Day One Hundred
You guys, I made it.
And, I didn't.
Even after yesterday's amazing workout, my weight was up a bit today. Fluctuation happens. It's going to be up tomorrow, too.
I went one hundred days without eating sugar.
I did not lose that much weight. Not nearly what I had hoped to lose. My friend, Mike, predicted that. How he knows about old ladies and weight, I am not sure, but he nailed it.
Did I need to make this sacrifice? Yes. My weight was increasing and out of my control. I got it down a little bit when I got married, but I got married right before the holidays, and it came right back up again. It's been increasing for almost five years. I do not want to be this fat.
I needed to do something to get control of my weight. I needed to do something drastic, something that would really get my attention and force me to make changes. I already eat pretty healthy food, and I already go to a gym almost daily. I thought cutting sugar out for an extended period would make a lot more difference than it has.
I did wait to eat today until eleven. I did have two eggs and some tomato juice at that point. I probably should have stopped at that, but I had made some no-sugar brownies that I was really excited about. I had substituted cocoa and oil for baking chocolate, butter for shortening, wheat flour for white flour, Swerve for sugar. There was nothing bad in those brownies. And I was excited to eat them. And it was lunch time, so I had some lunch--some leftover lentil soup. As I was filling my bowl, I realized that the amount I wanted was not going to leave much left, so I had the rest of it. I offered some to my husband, but he was not hungry enough at the time.
I need to eat more like he does.
Even though that--two eggs, a cup of tomato juice, and a bowl of lentil soup--was not that much food, I have been really full all day. Even though I did not eat more than I had planned to eat, I have been really full all day. I feel fat and gross.
After church, we had our dessert with our gospel study. I cut the brownies and put freshly whipped heavy cream and sugar-free cherry pie filling over them. It was pretty good, but I need to continue to work on the brownie recipe because it was a little dry. I think I need more oil when I use whole wheat flour.
Now, I was really full. I went to do the Sunday Sudoku (which I completed in thirteen minutes) and take a bit of a rest while my daughter made the no-sugar carrot cake that we took with us to my brother's house later. I looked back over my blog for some numbers, and then it was time to make dinner.
I made salmon patties, rosemary-roasted potatoes, and Brussels sprouts with a mustard, vinegar, and Xylitol sauce. I had just one patty, a small amount of potatoes, and a few sprouts. It was a perfectly reasonable smallish portion. I continued to be very full.
We went to my brother's house, where I avoided the Creamies, the cookies, and the strawberry shortcake that were shared. I had a few olives, a few potato chips with the spinach dip that was brought, and one piece of the carrot cake we brought. I came home and had my cocoa.
I ate only exactly what I had planned to eat today, plus a few--really, not many--chips and dip, and a handful of olives.
It is the middle of the night, and I am still really full.
Where I am going with this is, I still need to make changes. Even if what I have planned seems like a reasonable text-book diet for the day, I need to eat less. I could have had half a salmon patty. I could have waited to have soup until I was hungry again. I could have declined eating what I had planned to eat if I was not hungry when it was time to eat it.
I'll go to the gym in the morning. I'll do what I can. I'll weigh myself, and I'll be glad that I have lost weight in the last hundred days, but I will not be where I wanted to be. I still have work to do. I still have habits to change and weight to lose. You may stay with me if you choose to do so.
I really believe that the real heavy lifting of weight loss is mental. I really believe that obesity is often psychological every bit as much as it is physical. In limiting myself to not eat sugar at all, no exceptions, I have forced myself to come face-to-face with myself, and I have learned a few more things about myself.
I have learned that I have a heckler in my mental audience. I need to recognize the noise she makes for what it is--noise. She says things like, "Just have one," "Now you can eat that," "You'll be hungry later," "It won't matter," "You blew it anyway, so you might as well. . . ." I need to know that the noise she makes is just his opinion, and not mine. I need to acknowledge it as noise and not something to follow. I have learned that I can ignore this voice. Laugh at her, even.
Right now, I am too full, and I ate too much today. Even though it technically seemed okay, I was not hungry enough for all that I ate, or I would not be too full now. I need to work on eating half of what I think I need to eat, and waiting until I am hungry, even if it is there to eat, even if it is time to eat.
