Day 2 - What a long one...

It's interesting what I notice about my eating habits as this Challenge progresses.  For instance, eating completely healthy and well for one or two days?  No sweat!  Totally easy!  As I neared the end of my second day in this challenge I was still well under my allotted 24 grams, but after lunch I wanted to bury my face in a big piece of chocolate cake.  

That feeling didn't let up for about 6 hours.  After my healthy dinner my sister and I were discussing ways to deal with this craving.  Both of us tend to be emotional/stress eaters and we had just finished an outing with the boys that was very taxing, to say the least.  

I finally bought a dark chocolate bar that is 70% dark chocolate.  Theo's brand with salt and almonds in it.  One piece had 3 grams of sugar in it and it was well worth it - craving handled.  That brought my total sugar count to 12 grams for the day.

I'm hoping that in a few days as my body adjusts to less and less sugar that these cravings will also subside.  

In the meantime, I'll try to link to some other blogs and websites that I find interesting and informative.  Here is one for today, the author's name is Andrew Wilder and I like what I've been reading so far.  His latest post involves eating in moderation and balance in the modern world.  To check it out click the link below...

www.eatingrules.com

The Kick-off of the Sugar Sweet Challenge 2014!

It's that time of the year again! Time to reign in our eating habits from the 2013 holiday season and start anew, looking towards better health and wellness in 2014.

We had our kick-off dinner for the Sugar Sweet Challenge 2014 last night.  I have to say, it went amazing for our first year.  As always you catch things that will be better next year (like bigger bowls for that delicious soup!), but overall we had a full house and a great time.  If you were not able to make it let's recap....

Event:  Sugar Sweet Challenge 2014
Time:   Now until January 31st
Rules:  -Log your daily food intake using a smart phone app (we use MyFitnessPal) or good old fashioned paper and pencil
           -Keep track of your sugar intake from added sugars daily.
           -Men try to stay below 36 grams / day and women try to stay below 24 grams / day.
           -Raw, fresh fruit and milk does not count towards your total sugar grams

The whole idea is to start paying more attention to what you are eating throughout the day while decreasing your sugar, "light", and processed foods intake and increasing your whole foods intake.

As of right now, I am getting ready for a grocery store run to replenish my supply of fresh produce, all natural/no added sugar peanut butter, plain yogurt and other goodies that will help me to succeed at this challenge. 

My nemisis for the day is the freshly baked oatmeal bread with the crunchy coconut topping sitting on my parent's kitchen counter.  Temptation is all around us! However, I know my body needs a break from sugar and that it will benifit me to not give into immediate gratification. 

What did we talk about last night? Drink water first - okay, will do. Also, listen to my 4 year old who told me apples are desserts because they have sugar.  I like that :)