to bleed into other areas of your life, too. I am finding it easier to "hold off" in my finances. Not as many impulse buys. I am finding it easier to accomplish tasks at the office that I normally procrastinate over. No more putting off until tomorrow what I can do today.

And it pays. 6 lbs lost so far, and one inch off my waist, hips and bust. Don't get me wrong. I still stand in front of the mirror when I get out of the shower and ask myself, "Where is it I lost 6 lbs?" Because I can't noticably see it yet. But what will a 12 lbs loss look like in just a few weeks?

It is worth the wait. And the determination. And discipline only gets stronger with use.

Be strong!

Day 13 of 100

I've had a few days away at a retreat. And it would seem that one of the most valuable things that I came home with is a clarity in my motivation. Motivation is a powerful thing. In the Webster's dictionary it is defined as "incentive, driving force, impetus". In short, Why am I really going 100 days without sugar?

When I arrived at the retreat they handed me a sylubus, a key to my room and bag full of chocolates. Mmmmm....... hadn't counted on that. As I walked to my cabin I was doing battle in my mind about this chocolate that was now in my possession. Chocolate, the thing which I had been avoiding like the plague since I started my 100 days without sugar. And here I stood with a whole bag of it in my hand. By the time I walked up the sidewalk to my cabin, I was telling myself, "Maybe I can just eat this privately in my room. No one else will ever know!"

I put my things away and sat on the bed. "I have a choice to make. No one else will ever know??? Who else am I worrying about? Who am I doing this for anyway? ME!! and only me. So do I want to break my fast from sugar? NO! I already made the choice to go one hundred days without sugar." And suddenly the chocolate no longer had any power over me. I actually brought it home and put it in a bowl to give out at Halloween. I didn't even need to get it out of my sight.

My choice is really not to go 100 days without sugar, but to be a healthier me. Free from crutches and addictions. Today, I choose life! Abundant, beautiful life!

Day 8 of 100

Stress makes me eat! And my food of choice is sweet things. I had some stressful moments today when I just really wanted to eat something I shouldn't. And I didn't. However, I want to make sure that even though I am not eating sugar, I don't overdo it on other junkie snacks.

This is hard..... but worth it. I am getting comfortable again with my negative emotions and working through them instead of just covering them up or placating them. This is a really good discipline. It is going to help me grow in alot of areas of my life. Like when I have something unpleasant to do at work, don't procrastinate because of how bad it could be.

Just do it! And do it now! Things are never as bad as you imagine them.

Day 8 of 100

It is really kind of amazing how many body systems are effected by sugar in my diet. Or now, by the lack of it in my diet. Menstral cramps have all but disappeared. My eyes are focusing clearly and the blurriness I was experiencing is gone. I thought maybe my prescription for my glasses was wrong, but since changing my diet my eyes are focusing much better. I have not had a headache once this week. I was having them every day previous to getting off sugar. I have also struggled for a long time with my eyes watering excessively. They have not watered at all this week.

I also noticed today that my conversations with my husband are livelier and quicker and more interesting. I think this is for several reasons. My mind is more alert, I am remembering things more easily and I am really excited about the changes I am making. We have laughed alot more this week than we normally do and I feel really happy tonight.

We went to a favorite restaurant of ours tonight and I had to totally re-evaluate the menu. My top three picks for an entree were prepared with sugar. But it was not hard to find something else I could enjoy. So I am trying new things. Trying new things keeps you young!

I am REALLY motivated to stick with this. Already, what I am gaining already far outweighs what I have given up. And I still have 92 more days of discovery left!

Day 7 of 100

Well, it has been a week since I started this experiment. I have lost 5 pounds. As you can imagine, I am thrilled about that. But honestly, that was not my first and foremost reason for going 100 days without sugar. I want to be comfortable in my own skin again. I want to be healthy and enjoying my physical experience again. I am tired of battling the way I feel every day. Achiness, tiredness, negative thoughts, worry, feeling self conscious. I want to free up my mental and physical energy to invest in the business of living again. I want to invest in the good things, the things that build momentum, instead of being pre-occupied with the unproductive things in life.

I guess what I am saying is that I don't buy into the "over the hill" concept, that the first half of life is upward climbing and then at the half way point you begin a steady decline. I want to live a life that just gets richer and truer with each year that I live.

