Category Archives: Miscellany

Back at the beginning of June, I pledged to go the entire summer (June 1 through September 1) without eating obvious sweets, or any food with sugar listed as the first or second ingredient.

People thought I was nuts. Others said they admired me. I feared I couldn’t do it, feared I’d break down in the first week. Especially in that first week, which was oh-so-hard. I was exhausted, down to the bone, for several days. I was cranky. I craved everything I saw. I indulged in Pringles and Doritos and all sorts of salty, bready foods.

But I didn’t eat sugar. I didn’t eat sugar while at the Jersey Shore. I didn’t eat sugar on my husband’s birthday, even though I’d said at the beginning of this whole thing that I could have a piece of cake that mid-July day if I wanted. I baked his cake and frosted it, without so much as a single lick of the batter. And I love cake batter. I smelled it when we served it, but opted not to eat it. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to stop once I started.

As the summer went on, it got easier. In part because the sugar cravings were going away, in part because I could see some positive things happening (I felt less irritable and less controlled by food), and in part because I kept eating Pringles. Pringles. Pringles.

I made it all the way to September 1st. On that day, I made brownies (because we were going to a picnic and I needed to bring something). I had two licks of brownie batter. I didn’t want any more. It kind of tasted good, but also kind of not, and just a few minutes later I felt a bit sick from it. That hardly seemed possible, to feel oogey after a spoonful of batter, when I knew full well that I probably could have scarfed the whole bowl of batter last spring, and would have wanted more.

I give thanks that I made it through the entire summer. I really didn’t think I would. I tend to be gung-ho on new eating plans for a maximum of about six weeks before I cave and leap off the wagon. I’m sure letting myself eat chips and crackers and the like figured prominently into my success with not eating sugar.

On September 1st, I found myself about eight to ten pounds lighter. I feel happier and a bit more in control of my food than I have in a while. When we attended my kids’ Back To School picnic at the end of August, I didn’t hover near the food tables, didn’t feel compelled to keep snitching food, didn’t let thoughts of desserts override interactions with friends. It was marvelous to feel liberated from my all-consuming sugar addiction.

So guess what? I decided I’m not stopping. Nope, I’m keeping up with this sugarless lifestyle. Again, I’ve told myself if on major holidays I want something sweet that I can have it. I’ve told myself if I want three days at Christmas to bake myself silly (sweet things, people. Not pot!), I can.

I hope I won’t, but I have to give myself those outs, or it all feels too scary. But I also decided to add parameters, because in truth I know eating my weight in Pringles isn’t any healthier than eating my weight in chocolate bars. It was time to let go of that crutch. I also want to drop more weight (and know I would have if it hadn’t been for all the chips), and to feel less fatigued. There are fewer broad swings in my energy level, but I’m still tired much more often than I want to be.

So for this fall, I am going without chips or crackers, in addition to not eating sugar things. Some people think I’m crazy. I think I’m trying to save my life.

I’ve already noticed ways in which I’m searching for my “new” fix. I went through a fast food drive-thru twice last week, something which I’d been mostly successfully avoiding since May. I ate macaroni and cheese for lunch (the entire box) two days in a row. Clearly there are still battles raging. I’m not ready yet to fully give up wheat/flour items, although I suspect if I did I’d be that much closer to putting the nail in the lid of my food addiction coffin. I’m not ready yet, even though I long to be.

Still, this working on one thing at a time, instead of my old “absolutely all or nothing” approach, is exciting for me. First, because I’m actually succeeding. And second, because it’s challenging my own inner critic that says if I’m not doing everything “right”, I’m not doing anything right. That critic needs to be driven out, whether she’s talking about food or body size or writing.

Cheer me on, will you? This isn’t easy. This weekend I’m craving all sorts of things, and totally want to hit the drive-thru, order a pizza, or make more of my beloved mac and cheese. I guess I’m still a food addict with a long way to go. But I’m pleased I’ve at least got both feet on the path now, and they’re aiming in the right direction.

Well, here we are in August. In three more weeks, I can go face down into a vat of cookie dough if I want. I might.

But I hope I don’t. This experiment hasn’t been the runaway weight loss success story I had hoped for (owing, of course, to the fact that when I give up one thing *cough SUGAR cough*, I’m SO GOOD at finding other things with which to replace it *cough PRINGLES cough*). Last I checked I WAS down about 8 pounds. But I haven’t checked this week. And, well, the family has been away this week. And, um, let’s just say it’s good I don’t live alone, because I indulged in a lot of bad food. A LOT. So who knows what the scale will say tomorrow?

Weight aside, though (ha, as if), this experiment HAS been a success in other ways. First and foremost, I’ve actually done it. I didn’t cave in week one. I didn’t cave in month one. And here I am, nine or so weeks later and I’m still not eating sugar. Pretty darn cool. Second, there are benefits I HAVE noticed, namely that I truly don’t think I’m as moody, and I’m definitely not feeling quite as enslaved to food. Notice I didn’t say I felt free, as I’m still waging a mighty battle against my remaining carbohydrate addiction. Still, I feel better ENOUGH that I’m feeling willing to tackle MORE changes.

