Four Days and Counting!

I decided to do the 8-week challenge, which officially started yesterday. I'm eating 2 fruit servings a day and 3 vegetable servings, exercising 30-45 minutes a day, and cutting out sugar. There are a handful of other things involved, but the challenge that really gets me is the no sugar. I can't remember a time when I went a whole day without eating sugar. Seriously, I can't. I have a terrible, terrible addiction and even Josh gets surprised at me sometimes because of how much sugar I consume in a day.

So in order to survive this challenge, which allows for only one day in every seven to enjoy sweet treats, I thought I'd take the no-sugar thing out for a test-drive over the weekend. I started Friday morning and didn't eat sugar once, even though I almost caved by 8 pm and ate an ice cream drumstick. Josh helped talk me down.

By Saturday morning I was in full detox, with a massive migraine and a nauseous stomach. I couldn't eat anything after breakfast until I had taken a nap and a very strong prescription pain medication. Then I was famished and ate an entire Cafe Rio salad. So good.

Sunday was a bit tempting because I get snackish after church but we don't really have a lot of sugar in the house except for the last pieces of ice cream that we bought in a variety pack from Costco. Because I ate so many of those the week before, I promised Josh he could eat the rest. I didn't want to steal from him so I didn't eat any sugar.

Yesterday wasn't that tempting until I went grocery shopping with Josh just before dinner. Every item in the store that had the tiniest bit of sugar in it looked AMAZING! I seriously wanted to eat everything. I caught myself fantasizing at the bakery and had to run away. With Josh's help I survived and didn't bring any sugary snacks into the house to tempt me. When it's not around, it's a lot easier to resist.

I have not lost any weight so far. I've allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted outside of sugar, and it's been an interesting experiment. At first I would eat just buckets of food to try to satisfy my craving for sugar. If I'm full to bursting, I don't want the treat, right? Not quite, but I had a few tummyaches while I was figuring that out. Yesterday I tried to eat more consciously and even talked Josh into eating at Zupa's instead of Arby's. I ate a French bread pizza for lunch, which is not nutritious, but I wouldn't allow myself to eat more food even though I was still hungry after eating it. I'm trying now to get my portions under control since I've come out the other side of sugar detoxification. I figure if I exercise a little and cut down my portions a little and abstain from sugar a little, I should be able to lose weight. I don't have to go all gung-ho and starve myself--I'm not even monitoring what I eat all that much. Just making sure to include some good things in between the regular things.

My coworker did the challenge for six weeks and she lost 1-2 pounds a week. That's the healthy slow weight loss that stays off and makes you feel strong and look good. I hope to see the same results soon!