By not eating sugar for a hundred days, though, there are many things that I did not eat. Was it hard? Yes. Do i still remember some of the things I declined that were hard to decline? Yes. Most notably, my brother's homemade cake, served at my mom's "birthday dinner;" my own children's birthday cakes; the ice cream sandwiches served at my son's house to celebrate his graduation; my granddaughter's cake and homemade ice cream; my own favorites like blond brownies and chocolate milk and German chocolate cake; the Memorial Day shake; donuts and cakes at work. I love that stuff. If I had eaten those things, though, I would still want to eat them next time. And I still want to lose more weight. I need to not look at food as a scarce commodity. There will always, always, always be more cakes, more cookies, more shakes, more everything. There will always be these things, and I should not always eat these things.
I added up what I did not eat over these hundred days. I declined cake about twenty-three times, including the times I would have had leftover cake in the house; at least twenty cookies; a large bag of Easter candy; about seven other opportunities to eat various candy; nine sweet breads of various types; seven brownies; eight ice creams; four days of tempting Costco samples; donuts or donut holes seven times; cheesecake four times; chips and yogurt and other foods with sugar in them about ten times; muffins four times; cobbler once; candy bars four times; special chocolates three times; cinnamon rolls three times; fancy cupcakes twice; a large shake; fudge once, chocolate milk once; and punch and other sugary drinks several times. And it would have been more than this if I had said yes to these things and then had seconds on them. Which, I often used to do.
I estimate that these (without seconds) would have added up to about twenty-nine thousand calories that I did not eat over the past hundred days. That's over eight pounds. So, maybe I only lost about twelve pounds, but maybe I would have gained eight pounds instead. I would have hated to be that weight.
It strikes me that I did not seek out any of these opportunities to eat sugar; they found me in the course of my normal life. I am going to have to continue to say no far more than I say yes. I am going to have to be a warrior for my own health until I die.
During this hundred days, at least one of my friends has died. I learned tonight that another is about to die. Both of these were from cancer. Another friend died earlier this year from heart problems. Two of my sisters died in their very early sixties from these things. Both of my parents died from heart attacks in their early seventies. Being overweight increases my chances for both cancer and heart disease.
I have a twelve-year-old. I have a fourteen-year-old. I have seven children in various stages of growing up whom I am not through with. I want to be around for a long time, and I want and need to be in good health. I am not that old, but I am getting older every day. Time is going to eventually win, but I'm going to fight hard for every day I have left.
I took a heart quiz on Facebook yesterday. It said I had a moderate risk of developing heart disease. Do you know what my risk factors are? I haven't had a heart attack or stroke. I don't smoke or drink. I exercise and eat healthy. My risks were in three areas--I am overweight (it did NOT say obese, yay!), I have high blood pressure, and I have a family history that I would be wise to not ignore. I can keep trying to control two of those things. The last is out of my control.
Do you know what else not eating sugar for a hundred days has done for me that I don't think would have happened otherwise? I am eating more vegetables and fruits. I am weight-lifting more. I am looking for healthier ways to have some desserts. I bought some more canisters yesterday for my kitchen, and my daughter and I filled them with Swerve, coconut flour, Xylitol, monk fruit sweetener, arrowroot flour--things I would never have bought or used if I had not been desperate for a taste of something sweet. I plan to continue to work out recipes that will make my old favorites taste great without being fattening or bad for me.
I had a period of illness that set me back some. I had some stressful times. I will continue to have to deal with these things from time to time. All of this--the struggles, the challenges, the phases, the hard times--are my life.
Tomorrow, I plan to have that one small vanilla cake-cookie at work that is going to dry out if I don't eat it. I had thought I would start with my Easter candy, but that cookie has been calling out to me the most lately, and it will spoil. I hope to not have anything else with sugar in it tomorrow. Zero or one will be my mantra. But I am going to continue to try to increase my exercise, reduce what I eat, and keep losing weight. I am going to keep paying attention. If I do not make progress, I will get more severe again. I know I can forgo sugar, and I can do it any time I need to. If I did it on Easter Day, I can do it on any day.