For a week in July I had done well in moving my Pringles or other indulgences (mac and cheese) to a meal; I could eat them, I just had to ensure I ate them at breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Were I hungry between meals, I could snack on fruit, veggies, or protein. This worked great and I dropped pounds, but somehow I fell away from that again.

My goal, therefore, for the next few weeks is to get back to that: limit problem carbs to a meal time and eat them with protein. Once we reach September, I’m contemplating giving up wheat. I’ve been reading Wheat Belly, which is telling me modern wheat is the root of all evil. I know just from paying a teensy weensy bit of attention that what still calls my name beyond anything else are wheat products. Pringles (yes, they are a potato chip product, but they are made of potatoes and wheat). Macaroni and cheese. Tortillas. Going gluten-free again as well as sugar-free may be a useful next step to see if it helps (and since my son already eats gluten-free, we have gluten-free options in the house, so it wouldn’t be so bad).

We’ll see. First goal is to stop the inhalation of crappy foods and get back to the 3 meals a day plan. Second goal is to celebrate September 1st, because even if I’m not exactly where I wanted to be, I HAVE refrained from eating desserts or anything with sugar as the first or second ingredient, and if you’d asked me in May if I’d thought I could do that, my answer would have been, “BWAH HA HA. Not.”

Meanwhile, go eat a cookie for me.

It’s July 19th. July 19th, people! That means I’m more than half-way through my Sugarless Summer! I can hardly believe it myself – I truly doubted whether I would make it more than a week on this adventure.

Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. I had told myself from the start that if I wished to have cake on his birthday, I could. I baked the cake, made the frosting, frosted the cake, cut the cake, served the cake, and…didn’t eat the cake.

Don’t get me wrong – I indulged in junk food yesterday on his birthday. I ate a McD’s egg and cheese biscuit for breakfast, had a can of Pringles for lunch (yes, you read that right), and ate a hamburger with fries when we went out for dinner. Score yesterday: Vegetables, 0, Junk Food 50 billion.

But I didn’t eat the cake. It was a decision I made on my own. I just didn’t want to risk it. The dang thing smelled absolutely delicious – and that’s what worried me. Could I really eat just ONE piece of cake and not touch it again? I doubted it.

The most wonderful thing about NOT eating that cake is I didn’t even do it just to stay true to this bet with myself, to this sugar-free dare. I did it because I honestly feel better not eating the sugared things. I feel more even-keeled (please note the MORE; my family would agree I’m still, um, a bit on the moody side), more in control, and just better about myself when I’m not in the clutches of the Sugar Devil.

Still, this is not easy. Today I made cornbread from a mix – a mix I bought without checking the ingredients, apparently, as just as I was about to indulge in a piece, I looked at the box and discovered, to my chagrin, that sugar was the second ingredient, and that there were double-digit grams of sugar per (puny) serving. The cornbread was out.

Between that and the cake yesterday, my willpower is feeling quite low, and the sense of deprivation is clawing at my belly today. So it’s possible, it’s possible I might order a pizza tonight.

Y’all can give me grace on that, right? Because I didn’t eat the blasted cake, and part of me really, really wanted to.

Every year my family goes to Ocean City, New Jersey for a week. My husband’s mom grew up near there and has a house there now, so it’s been our annual summer destination since my son was an infant. The kids love it because they get to see their cousins – and go in the water, and ride the rides, and play in the arcades, and play mini-golf, etc. The adults enjoy seeing family. Me? I have a love/hate relationship with it.

I love the shore because I love the ocean. I love the grandness of it, the lulling roar of the waves, the imaginings it incites as I look out at the horizon and wonder about all the adventures that have happened on that vast body of water. I love the soothing feel of the water lapping at my feet, the gentle squishing of the sand between my toes, the crying of the seagulls, the smell of salt water in the air…

I hate the shore because, generally speaking, I have to don a swimsuit while there. I have to look at others in swimming suits. And doing so brings home the fact, painfully so, that I am heavy, that I don’t look the way I wish I looked, that I don’t feel comfortable in my own skin – at least when I have to expose said skin. This was especially true this year, as I’m near my heaviest again, and battling against sugar, and so all things body/weight-related are once again, unfortunately, dominating my brain.

I also love the shore because I love shore food. Boardwalk pizza, crumb cake, Kohr Bros yogurt, etc., etc. I hate the shore for the same reason. I figured this year would be challenging to avoid all the desserts, but told myself, “Eh, no biggie, I can have all the pizza I want.” I did, indeed, indulge too much in said pizza. But I was surprised at just how deprived of sweets I felt throughout the week, since generally I haven’t felt that way. Then again, here at home I’m not walking by ice cream shops and donut shops and sweets shops every few feet, as one does on the boardwalk, and I’m not having to watch my family indulge in gelato while I look on. It was hard! But I did it.

In the midst of it all and after two days of being in an absolute funk, I decided I needed to change up some things I’ve been doing, because while, yes, I’ve avoided obvious sweets and that certainly is a victory, I’ve not exactly been replacing them with healthier habits. I’ve been replacing them with pizza and Pringles. Between feeling disgustingly big all week and then dealing with the news that a relative was having quintuple bypass surgery this week, I felt ready to tackle more changes.

