Avoiding Sugar Can Change Your Life

The countdown begins. Today is Saturday and Monday begins the juice fast/feast (depending on how you look at it).

All those little bouts of purging sugar from my kitchen ended badly. I kept caving. How is it possible to go almost 3 years without sugar and then have this much trouble quitting again?

My hope is that with 2 months of juicing I will know better than to dabble with sugar. If I play with sugar, it wins. If I abstain from sugar, I win.

Quitting sugar changed my life once. I know quitting again will have the same profound affects. It's what motivates me this time around. Valuable lesson learned? I really can't balance moderation with sugar, I wish I could. It's easier to just go without it 100%.


Check out this interview:

How Avoiding Refined Sugar Changed a Woman's Life

Extreme Make-Over: From Grumpy & Frumpy to Juicing and Sugar-Free

My next endeavor is to juice stuff.

The goal is to try juicing for a month or two and see how it helps with sugar cravings, energy, my sleep cycle and my weight (which has skyrocketed since moving to Texas--go figure!).

My husband is on board with this, too. Amazing.

We watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead together and when it ended we looked at each other and shared an ah-hah moment. We still have to do our research to see how this will be done, the health benefits/risks, etc. We're really not-knowers when it comes to juicing.

Any tips?

Quitting Sugar, Again

2012 Re-Quitting Sugar from myyearwithout on Vimeo.

It was easier to go without sugar for 3 years than it has been to give it up for a month at a time. The holidaze were the worst! I think people wanted to watch me feast on the white stuff. Every imaginable favorite dessert of mine was homemade and waiting for me when I returned to the northwest for Christmas.

On the flight to Portland I turned down freshly baked chocolate chip cookies (Frontier Airlines) and ate from a healthy pre-packed lunch. I was superior and not going to give in.

What is it about being home for the holidaze, surrounded by family and friends with fragrant homemade goodies and sweets everywhere?

Sweet tooth trumped Willpower. I don't understand this, because I was solidly off sugar for 3 years!

Let the justifications begin: I wanted to have a good time with everyone else and not be the only one not eating Mom's hot cinnamon rolls with frosting. I struggle with moderation, so once I let myself have a little sugar, nothing was off limits. I loitered in the kitchen every day in search of delicious ways to feed the monster.

Everything tasted absolutely heavenly but it didn't take long for my sweet tooth to become satiated. But the next day my tolerance for sweet had increased, and the day after that I had three cinnamon rolls in one day, not counting other goodies during the day.

If I'm going to indulge, I do not want to feel bad about it. Feeling guilty ruins things, doesn't it? So I made a mental note that after returning from the holidaze I would go back to being a devout non-sugarist. Until then, I would enjoy finishing off my stocking candy. Which led to making peanut brittle, then a chocolate espresso cheesecake (I am going to attempt this with a less-refined sweetener next time) for my husband, and then I made a lemon pound cake which I substituted for lunch.

The other day I looked through my cupboards to purge the demons, and Jeff quickly set up the video camera. Although I wasn't looking my best and would have liked to shower/do hair/make-up etc. (I mean, I am posting this on my blog!) I appreciated Jeff's quick reaction to the spontaneous moment and let it be.

 http://vimeo.com/35040868