And, I didn't.
Even after yesterday's amazing workout, my weight was up a bit today. Fluctuation happens. It's going to be up tomorrow, too.
I went one hundred days without eating sugar.
I did not lose that much weight. Not nearly what I had hoped to lose. My friend, Mike, predicted that. How he knows about old ladies and weight, I am not sure, but he nailed it.
Did I need to make this sacrifice? Yes. My weight was increasing and out of my control. I got it down a little bit when I got married, but I got married right before the holidays, and it came right back up again. It's been increasing for almost five years. I do not want to be this fat.
I needed to do something to get control of my weight. I needed to do something drastic, something that would really get my attention and force me to make changes. I already eat pretty healthy food, and I already go to a gym almost daily. I thought cutting sugar out for an extended period would make a lot more difference than it has.
I did wait to eat today until eleven. I did have two eggs and some tomato juice at that point. I probably should have stopped at that, but I had made some no-sugar brownies that I was really excited about. I had substituted cocoa and oil for baking chocolate, butter for shortening, wheat flour for white flour, Swerve for sugar. There was nothing bad in those brownies. And I was excited to eat them. And it was lunch time, so I had some lunch--some leftover lentil soup. As I was filling my bowl, I realized that the amount I wanted was not going to leave much left, so I had the rest of it. I offered some to my husband, but he was not hungry enough at the time.
I need to eat more like he does.
Even though that--two eggs, a cup of tomato juice, and a bowl of lentil soup--was not that much food, I have been really full all day. Even though I did not eat more than I had planned to eat, I have been really full all day. I feel fat and gross.
After church, we had our dessert with our gospel study. I cut the brownies and put freshly whipped heavy cream and sugar-free cherry pie filling over them. It was pretty good, but I need to continue to work on the brownie recipe because it was a little dry. I think I need more oil when I use whole wheat flour.
Now, I was really full. I went to do the Sunday Sudoku (which I completed in thirteen minutes) and take a bit of a rest while my daughter made the no-sugar carrot cake that we took with us to my brother's house later. I looked back over my blog for some numbers, and then it was time to make dinner.
I made salmon patties, rosemary-roasted potatoes, and Brussels sprouts with a mustard, vinegar, and Xylitol sauce. I had just one patty, a small amount of potatoes, and a few sprouts. It was a perfectly reasonable smallish portion. I continued to be very full.
We went to my brother's house, where I avoided the Creamies, the cookies, and the strawberry shortcake that were shared. I had a few olives, a few potato chips with the spinach dip that was brought, and one piece of the carrot cake we brought. I came home and had my cocoa.
I ate only exactly what I had planned to eat today, plus a few--really, not many--chips and dip, and a handful of olives.
It is the middle of the night, and I am still really full.
Where I am going with this is, I still need to make changes. Even if what I have planned seems like a reasonable text-book diet for the day, I need to eat less. I could have had half a salmon patty. I could have waited to have soup until I was hungry again. I could have declined eating what I had planned to eat if I was not hungry when it was time to eat it.
I'll go to the gym in the morning. I'll do what I can. I'll weigh myself, and I'll be glad that I have lost weight in the last hundred days, but I will not be where I wanted to be. I still have work to do. I still have habits to change and weight to lose. You may stay with me if you choose to do so.
I really believe that the real heavy lifting of weight loss is mental. I really believe that obesity is often psychological every bit as much as it is physical. In limiting myself to not eat sugar at all, no exceptions, I have forced myself to come face-to-face with myself, and I have learned a few more things about myself.
I have learned that I have a heckler in my mental audience. I need to recognize the noise she makes for what it is--noise. She says things like, "Just have one," "Now you can eat that," "You'll be hungry later," "It won't matter," "You blew it anyway, so you might as well. . . ." I need to know that the noise she makes is just his opinion, and not mine. I need to acknowledge it as noise and not something to follow. I have learned that I can ignore this voice. Laugh at her, even.
Right now, I am too full, and I ate too much today. Even though it technically seemed okay, I was not hungry enough for all that I ate, or I would not be too full now. I need to work on eating half of what I think I need to eat, and waiting until I am hungry, even if it is there to eat, even if it is time to eat.
