I'm What?

This ends the 4th week since I've made a conscious effort to eliminate sugar from my diet. It's getting a bit easier to get used to they way foods, like coffee and oatmeal, taste without sugar. Although, I still use creamer in my coffee. It does contain a little sugar (vanilla silk creamer has 3g), but I refuse to give up my creamer!

Last week, I went to the doctor. Since my old doctor retired, I saw someone else. Seeing someone new always causes me great anxiety. Doctors are not my favorite people. It seems that, although, the industry has certain consistent standards, there is such a huge spectrum of philosophies within the profession. Not to mention some pretty strong personalities. When I find a doctor I like, (easy going, promotes a natural method for staying healthy instead of a chemical method), I am extremely loyal. Anyway, I saw someone new. I liked her straight away. Since she had never seen me before, she ordered a full panel of lab work, just to get a baseline.

Earlier this week, the nurse called me with my lab results. Diabetes and hypothyroidism runs in my family, so I'm always nervous that lab work will show a problem in those areas. Well, she said everything was fine, except that I was very deficient in vitamin D. Um, excuse me? How is that possible? I don't live in London or Seattle...She said that it was more common than people think. Since a number of adults work indoors a majority of the day, they don't absorb enough vitamin D from sun exposure. I thought about it for a minute; I am a firm believer in sunscreen. It's rare that any part of my skin that's exposed, isn't protected by sunscreen. I stopped drinking (dairy) milk about 6 years ago and eat very little dairy. And during the winter months, I'm inside at work shortly after the sun rises and coming home just after the sun sets.

As soon as I got off the phone with the nurse, I immediately started reading about vitamin D. How could I recognize if I'm deficient in the future? I found this article that gives a pretty good overview, in layman's terms. Fatigue - yes, moodiness - yes, always in the winter time (I loathe the winter), more body fat? Hmmm. I also read on another site, that people who experience difficulty in losing weight and/or notice a tendency to distribute fat in the abdomen, should have their vitamin D levels checked. Well, who knew?

It will be interesting to see how supplementing my diet with 2,000 I.U. (international units) of vitamin D will affect my energy level and weight loss. This week, I'm down 2 more pounds. I've been feeling like I'm catching a cold, so I haven't really exercised much this week. Hopefully, I'll get back into my routine next week.

Bumps in the Road

It's been 3 weeks since I decided to (try and) eliminate sugar from my diet. I live on the 6th floor of my building and have become accustomed to taking the elevator. The elevators are old and slow. There's no telling how many minutes I lose waiting for elevator. So, unless my hands are full of heavy groceries, I've started using the stairs. It's actually not so bad. By the time I want to abort taking the stairs, I'm almost to my floor.

After losing a few pounds (3 to be exact), I had to go out of town. Although, I tried to make smart meal decisions, it was difficult. When eating out, I couldn't be sure of how something was prepared, and I refused to be one of those people. You know, the one who makes restaurant servers want to put visine in their food. Needless to say, my weight remained constant over the weekend. But it was better than putting the weight back on!

Once I returned from my weekend trip, I was back on track with my diet. I lost two more pounds! Then. The. Weekend. Happened. Oy vey! Saturday night, I hosted a "Girl's Night In - Game Night."


While we're still somewhat coherent...


I have no idea what Shanda is "miming."


And the winner of "Guestures Best Performance" goes to....Trina!


I made a vegetarian version of scalloped potatoes. We had plenty of food and sugary cocktails. Of course, I indulged. A LOT. Those two pounds I lost? I found them again. Just a side note...we played a game called, Partini, and it was a blast. The packaging, in and of itself, is fun. I'm such a sucker for packaging.

This week, once again, I'm back on track. Yesterday, though, I had a huge craving for sugary sweets. I had some dark chocolate cooking chips at home, so I had a handful of those. My hope was that if I indulged a little, I would satisfy my craving and avoid it overwhelming me to the point that I would completely binge. It worked pretty well. I wonder if the craving was my body's reaction to the sudden change in my sugar intake. Seems logical, right? Although, I am still getting sugar from fruit each day...but according to the video previously posted, sugar from fruits & veggies aren't so bad, because it's offset by the fiber contained in the food.

This morning, I weighed myself; 2 more pounds gone! That's a total of 5lbs since I made a conscious effort to nix sugar from my diet.

Hey, 10 Pounds...Take A Hike!

Last week, I was talking with a friend of mine about some research I did on artificial sweeteners. What I found was really disturbing. Splenda inhibits the good bacteria in your digestive tract? No thank you. Some of the others were equally bad - pun intended - and worse. One article discussed how, due to the intense sweetness of artificial sweeteners, it was causing us to have a bigger sweet tooth and, as a result, actually making us more overweight. Ugh. I'm sure that last bit holds some truth, but probably depends on other factors, as well. But, still...

I told my friend that after what I read about artificial sweeteners, I completely nixed using them. Instead, I began using honey...loads and loads of honey. And, if a recipe called for sugar, I would substitute (unsweetened) applesauce. As a last resort, I would use sugar, but sparingly. He told me about a really powerful lecture made by a professor/doctor in California about sugar. He sent me a YouTube link that really shocked me. It's about just how bad fructose and high fructose corn syrup is; how our bodies break it down and metabolize the stuff*. Although, it's pretty long - 1 1/2 hrs - it's completely worth sitting through. In the video, this book is mentioned. It was written decades ago and, evidently, much of what is "prophesied" has or is happening due to our over dependence on sugar and sugar substitutes. I'd like to read the book, but it's difficult to find and even more expensive!

After watching the YouTube video, I looked up the chemical properties of honey and, oh boy. It's mostly fructose with a little bit of sucrose and inflammatory properties kicked in. So, while I will still use honey and sugar, both will be extremely sparingly!

When Lent rolled around, I decided that it would be a good opportunity to give up (10lbs by giving up)sugar, even though, I no longer consider myself Catholic. Meh, it's a good time to do something good for yourself and others. I can experiment and share how my journey makes me feel and tell others so that they can, hopefully, reap the same benefits!

So, here we go. So far, I'm beginning to get used to how my coffee tastes like crap without any sweetener. I do still use creamer; however, I moving to Silk brand soy creamer, which only contains 3g of sugar. This week, I've lost 2lbs. That's not completely unusual. I'm more likely to lose or maintain my weight during the work week, then everything goes to hell in a handbag on the weekend. Last night, I had a birthday dinner to attend. I made dessert; orange walnut cake. The recipe that I've found does contain brown sugar, but not too much. I used dark brown sugar and decreased the amount by about 1/4c. My motivation was to avoid ordering something worse at the restaurant!



It was not only edible but very well received by everyone at the dinner. No one's plate had even a crumb left. Which is a huge compliment, as I'm not the best cook.


*read poison