Day No. 1:
My First Light Bulb
January 16, 2016
I woke up and immediately felt panic.
The usual cookie or piece of chocolate waiting for me on my nightstand was not an option :/.
I ate a very bland banana…. I was told my taste buds would “repair” themselves this week from not eating processed sugar, so I didn’t expect the banana to be particularly decadent.
Lunch time I ordered a gyro plate at a greek cafe. I skipped the usual greek salad because of the sweetener in the dressing.
The guy suggested salad without dressing…… So, dry lettuce and feta?
No thanks, I’ll have the humus. Water. No soda.
I started to salivate for Dr. Pepper mid-meal. I’m pretty sensitive to the taste of salt, so it dawned on me:
I think I may need sugar to offset the salt in food.
Sugar has the last word. I feel like a meal isn’t complete without the treat or dessert at the end
Like a sentence with no period. Blatantly bad grammar drives me crazy
(Did that missing period drive you nuts, too?)
Like I said in my Quick Disclaimer post, the point of me taking this challenge is to become more aware of how added sugar affects me, so I went back to work and did some research on my lunch experience epiphany.
I found a great article, Why Do People Crave Sweets After a Meal?, that gave me a lot of insight. It touches on the brain chemistry and neurotransmitters, childhood habits (almost a Pavlovian reaction), and hypoglycemia.
Back to work after no sugar fix at lunch, and I was still having trouble concentrating, so I grabbed an orange; my swirling thoughts slowed, and I felt like my feet were on the ground again.
I asked myself why anyone would ever live this way. I mean not having any sugar other than fruit. But I am going through the stages of a detox, so it’s probably a lot different than maintaining a diet without added sugar.
Sugar has the last word. I feel like a meal isn’t complete without the treat or dessert at the end
I stocked up on fruits to help me survive the week – pineapple, kiwis, raspberries, blackberries. I highly recommend them, especially pineapple because it is so high in sugar, it helped deter me from going after the shortbread cookies I forgot to get rid of.
1AM (when I normally wake up because I need some kind of chocolate fix or something) I ate an entire box of raspberries. Not hard to do, by the way.. I can’t believe they actually sell raspberries in such a pathetic size. The raspberries helped a lot.
That was day 1 for me. I would love to hear if anyone else has trouble with sugar cravings in the middle of the night or after meals.
Day 1 was a challenge because sugar is in so many things. It was a challenge to shop and keep fruits or other healthy foods in the house. Just having something other than Sprite to drink was hard. After a few days it was easier because it became more of a routine and my family was helping too.
Micah, thank you so much for letting us know how your challenge is going. Many of us have found that cutting sugar out of our diets, even temporarily, was harder than we initially thought. It gets easier. Fruits like pineapple are great alternatives to sugary food and drinks to help you through those intense sugar cravings. Please keep us in the loop, and let us know what you’re becoming aware of during your journey!