The First Seven Days

I made it through the first 7 days of my Sugar Fast. It has been difficult (torture), but also an interesting look at me and food-- sugar specifically. There's nothing like not being allowed to have something to make you crave it all the more. I even found myself wanting sweets that I normally don't really care for, like a Twix candy bar or of my husband's chocolate covered, fruit and nut filled granola bars. The hardest part was really reading those labels and finding out how pretty much everything has sugar in it, even bacon! I wasn't actually prepared for the first few days because I hadn't planned out my meals yet. Other than my breakfasts for the week (plain oats with some fruit cut up in it), that is. So lunches and dinners for the first 2-3 days were extra painful! So, my first bit of advice-- PLAN AHEAD!

Planning daily photographic record of my face during the sugar fast. Wondering if I'll see a difference in my face as well as the scale??

Because I have fallen out of the habit of cooking at home, reading labels really hit like a sledge hammer between the eyes that I don't eat nearly as healthy as I like to believe that I did. Sure, I don't care for fried foods, don't like BBQ, don't like most greasy foods, French toast is gross, most every meal out has too much meat in it, sausages are nasty, and certain cheeses make me want to barf. On the other hand, I love a lot of vegetables, fish, baked chicken, black beans, brown rice and plain bran cereal. Yet, most of what I had been eating came loaded with sugar because they came in packages from the packaged food aisles or the freezer instead of fresh from the produce bins. For example, I love loading up my Sapporo Ichiban Ramen with fresh broccoli, spinach, snow peas, and green onions, but at the end of the day, it's still instant ramen with 1870mg of sodium, 63g of carbohydrates, and sugar as the 3rd ingredient in the soup base (first two are salt and MSG). So those things had to go. For the 30-day sugar fast definitely, and hopefully long afterwards as well.

One of the best days was when I made a giant crockpot of homemade spaghetti sauce-- zero added sugar. I was especially upset to find out my favorite jarred spaghetti sauce had sugar listed in the ingredients. My homemade sauce smelled so good and tasted even better! Froze a third of it, plan to bring the other third to share with my MIL and my FIL. The rest is for me and the hubby. The worst day? My day-3 meltdown one evening after dinner. I wanted every sweet thing-- even sweet things that I wouldn't normally choose to splurge on. Salted and buttered popcorn partially helped. Putting myself to bed helped more. Physically, I have to admit that I feel better, even after just 7 days, now that the worst of the headaches and extreme tiredness has passed.

Today is day 8, and I'm feeling a bit tired, and still can't stop thinking about an Arby's cherry turnover for the past 2 days... But I'm proud of myself for the first 7 days. Today is turning out well so far-- however, I still have an Open House on campus and dinner to get through before I can claim success... I'm getting there, though! 22 more days to go!

~Tinooseus!