The 'Towards a Sugar-Free Future' Challenge

cookie02

This week, I managed to get through Monday and Tues sugar-free and I was fairly restrained Weds-Thursday but I've just had a few chocolates now and also had a Flake yesterday. I started a food diary a while back and I'm annoyed with myself as this week was looking pretty good until yesterday!  

Well done on not going for the last profiteroles, Honey_Bear   I find it's always more difficult to be restrained when I'm eating out. My willpower just disappears! 

Honey_Bear

Well done Cookie!  You got through Monday and Tuesday and that's all that we're aiming for at this stage of the game.  I don't know about you but I've found since I started this that the longer it goes on, the less inclined I am to eat sugar on other days and the more inclined I am to feel cross with myself if I indulge by eating more than the smallest amount, such as one Madelaine.  That's come as a complete surprise because I really did eat a lot of sugar every day before I started this.  Don't be cross with yourself if you ate more sugar than you think you should have later in the week - if we spend our lives not allowing ourselves any instant gratification at all we're highly likely to become like the majority of puritanical killjoys who don't think anyone should ever do any of the things we all know are bad for us but are so enjoyable at the time.  Let yourself off the hook a bit and you'll be fine.

As to eating out - absolutely!  That's why I've said from the beginning I'm not going to be a sugar nazi and would be celebrating High Days and Holidays.  Our lovely neighbour wanted to enjoy her birthday with us and how ungrateful it would have been if I'd been all prissy about the food she wanted to eat to celebrate it.  And because ... profiteroles.  Mmmmmm. 

Jazee

The thing about this challenge is that it's just made me more aware.  This hasn't been a great week and I had two packs of crisps yesterday as an afternoon snack, but I did stick to my sugar free days.  This week, my official two days will be Tuesday and Thursday.
Oh, and another lb gone, that's 6lbs now.

Honey_Bear

Yes, Jazee, the awareness thing has had a massive impact on me too, far far more than I would have thought possible and I'm totally delighted by that.  I'm sorry it's been a tough week; let's hope this one's a bit easier.

I hope you're not beating yourself up about those crisps - the whole point of this challenge is to be okay with the fact that we're all very human and give into temptation more often than we'd like to ideally and learn how to manage that rather than try, yet again, as we all have, to go on some really restrictive or horribly complicated and expensive diet that we all know isn't a long term solution or really that successful anyway.

Congratulations on your totally fabulous 6lb loss, and I'm chuffed as nuts to be able to report that I'm back to the Oh so familiar 68.3 kgs, so the anniversary weekend of over-indulgence is now well and truly behind me.  I'm going for Monday and Wednesday.

Honey_Bear

Went to a bit of a do last night where, totally unexpectedly, there was a buffet - sandwiches, sausage rolls, crisps etc.  I'd had something to eat at tea time so I really shouldn't have been hungry and actually I wasn't, but I still went down to the buffet table and loaded up a couple of paper plates with food, put it in the middle of our table for people to help themselves and promptly did so myself.  *sigh*  I resisted the homemade brownies, but still.  And all the while knowing that I had a big fish pie in the fridge that a bunch of us were coming back to eat together, followed by the rest of a tub of particularly luscious ice cream that I wanted to get out of the freezer because of the temptation.  I have to add I didn't buy that ice cream, it was a gift, othewise it wouldn't have been there. 

I think there was an element of boredom.  Much as I wanted to be there we were waiting to do something, and we had quite a long wait before it was our turn.  Conversation was fun but I don't drink and the rest of them do so they were all getting a bit loosened up, no bad thing in the circumstances, but I wasn't hence the boredom.  I'm not sure how to prevent the Temptation + Boredom indulgence in the future when I'm at a social event.  Still, overall, the evening was a lot of fun and I wouldn't have wanted to miss it. Weighed myself this morning and I'm back up to 68.8kgs.  Hardly surprising really.

