LAST DAY of SUGAR FREE CHALLENGE DAY
It looks like today is day 30 of my sugar free challenge. I was going to keep going until tomorrow but my husband put his foot down. He said my challenge was clearly a "30" day challenge.
It was definitely a learning experience. Here are four lessons that I learned.
1. It was both harder and easier then I thought it would be.
The beginning was definitely a lot more difficult than I expected. I mean if you saw the picture of me eating the plain potato, you know I struggled. I would say the advice I was given was true. After about a week, it became easier and hardly something I had to really deal with.
2. I feel better without sugary foods in my diet.
It's not that I was feeling bad all the time. But, whenever I went overboard on sugar before the challenge, I felt really bad. It was not unusual to wake up the next morning still feeling sick from overdoing sugar the night before. It was nice to have all of that out of my life.
3. Sugar is not the only problem.
Getting sugar out of my diet was definitely an exercise in willpower and I don't regret it. But, I found that when I had cravings, I simply replaced sweets with nuts. Guess what? This also made me feel sick. Thankfully, I was able to stop myself and it only happened two or three times. But, it is so easy to convince yourself that something is okay when you already have identified a separate "bad guy." In my case sugar. So, I was already spending my willpower avoiding sugar - why restrict myself any further?
4. I have some future habits to adopt.
I realized that most of my compulsive eating was done while standing around procrastinating something I had to do next. This type of eating NEVER happened when I was sitting down eating a meal. When I say "this type" I mean the type of eating that causes me to have regret and lose track of how much I just ate.
I decided that a habit I need to work on is only eating when I am sitting at the table with my food. I know I will fail many times before I establish this habit. I have had many meals while standing around getting other things done. But, as "productive" as I can be while eating a meal, I have decided it is a bad habit for me. I also have decided that these trigger foods need to be measured out as part of my meal and put away immediately. I am hoping that "out of sight, out of mind" will do the trick.
Now that I am done with my 30 days I have decided that I probably will continue avoiding most sugary foods but I will not be nearly as strict about it. The kids froze a couple chocolate chip cookies for me from the day that they baked them so that I can enjoy them after the challenge is done. That is too sweet for me to deny them.
Surprisingly, the things I miss most are the types of things that I did not usually associate with sugar. Things like barbecue sauce and ketchup will probably be making an immediate reappearance in my diet.
Thank you for following me and supporting me in this challenge. You truly gave me strength to keep going through the difficult times.
It was definitely a learning experience. Here are four lessons that I learned.
1. It was both harder and easier then I thought it would be.
The beginning was definitely a lot more difficult than I expected. I mean if you saw the picture of me eating the plain potato, you know I struggled. I would say the advice I was given was true. After about a week, it became easier and hardly something I had to really deal with.
2. I feel better without sugary foods in my diet.
It's not that I was feeling bad all the time. But, whenever I went overboard on sugar before the challenge, I felt really bad. It was not unusual to wake up the next morning still feeling sick from overdoing sugar the night before. It was nice to have all of that out of my life.
3. Sugar is not the only problem.
Getting sugar out of my diet was definitely an exercise in willpower and I don't regret it. But, I found that when I had cravings, I simply replaced sweets with nuts. Guess what? This also made me feel sick. Thankfully, I was able to stop myself and it only happened two or three times. But, it is so easy to convince yourself that something is okay when you already have identified a separate "bad guy." In my case sugar. So, I was already spending my willpower avoiding sugar - why restrict myself any further?
4. I have some future habits to adopt.
I realized that most of my compulsive eating was done while standing around procrastinating something I had to do next. This type of eating NEVER happened when I was sitting down eating a meal. When I say "this type" I mean the type of eating that causes me to have regret and lose track of how much I just ate.
I decided that a habit I need to work on is only eating when I am sitting at the table with my food. I know I will fail many times before I establish this habit. I have had many meals while standing around getting other things done. But, as "productive" as I can be while eating a meal, I have decided it is a bad habit for me. I also have decided that these trigger foods need to be measured out as part of my meal and put away immediately. I am hoping that "out of sight, out of mind" will do the trick.
Now that I am done with my 30 days I have decided that I probably will continue avoiding most sugary foods but I will not be nearly as strict about it. The kids froze a couple chocolate chip cookies for me from the day that they baked them so that I can enjoy them after the challenge is done. That is too sweet for me to deny them.
Surprisingly, the things I miss most are the types of things that I did not usually associate with sugar. Things like barbecue sauce and ketchup will probably be making an immediate reappearance in my diet.
Thank you for following me and supporting me in this challenge. You truly gave me strength to keep going through the difficult times.
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