I’d been considering giving up the other carbs I’ve been devouring. Maybe I still should/will at some point, but hey, I need SOMETHING to have as an option when everyone else is sucking down slurpees or scarfing down birthday cake. So rather than that, I decided I was just going to make sure if/when I eat chips or pizza or bread or whatever, that I’m doing it with a meal that includes protein. If I want to eat between meals, it’s going to be fruits and veggies first, then possibly nuts. I’d originally planned on Three Meals a Day and nothing in between – which is still ideal, but hey, I don’t want to set myself up for failure, or bingeing, if I find myself starving at 3 pm, so I went with the fruits/veggies thing.

Sorry to babble so long about these food issues on what is ostensibly my author page. But you know what? Authors have struggles, too, beyond writing pains, right?

So here I am on Day 37 of my Sugarless Summer. I’m only 3 pounds lighter than when I started. But I’m excited for many reasons. I’m actually DOING it, for one. And a second biggie is that making the decision to switch to only fruits and veggies between meals doesn’t sound impossible, because I don’t feel quite so enslaved to snacks the way I used to. Well, we’ll see. I’ll check back in in a month or so…wish me luck!

So, 17 days ago I embarked on this adventure of a “sugarless” summer. Or, more aptly, a dessert-free summer, in that my initial promise was to avoid anything obviously sugary. I added on to that anything with sugar as one of the first two ingredients (which meant my beloved French dressing was out). Sugar substitutes were/are also out – it didn’t make much sense to me to replace sugar with chemicals, especially when said chemicals are being implicated all the time as instigators of sugar cravings and weight gain.

I didn’t, however, take out white flour. I still haven’t – that just feels like too much as I try to adjust to this new way of thinking. But…if I’m going to actually get anywhere on this quest for healthier, more sane eating, I may have to. Because as I’ve eased off of a sugar addiction, I’ve fallen into a salt one. Salty chips. Specifically, Pringles. Simple carbs that will turn right to sugar in my bloodstream, with the added bonus of salt to spike my thirst and make me crave more. Hooray! This is progress?!?

Now in all honesty, I hadn’t been too concerned about this carb habit. After all, I’m getting off SUGAR, people (90% of it, at least). Even my mom told me not to worry about the other stuff, about eating crackers or what have you, because a) I just needed to get through the first part of No Sweets and b) I can only change one thing at a time. She’s much more patient than I am, my mom. Which might explain why she’s much more successful, too. Maybe she has more self-control, or more impulse control. I don’t know.

What I do know is, two and a half weeks into this grand experiment, I don’t crave sugary things. At all. I walk past the bakery in the grocery store and am like, “whatevs.” I watch my family eating ice cream and marvel dispassionately at how I don’t want any. Of course I don’t want any – why would I need that when I can have the salty deliciousness of Pringles potato chips?!?

I knew I was in trouble when I realized at the end of yesterday that my food for the day had consisted of: 2 cans of Pringles (yes, entire cans), 4 white flour biscuits, and 2 bowls of tortilla chips. Maybe a banana. Is it excruciatingly embarrassing to admit that? Of course. But it was also, uh, a good reminder that, uh, the simple carbs are as addicting for me as the obviously sugary ones.

Dang it.

So today I white-knuckled it and did not buy any Pringles while at the store, even though I desperately wanted to. It wasn’t a clean day – I ate a sandwich at Subway, my first fast food in over a month (which probably had more sugar in it than I want to know), and also ate white flour tortillas at dinner. But at least I ate a real lunch and a real dinner. At least I ate some carrots and a banana and some strawberries (which are unbelievably succulently sweet, by the way).

The All-Or-Nothing Super Strict Headmistress in me wants to proclaim, “NO SIMPLE CARBS FOR YOU!” But past experience tells me that will lead to failure. And that wasn’t even the focus of the original experiment. I didn’t even care about the inhalation of the chips until the scale told me it was heading back up because of this new method of feeding my seemingly Always Starving Binge Monster. I don’t have the answers yet, and I’m not willing to impose Martial Carb Law on myself. I’m just going to try a little. I’m going to try to eat those carbs with protein. I’m going to try not to bring the stuff into the house.

But hey, can y’all please remind me that most of all I’ve got to be nicer to myself? Sure, my hope was the pounds would fall away and I would suddenly be lithe and energetic and free. Whatever. It’s a lifelong battle and this is just one of the many skirmishes in a never-ending war.

So that’s the update: 17 days in, I’m still sugar-free. And it doesn’t feel hard anymore. As long as I have those chips to fall back on. I’m still waiting for God’s lightning bolt that will zap me on the head and turn all my thoughts to that of vegetables. Waiting. Waiting…

No? Fine. Just for today, I didn’t eat any Pringles chips. Maybe I will tomorrow. Regardless, the sugar-free experiment goes on. Because all-in-all this is about much more than my weight, which my husband reminded me when he said I have seemed more even-keeled emotionally than I was in my sugar days. My Sugar Daze.