Sugar-free, that's me!

It's no secret to anyone that knows me that I LOVE things that are sweet. Cookies, cake, ice cream, chocolate, hard candy, pie, brownies... I love it all! I love it a little too much. My consumption of these delicious, sugary goodies has been causing me a lot of problems in my efforts to re-lose the 12 lbs that I gained while unable to work out. So I decided to do something about it. I decided to commit to going a full week without any sugar from these types of sources.

I've tried to do this before, and I failed. I couldn't commit. My heart wasn't in it. But last week, I just decided enough was enough. There was sugar all around me for Valentine's Day and I lost control. I didn't like it.

In a moment of frustration, I emailed my dear friend Rachel from Minnesota who is my fitness accountability buddy (and also has a very good blog at becausethefloundersaysso.blogspot.com) and told her that I'd had enough and I was going to fast from sugary, desserty-type food for a week.

To be clear, I didn't commit to going completely sugar-free for a week. I still ate fruit. There was sugar in my yogurt that I wasn't too concerned about. There was probably sugar in my tomato sauce, bread, ketchup, beans, whatever else I might have eaten that I didn't prepare 100% from scratch. And I still put honey on my peanut butter and banana breakfast sandwiches. But I laid off the things that I would consider to fall into the dessert category.

I thought it was going to be very, very difficult. I wasn't sure if I could do it or not. But I guess my mind and body had finally had enough and I actually made it an entire week without these delicious items. Do you what else is amazing? It honestly wasn't that difficult. Yes, there were times when I craved something sweet, but I felt so good without having all that extra crap in my body that I think it more than compensated for not having that sweet taste in my mouth.

I also realized that sweets are a much bigger trigger food for me than I ever thought. I think what would happen is I would lose control around sweets, feel like I went way off track, and then just throw my whole eating plan for the day out the window. Without losing control of the sweets situation, I was able to stay much more focused on making good eating decisions with all the other food groups available to me. A bag of Dorito's lasted AN ENTIRE WEEK in my house. AMAZING!

I successfully completed the fast. I'm allowed to eat dessert today. I'm just just not sure if I want to!