Seven Months and Counting: Still Sugar Free

It’s been a while since I posted a sugar update, and I thought I’d just check in with all of you to report on how it’s going. There are still ups and downs, but I definitely consider myself to still be sticking pretty closely to my goal.

Europe was a bit of a departure, I have to admit. I decided that I’d take a break for those three weeks, and I ate a fair bit of the sweet stuff. (My favorite? Chocolate eclairs in Paris. Those were worth every bite.) My hope and theory was that when I got home, I’d be able to go back to “normal,” which meant the new normal of not eating sugar.

It worked like a charm.

I also noticed myself not feeling as good in Europe as I usually do. Some of that is probably because of the sugar, and some of it was due to not being able to exercise regularly. Those are the two things I’ve done to change my health, and they both definitely have a big impact on me.

Honestly, the biggest struggle I’ve been having recently with sugar is seasonally-based. I’ve never lived through an autumn like this, and I find myself really hankering for a lot of foods that I love to eat this time of year: apple crisp, pumpkin treats, orange rolls, cinnamon rolls. Fall has always been a big baking time for me, and nothing cuts through my goal like a warm batch of brownies. I also had my birthday, and I had a few too many pieces of chocolate cake for me to be able to say I was really only giving myself one or two treats a week.

Still, there’s no doubt I’m eating a whole lot less sugar than I used to, and that’s one of the main purposes of this goal in the first place. It’s also why I don’t have some generic goal of “eat less sugar.” When the battle line is drawn around “1 to 2 treats a week,” the worst case scenario (so far) is that I end up having 3. Maybe 4. When the goal is nebulous, it’s too easy to convince myself that I’m following it. (Which is why I always end up gaining weight when I go off my diets. The goal shifts from “don’t eat more than 1800 calories a day” to “don’t eat a lot.” Way too much wiggle room.0

It remains to be seen how Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years go with this goal. I’m planning on cutting myself some slack, but I certainly don’t want to return to my pre-goal self. The good news is that I find myself feeling physically unwell when I have too much sugar now, a phenomenon I never encountered seven months ago. So my body is doing a fair job at regulating sugar when my willpower ebbs. Yay for that.

I still heartily recommend this to anyone looking to get healthier, though I don’t typically actively preach it to the masses. It’s a personal choice that has worked very well for me, and I leave it at that.

And on that note, I shall leave you. Thanks for reading!

Leave a comment

×