Life Post Challenge

Well bloggy, life post challenge has been interesting. I was able to stay off sweets for quite some time. I tested myself once or twice, eating a cookie at work, to see if it would either 1) make me feel sick or 2)break the floodgates and turn me into a glutton.
Neither happened thank goodness.

But then the Christmas season kicked in...........I am able to say quite no to some things easily. My delicious chocolate truffles, our Jesus birthday cake (one slice for Jesus' sake, rather than the annual 3 slices!), the sugar cookies. I can find them all oddly unappealing. But somethings...........curse the day my mother decided to make puppy chow. Gosh, I love that stuff. Pure genius it is. And easy to eat; completely accessible. Then there was 2 nights in a row I couldn't stop eating the peanut butter cookies dipped in almond bark. Oddly, those always hit my stomach quite hard, so the third night I got the hint and stayed away.

Today it was my chocolate chip banana bread. Two, deliciously, think slices. But after spending a few minutes in downward facing dog.......I totally regret that decision. I now have a permanent pukey sensation in the back of my throat. Delicious.

Part of the problem is that I am surrounded by goodies. (Don't even get me started on the delicious strawberry jello fluff my Hubby's grandmother made.) I always feel horrible throwing food out, what a waste of money! I can't stop thinking of the poor starving children of the world when I need to toss something away. But on the other hand, I need to get rid of it! Thus, I have let myself resort to eating it, just to get rid of it. And the faster I eat it, the faster it goes away. Thank god the puppy chow stayed at mom's.

So I need to climb back on the No Sugar Bandwagon and stay there. I will let Hubby eat all the sweets, or throw them out. When I am not looking. This means that my plans to start experimenting with the cake section of my new Joy of Baking cookbook must be put on the back burner. And according to Joy, to be glamorous you need to be a cake baker/decorator. Sad.

In other, more helpful news, Hubby got me APY60. Its like a yoga version of p90x. It is pretty involved, including a diet, morning workouts (daily blends), and a weekly work out you do every day. The work out is about 40-50 minutes long! It also comes with a booklet of daily goals. For example, Day 1 Week 1 challenges include drinking 100 ounces of water (!!! I drink 1-2 cups on a good day!), the work out (Power Yoga class), not drinking your calories for the day, and using the Blue Dots. With the bundle I got some colored dots and bracelets, and each represents a different thing. Blue dots I think are supposed to remind me to breathe.

Although I tried the power yoga class tonight (whew!), I am going to officially start Day 1 tomorrow. I might not stick to his pretty strict diet rules (we are supposed to throw out anything with sugars, MSG, boxed foods {okay those make sense}, anything gluten including rice, noodles, bread, and 'cow dairy' products. Seeing as I live off of peanut butter toast and PB saltines, I am not sure I would be able to survive. I also already don't get enough calcium so I am gonna stick with my milk and yogurt {I am still totally digging the greek yogurt parfaits for breakfast!}), and will probably modify it to fit my lifestyle, but I do plan on trying several of his recipes and shopping with his shopping list more often.

Part of week 1 is no processed white sugar, and subsititute with something called Xylitol. I have heard of it somewhere before. I hope its not too expensive. If I manage to find some, I will pick it up and let you know what I think of it.

Day 6!!

Well Bloggy,

I did a little playing with fire yesterday.

 I feel like I have been learning a lot about myself and my addiction to sweets. However, now I have developed a slight fear to ever eating sweets again! I wonder if I will just go bonkers or if I will be able to maintain some self-control. In all honesty, I am not quite sure what to do when this challenge is over. How does one swear off sweets? How do I add sweets back in moderation without going back to where I was??

So yesterday, Hubby and I were going to write out our Christmas cards, and we decided to accomplish this task at Caribou. My goal was to get a small drink and test the waters: how would it make me feel? Could I let myself enjoy this small treat and still say no to sweets for the rest of the day? Often times when people break their diet rules or binge during the day they tell themselves 'Well I will just start over tomorrow' and then continue eating poorly for the rest of the day. Would this become me???

I ordered a small Ho Ho White Chocolate Mint Mocha (NUM!). I think I managed to drink about half, maybe 3/4 of the cup, before I could feel the sugar speeding through my veins. I think I actually felt slightly nauseous! I felt better after half an hour. Hmmm, I thought to myself, didn't really like that experience. Also, later in the day I stopped by McDonald's with some of my cheerleaders so they could pick up some ice cream cones. Although very tempted (I was so hungry!!), and even slightly teased by the girls, I managed to say no and wait for dinner (a delicious dinner at Olive Garden with some good friends).

Overall: An interesting experience. I almost want to test it again and see how my body feels after say, a brownie. But I think I know where that road will lead me! For now I am sticking out the rest of the challenge. After all, its only today and tomorrow!!

No Sweets Day Four

Well Bloggy World,

This is the beginning of Day 4. I have made it pretty successfully, although I am pretty sure in my dreams last night I kept accidentally eating cookie dough before remembering our challenge. Even in my dreams I can't eat sugar without guilt!

Last night we had a close call. Husband and I were driving home and he mentioned ice cream. WHO DOES THAT?!?! Cruel and unusual! Sure enough before we know it we are standing outside Snuffy's Malt Shop. I managed to have enough willpower to say no. But then there was a Caribou next door.....so Husband suggests hot chocolates! We had to run back to the car to keep us from drinking some sugar (not too mention spending money!)

When we got home, Hubby decided to make us delicious smoothies instead! Num Num!
We used all of this:

Well, minus the yogurt because it was moldy (EW) and added a banana

And Got This:

So Good! Like my garnish? :)

Maybe this choosing healthier snacks idea (crazy and hard as it sounds), isn't so crazy and hard!