A Day With No Sugar

Welp, I did it. I went an entire day with no dessert! But I want you to know that I thought about eating sweets every.single.minute.of.the.day. Pathetic, I know. But that is the truth of my life.

Things I ate that were "sweet":

Two tic tacs

Unsweetened applesauce (no sugar added)

A pear

What? I had two fruits yesterday? Unheard of!

FUN FACTS OF RESISTANCE:

I went to visit a coworker who has taffy on her desk. And even though I don't really like taffy I almost reached in to the coffer and pulled out a piece, without even thinking! But alas, I did not partake.

I have a jar of chocolate covered juju hearts on my desk, but those didn't really tempt me. Good to know.

When I got my lunch from the Pencourt (student-run "restaurant" on campus) yesterday, they served a chicken thing and with it came what they titled "spiced peach half." While in line I pondered the spicy peach and wasn't sure if it fit the dessert/sugar category or not. So, I texted a friend who is both familiar with the spicy peach and with my desire to avoid sweets yesterday. Our conversation went like this:

Me (12:00): What do u think abt the spiced peach at the pencourt?

Her (12:01): I would count that as a dessert

Me (12:01): K.

Me (12:02): That bums me out.

Her (12:04): If it didn't have the sugar cinn sugar goodness. But it is always up to you

Me (12:04): I was a good girl. tx 2 u.

Observations from the above discussion:

1. It took me 4 minutes to walk away from a peach.

2. I can't believe I got so bummed out about not having the peach.

3. Good friends are hard to find.

Truly the spiced peach has some sort of sugary stuff going on. I'm not sure if the sugar comes out of the peach with the broiling process or what. But, I only needed to be good for one day. And I was.

I even resisted the Horchata in my fridge, cuz that is NOT a beverage, it's a dessert in a milk carton!

Lessons learned:

1. I like fruit. So eat a dang piece of fruit instead of a refined sugar offering from the devil.

2. I am strong enough to go 24 hours without, which means I can pretty much resist sugar whenever I want, right?

3. I have great friends. Thanks to all who showed support yesterday via txting and blog commenting.

4. I will not have dessert with lunch today. I will get fruit! I may opt to have a dessert tonight on date night, should I so choose. But since we are eating at a Mexican place, I doubt dessert will be on my radar. Wait, what? Another 24 hours without sugar? Possibly.

Recovery

How often do you have dessert? Do you limit yourself and pay close attention to when you eat dessert or do you just have it when it is available and don't have it when it's not? Do you actively decide NOT to have dessert or do you actively decide that, yes, every night there will be some sort of dessert?

Do you eat dessert with lunch? Do you eat sugary cereals; thereby having dessert at breakfast time as well?

The other day I asked Harold to get real with me about my eating habits. I am always real with him. When he asks, "Do I eat a lot?" I always say yes...and then I also tell him that in addition to eating too much at dinner, he doesn't eat at all during the day and the combination of those two eating habits are NOT doing him or his body any favors. I am consistently real with Harold.

So when I asked him to get real with me, I really did want honesty. I wasn't just looking for reassurance or lies.

So he got real and told me this, "You eat too much dessert. You replace meals with dessert even."

And he is right.

Since this weekend when he got real, I've been thinking about this a lot. And I thought about this right through yesterday evening when I counted up that I had had five, yes five, desserts yesterday.

Dessert in chronological order:

1. Cinnamon chip scone. Purchased on campus in conjunction with lunch. It was delish.

2. Chocolate chip cookie, large. Purchased on campus in conjunction with lunch. Again, yummy.

3. Six Oreos with milk. Eaten post-dinner.

4. A cupcake from Sweet Tooth Fairy. Purchased for V-Day, eaten with milk along with dessert #3 above. (Sensing a trend?)

5. Several handfuls of Just Berries (of the Captain Crunch variety).

And, if that list isn't bad enough, I was still skulking around the pantry, thinking about having some Mayan Hot Chocolate that we purchased from a fancy store during the Christmas season.

The saddest part of my crazy dessert day yesterday? It isn't all that unusual. It used to be that I would have dessert every night after dinner. Every.single.night.

I remember years ago when I was the compassionate service leader in my ward and I asked a woman in our ward to bring dinner to a family. She readily agreed one one condition, that she not be required to bring dessert because, "I don't serve dessert to my family every night, so I'm not going to bring dessert to this family either."

I was completely fine with her conditions, but I've thought about it off and on since then. You mean there are families out there who do not have dessert every single night? Why not? What's the big deal?

But then my nightly sweet tooth starting rearing it's ugly head midday as well. And then, all of a sudden, because I couldn't decide between one yummy thing and another, I would just choose two yummy things and eat both.

Clearly, I have a problem.

I've been thinking about going off sugar for a while now. You know, we all hear about crazy people going "off" sugar for a month or two or three. I envy those people because I know I could never, ever do this.

I have an addiction to sugar. I truly do. And as I make fun of myself here in this blog and as I talk about it with my husband, part of me is completely sad and worried.

So this morning as I lay in bed prior to getting up, I decided that today is my "Day Without Sugar."

When you go to AA meetings, do they give you a chip for one day without alcohol? Ok, I just looked online and it turns out they do. And here it is....

So, for today, to my own self, I will be true. I cannot control anything but this one moment. At this one moment I am motivated and thrilled at the prospect. But I also know that when lunch comes around I will be tempted, and then again during the afternoon, then again when I get home from work, then again after dinner while I'm watching TV. The temptations lay all around me.

But I can control this moment. And I think I can go 24 hours, I really want to go 24 hours, without sugar.

Stay tuned...