The most pleasant surprise this week has been that I have an enormous amount of energy since giving up sugar in my diet. I am used to having a really tired, sleepy spell in the middle of the afternoon and am ready to go to bed long before my day is over. But now I have consistent energy all day long. In fact, the last several days at work I have been surprised how quickly the afternoons have flown by because I have been able to stay on task much better. My mind stays sharp all day and into the evening. There is a proverbs that says, "As your day is, so shall your strength be." I say, "Bring it on!"

Day 6 of 100

Now, this is getting personal! Last night I was watching a one hour T.V. program. Without any concsious thought I went to the refrigerator three times in an hours time to look for a snack. It wasn't until I opened the fridge for the third time that I realized what I was doing. The first two times I was craving something sweet, which has been my nightly habit for years. But I didn't find anything that sounded satisfying so I went to my chair in front of the TV empty handed. The third trip to the kitchen was when I became consciously aware of what was happening and decided to sit for a while and think this through.

Why did I go to the kitchen? What was I looking for? COMFORT! I was feeling sad and a little down about a few things and it was an "ah ha" moment for me to realize that my normal mode of operation when I feel that way is to turn to chocolate or sweet foods. Chocolate creates a chemical change in your brain and I have been using it for a quick fix for a long time.

I decided it is OK to feel sad or depressed for a while and just take the time to work through the issues. I decided to go to bed without eating anything. I said my prayers, layed my burdens down in front of God and got the best night's sleep I have had in a week.

Day 5 of 100

Beware!!! SUGAR IS EVERYWHERE!

I have a chest cold this week and I quickly took a dose of cough syrup this morning as I was headed out the door to church. I didn't want to cough through the service. The cough syrup worked, but by the time I got home I was feeling that awful bloated sensation through my midsection. I looked at the ingredients on the medicine bottle, and sure enough, High Fructose Corn Syrup.

I also found sugar in the waffle mix I use. And in the Corn Bread mix. I guess I will have to go back to making things from scratch. I did hear someone talking on the radio this week about an apple tart that is made without any sugar or artificial sweeteners. I'm not interested in artificial sweeteners as a substitute. But seeing as my 100 days will stretch through the holiday months, I will probably try the tart recipe.

I was getting my hair cut the other morning and my stylist told me about a mutual aquaintance of ours that had been in to get her hair cut just an hour before. She has lost 60 lbs in the last year and has decided to sell her real estate business and move to Colorado and work for Whole Foods. She is totally changing her life. And loving it. Sometimes it requires an all out investment to bring about the things that really matter to you.

Day 4 of 100

Well this little experiment of 100 Days without sugar just gets more and more interesting every day. I lost another 2 pounds.

And MMMMM!!!! MMMM!!! Food tastes soooo good. I am enjoying everything I eat with a heightened sense of flavor. While I was eating sugar, fruit never seemed especially sweet. In fact, I would put sugar on many of the fruits that I ate. But now that my taste buds have had a rest from the sugar, they are actually changing. Flavors are much more intense. And not just sweet flavors. I ate the most wonderful grapes yesterday when I was craving chocolate so bad and I was amazed at how sweet they tasted. And unlike chocolate, I didn’t need to eat a whole lot of them to be satisfied.

I never noticed how sweet a pecan is. Or a cashew. Even mint is especially appealing to me and I never really cared for the flavor of mint before.

Another thing I observed: Sugary food gave me an instant gratification, but I had to eat a lot of them to feel satisfied. But vegetables and protein satiate. Satiate in Webster’s Dictionary is complete satisfaction that destroys interest or desire.

Day 3 of 100

Today was a day of intense cravings. Not just my body with physical cravings for sweets, but quite a mental game. I would catch myself thinking about chocolate and would consciously put the thought out of my mind and think on something else. And within 5 or 10 minutes I would again catch myself thinking about some other sugary food. This went on for most of the morning. It was very distracting.

We went out for pizza last night and all I could think about on the way to the restaurant was about how great a root beer would taste with dinner. I don’t even drink pop. My caffeine of choice is unsweetened tea. But as I am removing my favorite sugary indulgences from my diet, I am finding myself craving odd new things.

My husband opened a coke while I was sitting close by and I could smell it. I immediately started lusting after of swig of it. And when I stopped this morning at the local convenience store to get my morning glass of iced tea, I happened to walk by the donut counter on my way to the check out and the smell of donuts hit my nose and immediately caught my full attention. I wasn’t even thinking about donuts before that.

