Sugar update: Jaunary

  This month I really focused on my eating habits because I'm now reporting to the internet.  I wanted to do my best at refraining from white refined sugar.  And I've gotta say this is difficult, and it takes a lot of preparation.

At the beginning of the month, I thought I was good.  Like all goals we attempt to make this goal was easy to keep for the first couple of weeks or two.  And then I kind of cheated a couple of times...  My excuse was this month was incredibly stressful for me.  Greg was sick again and I also had applied for a job, had an interview for that job, and then I waited and waited for them to call me back.  I just felt incredibly worried over this job, so I would talk with friends and family about it which would make me become really hopeful, and then I would become doubtful.  In short: I went through a cycle of emotions several times this last month.  Needless to say, I didn't get the job.

So each month, I will review my goals by telling you a couple of things I did well at and a couple of things I can improve on.

Things I did well at:

I consistently ate breads that I made from scratch.  I realize bread doesn't have a lot of sugar in it, but when the bread lists "water" as a part of their natural ingredients, I become a bit worried that they couldn't list anything else.  Also since carbohydrates are so addicting, I really wanted to make it from scratch (plus the cost of decent tasting bread is like $3 a loaf). I know baking bread is probably one of the easiest things to bake, but this still takes effort to do.  I'm proud of myself.

I have been eating more fruit lately to get my sweet tooth fix.  Yes, this is an area I want to be better at especially since I am picky about fruit.  To help myself out a bit, I like to cut up my fruit.  So when I want an orange for lunch, I'll cut it up into slices and enjoy it like that.  I have learned that I love pears now.  I don't know why I didn't buy them much before.  

Things I can improve on:

Being a bit more prepared or learning to just be patient even though I feel hungry.  I don't need to be gratified instantly with food the moment I start to feel hungry. Sometimes I think, "If I don't eat this crappy food right now, I'll have to wait another twenty minutes or something before I'll eat something and I might get really cranky!  Or I'll even get a hunger headache, and I don't want a hunger headache!"  This thought process happened to me when Greg and I attended a baptism a couple of weeks ago that was directly after church (Our church meets from 9:30-12:30).  The only food they had for refreshments after the baptism were a bunch of cookies, and I basically talked myself into eating these cookies even though I didn't need eat them, and thus I cheated by going over my only two sugary items a month rule.  I wasn't starving, but I was afraid I would be.

The one thing I noticed is while I cut out the refined sugar from my diet for the most part I also made what felt like a lot of sweets with substitutes sugars (coffee cake and cookies).  I think I should either find opportunities to share these sweets with others or half the recipes if I want to.  


Fortunately February is short!  Now that I have a record of how my body works, I can be better this next month.

What about you?  What are your resolutions and how are you doing at keeping them?