By not eating sugar for a hundred days, though, there are many things that I did not eat. Was it hard? Yes. Do i still remember some of the things I declined that were hard to decline? Yes. Most notably, my brother's homemade cake, served at my mom's "birthday dinner;" my own children's birthday cakes; the ice cream sandwiches served at my son's house to celebrate his graduation; my granddaughter's cake and homemade ice cream; my own favorites like blond brownies and chocolate milk and German chocolate cake; the Memorial Day shake; donuts and cakes at work. I love that stuff. If I had eaten those things, though, I would still want to eat them next time. And I still want to lose more weight. I need to not look at food as a scarce commodity. There will always, always, always be more cakes, more cookies, more shakes, more everything. There will always be these things, and I should not always eat these things.
I added up what I did not eat over these hundred days. I declined cake about twenty-three times, including the times I would have had leftover cake in the house; at least twenty cookies; a large bag of Easter candy; about seven other opportunities to eat various candy; nine sweet breads of various types; seven brownies; eight ice creams; four days of tempting Costco samples; donuts or donut holes seven times; cheesecake four times; chips and yogurt and other foods with sugar in them about ten times; muffins four times; cobbler once; candy bars four times; special chocolates three times; cinnamon rolls three times; fancy cupcakes twice; a large shake; fudge once, chocolate milk once; and punch and other sugary drinks several times. And it would have been more than this if I had said yes to these things and then had seconds on them. Which, I often used to do.
I estimate that these (without seconds) would have added up to about twenty-nine thousand calories that I did not eat over the past hundred days. That's over eight pounds. So, maybe I only lost about twelve pounds, but maybe I would have gained eight pounds instead. I would have hated to be that weight.
It strikes me that I did not seek out any of these opportunities to eat sugar; they found me in the course of my normal life. I am going to have to continue to say no far more than I say yes. I am going to have to be a warrior for my own health until I die.
During this hundred days, at least one of my friends has died. I learned tonight that another is about to die. Both of these were from cancer. Another friend died earlier this year from heart problems. Two of my sisters died in their very early sixties from these things. Both of my parents died from heart attacks in their early seventies. Being overweight increases my chances for both cancer and heart disease.
I have a twelve-year-old. I have a fourteen-year-old. I have seven children in various stages of growing up whom I am not through with. I want to be around for a long time, and I want and need to be in good health. I am not that old, but I am getting older every day. Time is going to eventually win, but I'm going to fight hard for every day I have left.
I took a heart quiz on Facebook yesterday. It said I had a moderate risk of developing heart disease. Do you know what my risk factors are? I haven't had a heart attack or stroke. I don't smoke or drink. I exercise and eat healthy. My risks were in three areas--I am overweight (it did NOT say obese, yay!), I have high blood pressure, and I have a family history that I would be wise to not ignore. I can keep trying to control two of those things. The last is out of my control.
Do you know what else not eating sugar for a hundred days has done for me that I don't think would have happened otherwise? I am eating more vegetables and fruits. I am weight-lifting more. I am looking for healthier ways to have some desserts. I bought some more canisters yesterday for my kitchen, and my daughter and I filled them with Swerve, coconut flour, Xylitol, monk fruit sweetener, arrowroot flour--things I would never have bought or used if I had not been desperate for a taste of something sweet. I plan to continue to work out recipes that will make my old favorites taste great without being fattening or bad for me.
I had a period of illness that set me back some. I had some stressful times. I will continue to have to deal with these things from time to time. All of this--the struggles, the challenges, the phases, the hard times--are my life.
Tomorrow, I plan to have that one small vanilla cake-cookie at work that is going to dry out if I don't eat it. I had thought I would start with my Easter candy, but that cookie has been calling out to me the most lately, and it will spoil. I hope to not have anything else with sugar in it tomorrow. Zero or one will be my mantra. But I am going to continue to try to increase my exercise, reduce what I eat, and keep losing weight. I am going to keep paying attention. If I do not make progress, I will get more severe again. I know I can forgo sugar, and I can do it any time I need to. If I did it on Easter Day, I can do it on any day.
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