What a powerful draw sugar has.

What’s different after just a few days of no sugar in my diet?
That awful bloated feeling is gone. My pants are still tight because I need to loose some weight, but I don’t feel that distended feeling I normally feel.
My mind is clearer. It will be interesting to see if my memory improves. I find myself grasping for words in the middle of sentences a lot.
I’m considering more food groups already in my daily choices. Example: “ Can’t have the cookie, maybe a carrot or a handful of nuts will satisfy me.” I ate twice as many fruits and vegetables today as I normally do. And not on purpose. I just needed something to eat since I couldn’t have a candybar.

Day 2 of 100

The blues hit me like a ton of bricks this afternoon. I had no idea how many times during the day I reach for a piece of chocolate. When I’m stressed, when I’m bored, when I don’t like the way things are going, when I have a bad hair day. All day long: Midmorning, after lunch, before dinner when I am waiting for the supper to be ready so I can put it on the table. And always at night before bed.

I am depressed this afternoon. I had not counted on feeling this way. But I am determined to just observe this process and not interfere with it. I went for a walk in the sunshine and ate a handful of pecans. It helped. I also worked on an art project that I need to finish for a ladies retreat that I am attending. It helped to be busy.

I know if I ate a little chocolate I would almost instantly feel a lift in my mood. It is amazing how fast it works. I wonder how many calories I typically consume in a day through my chocolate habit. Let’s see:

Chocolate Donut for breakfast 280 Calories
6 candy Kisses mid morning 156 Calories
A candy bar mid afternoon 230 Calories
4 Oreos waiting for dinner to be ready 212 Calories
5 more Oreos while I am watching TV 265 Calories

Grand Total of empty calories on a typical day = 1143 Calories

Did I mention that I was down a pound on the scales this morning? I will take the good with the bad. In high school I had to take up the waist on all my pants when I bought them because my waist was so small. If I keep this up I wonder if I will need to do that again? One can hope!

Day 1 of 100

I weigh 190 lbs starting out. 5’4” Size 16

My mind turns to sugar all day long. I think about chocolate. I am used to eating it throughout the day. Three of four times a week I have a donut for breakfast on the way to the office. What am I going to eat for breakfast? This morning I had a handful of grapes and a handful of cashews and I was satisfied until lunchtime.

By late afternoon I am feeling a little depressed. I don’t feel like doing much. I am having a hard time staying motivated. I would really love a chocolate bar. Evenings will probably be my most challenging time, because I am used to having dessert of some kind before I go to bed.

My stomach has not felt as bloated as I normally feel today, but my pants are still tight round the waist. I am uncomfortable in my clothes.

100 Days Without Sugar

I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles today to have my driver’s license renewed. When they handed me the new license I was struck by how much greyer my hair was in the picture. But even more, it struck me that I had gained 30 lbs in 4 years. That was a sobering thought. Just one more reminder that I need to make some changes.

I have a lot of physical ailments pushing me in the direction of needing a change: lack of good sleep at night, frequent headaches, low energy level, body aches, fuzzy brain, stiff joints, weight gain. But not weight gain like I have ever experienced before. This weight gain is through my mid-section and is quite dimpled and blubbery and positions itself in rolls above and below my waistband. I have recently moved up a size from a 14 to a 16 and am already feeling my pants squeeze tight again across my mid-drift. I seem to be gaining with forward momentum that is getting harder and harder to rein in.

Older people always tell you how much harder it is to maintain your weight as you age. But today, the reality that settled in for me was: I am no longer living in the same body that I was 4 years ago. I am making the shift into a new body chemistry that processes the food I eat in a totally different manner than when I was younger.

I know I don’t have to passively settle for being overweight. I know people much older than I am that are the fittest they have ever been in their life. I just know that I have to get passionate about learning how to make my body work efficiently within a new set of rules. I am at a crossroads and I have a decision to make.

But where to start? Eliminate caffeine, cut out red meat, daily aerobics, drink more water, give up junk food? I know if I tackle all of this at once I will probably fail. So I have decided to strike out on an experiment and learn about myself along the way. I am going to record my progress each day. I am going to tackle one area to begin with and see how much of a difference it can make. And so I have decided to go 100 Days Without Sugar.