Sugar-free day today, so that should help a bit.

leftatthetrafficlights

I haven't done too well since my last post but I'm back on it from tomorrow 😉 

@Honey_Bear - I think it's always harder when you're out 😔 I'm avoiding bread at home as I have a slight wheat intolerance which leaves me feeling bloated and uncomfortable but went out for lunch yesterday and the only thing on the menu I could have was a burger 🙈 (I'm vegan so choice is always limited) - I could have asked for it without the bun but would have felt that I was making things awkward when they were clearly incredibly busy! When it arrived I just ate it anyway! 🙈 Suffice to say I'm suffering for it now....😂

Honey_Bear

It's comforting to know other people are tempted by food they can normally avoid when they're out, Lefty.  Belovéd and I realised some time ago that burgers are fine when we want to eat a homemade one but the buns are just padding that don't do anything for us so we skip them.  However, when I'm out and order a burger I almost always scoff the bready white pap thing that arrives surrounding it, even though I know it has zero nutritional value, zero taste and is just filling.  I'm relieved to know other people do the same. 

Being vegan is tough.  I'm not one, but occasionally cook for groups of friends and my biggest dread is that one of them will go vegan because I know how much I rely on animal fat generally when preparing food in particular.  It's the habit of a lifetime.  I'm amazed at how imaginitive and creative vegans are.  We have lodgers on short stays here who cook for themselves so we often have interesting dietry choices being made in our kitchen and I learn a huge amount from them.  I'd noticed a tub of unfamiliar ice cream in the freezer a few weeks ago and last night found out it belonged to a lodger who left a week ago, so we tried it.  One of our dinner guests said it's a vegan ice cream so we all tried it alongside another leftover tub of a local dairy farm's much loved full fat version and found to our total surprise that we all liked both of them, and the vegan one totally stood up when compared with the full fat one. 

Good to know you're back on track and carrying on with this challenge.  Hang on in there!

Honey_Bear

Something I forgot to mention about last night.  I don't do alcohol any more, so when I go out I stick to alcohol-free beers as my first choice.  If they're not available, as last night, I end up drinking sugary soft drinks because I'd never thought before of just asking for water with ice and a slice in a pub.  I drank two cans of pop last night, basicallly, without really thinking about it.  Lesson learned.

cookie02

I managed another sugar-free day yesterday and I'm hoping that today will be the same. So far, so good.  I'm trying to resist the afternoon slump and thought I'd post now so that forces me not to break and ruin what should be my 2nd sugar-free day of the week... 

Honey_Bear, well done for resisting the brownies!

Honey_Bear

Well done Cookie for yesterday, and good luck with the mid-afternoon slump for today. 

I'm in exactly the same place as you - I resisted yesterday despite really strong cravings in the afternoon, but I comforted myself with the thought I'd be able to eat sugar today which I haven't so far and I'd love to get through two days in a row without eating any.  I've just cracked open all the nuts left over from Christmas, except a few almonds because I just can't get into them.  I'm soaking .  I know, I know, but they looked okay on the dining table and it was just one of those jobs I hadn't got round to doing.  I ate a few while I was doing that job and I now feel so full I couldn't enjoy much of anything anyway.  So, for me, the lesson from today is that I need to eat something like a small handful of nuts by 3.00 pm or so to stave off the cravings.

I'm also drinking a small glass of water every time I pee which seems to fill me up and I find that helpful with stopping me thinking I need something to eat.  I just don't think about drinking anything at all most of the time and I rather suspect I've been a bit dehydrated for quite a while.

Yesterday I got the blood pressure monitor out of the cupboard where I put it last year after I did one session of learning how to take my BP and was horrified by the result.  What I didn't do was anything sensible about dealing with the problem.  After putting it off all day towards the evening I set about learning how to use it all over again, which was far more straightforward than I thought, and measured it again.  I was even more horrified to discover it's higher than last year's reading so I've spent time today trying to find out how to lower it quickly.  It's the same as lowering cholesterol which is helpful, and apparently even losing 5lbs can help quite a bit so I'm even more motivated to stay on track with this challenge.