sugar-free living

we survived sugar-free august. overall, a very good experience. i certainly experienced moments of weakness (see picture below), but cut down tremendously on the amount of sugar we normally eat.

what did i learn?

i learned to really read food labels. i thought i was pretty good about that before by reading nutrition labels, but now i am reading ingredients. big difference. you may have a product with very little sugar, for example, but the ingredients have high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, cane juice, dextrose, and the list goes on. it's ridiculous.

i learned that my husband has more willpower than i do.

i learned that a lot of the fatigue and blah that people experience and excuse away is most likely a result of what we eat. in our august challenge, we didn't cut out all sugar, yet as we began eating it again a few days ago, brian and i both felt completely sluggish. we ate Betty Crocker blueberry muffins (previously, a staple item in our house) for breakfast before church sunday morning and were both struggling to stay awake the entire morning-- and it wasn't the sermon!

i learned how addicted i am to sugar. i would eat a really good and filling meal, but then want to eat chocolate or something sweet. as the month progressed, this improved, so there is hope for re-training my taste buds!

i learned that i want to continue sugar-free living. i want to continue to choose healthy options. i will certainly eat desserts again, but now i know that i don't have to have them on a daily basis and i feel better when i don't.

for those of you contemplating sugar-free living, know that there are lots of good things you can eat that don't have sugar in them (or very little). some yummy snacks include chips and salsa, cheese and crackers (triscuits have no sugar), peanut butter (we ate a lot of natural peanut butter), smoothies (yes, sugar-- it is fruit after all, but no added sugar). start reading labels and beware of sneaky sugar substitutes!

moment of weakness. :)