I learned more from 5 days without sugar than in 20 years of dieting

Fri, 03 Feb 2017 10:36:00 -0500

In 2015, I started trying to be more conscious of the way different foods make my body feel. I’ve always been anti-diet but like many women have fallen prey to popular diet fads at different times in my life. As time passed and I’ve become more aware of various forms of "food hangovers,” I decided it was finally time to stop and listen to my body.

What I know is this; I will never completely eliminate any category of food from my diet. It's not realistic or healthy to be so restrictive but I knew I needed to learn how to love smaller portions of certain things and eat much cleaner.

The most success I ever had losing weight was when I counted calories. It's an arduous task and pretty annoying, but it worked for me. But one thing I never paid attention to was my sugar intake. I thought if I was within my calorie limits, it didn't matter.

It matters.

When my friend challenged me and others to consume no more than 25g of sugar each day for 5 consecutive days, I knew I wanted to give it a shot.

There were a few more rules though. Those 25 grams needed to come from natural sources like fruits and vegetables and we couldn't use artificial sweeteners.

What seemed like an easy task became quite challenging when I realized one apple contains half the daily sugar allowance. According to the American Heart Association, 25-30g of sugar is the daily recommendation, not just some number pulled out of the air. I knew it wouldn’t be easy but I thought, it’s just five days. How hard could it be?

Five things I learned by cutting sugar

I stopped feeling hungry. This was by and large the biggest light-bulb moment of the week. I prepared my meals. I ate my meals. I was satisfied with my meals. There were several days when I wasn't even hungry for the snack I’d prepared in advance. I realized that without my normal cravings, my brain finally understood the difference between hunger and habit.
I had a lot more energy. I’ve cut calories before, which often left me exhausted. I'll be honest and say I didn't get to the gym during the challenge, but it’s not for a lack of energy. I just wanted to focus on one thing at a time.
I got a nice productivity boost. My challenge fell during a particularly trying and busy work-week. I found that when there were fires to put out, I was able to focus on the task at hand and get it done more efficiently. I was also quicker to make decisions.
Sugar is added to a LOT of products. I already have a habit of reading labels, but never really paid attention to sugar. For the challenge, I switched to using unsweetened vanilla almond milk in my coffee and that was probably the biggest adjustment for me. Cereal bars and granola bars were the other processed sugar giants that I used to lean on. They may be low in calories, but they are LOADED with sugar along with other foods like bread, pasta sauces and salad dressing.
I like eating real food. Cutting sugar does not mean eating diet food. In fact, it's more expensive to buy prepackaged program bars or special breads than to eat real whole foods that are in season. Instead of leaning on special foods or cutting breads entirely, I reduced my portions of certain items, like eating sandwiches open-faced with one slice of bread instead of two or using oil and vinegar to mix my own dressing rather than something premade.

The bottom line is eating less sugar was not only sustainable, it was actually enjoyable. It didn’t take long at all for my taste buds to adjust and I felt much better with less sugar in my system.

So I am passing on the challenge. If you haven’t tried the 5-day no added sugar challenge, the New Year is a great time to start. I mean, it’s only one work-week.

How hard could it be?

Chicago Cubs win the World Series (all you need is baseball)

Thu, 03 Nov 2016 12:30:00 -0400

It's been a long time since I was a baseball fan but growing up, I was IN TO IT. I collected baseball stickers and watched the games and as a FL native, went to many spring training games locally.

A couple of times on vacation, I got to see the real thing. One summer, my dad took me to a Yankees game during a trip to NYC while my mom and sisters shopped at Bloomingdale's. Then a couple years later, I went to a Cubs game with my parents while visiting family in nearby Prophetstown, Ill. where my dad grew up. He's been a lifelong Cubs fan and passed this along to me. We ate hot dogs and ice cream and sang Take Me Out to the Ballgame with Harry Caray. It was practically cinematic. And yes, the Cubs lost as they often did in the 80s

This little walk down memory lane is, of course, brought to you by the unbelievable 7-game World Series this year when the Chicago Cubs finally broke their 108 year losing streak in extra innings during Game 7. Last night was electric and I still can't stop thinking about it. But this is a feeling I haven't had for baseball in decades.

Once I hit the teen years and began having other interests, combined with the big baseball strike, I became disillusioned with the game and stopped paying attention. But the moment I knew the Cubs were in the series, it was like years of dormant fandom just sprang to life. I was surprised to realize this actually meant something to me. I had that physical pang of homesickness inside. They just had to win. My dad said, "I've been waiting 70 years for this!" and somehow even though I'm half his age, I felt like I had too.

Even still, it's been a busy few weeks with travel and holidays and I've been keeping my eye on the games but trying not to be too involved. Baseball is a funny thing and even the least superstitious among us get crazy ideas when their team is winning (or losing). I had only been checking scores online so when I saw the Cubs were winning, I thought gosh I'd better not watch because I don't want to jinx it! I saw many many other people say similar things. I laughed when I saw Jim Gaffigan's tweet the other day because he is all of us.

It doesn't really matter which team you are rooting for. There's something about being a fan that makes us believe we actually play a part in the outcome. And while most of us truly understand this isn't the case, that connection means we get to celebrate the win as if it were our own. That's community.

Wednesday night was incredible and the entire country felt it. It's just one of those moments when people truly understood each other. It was a connection that I didn't realize I'd been missing for a while. What a refreshing diversion from the gloom and doom of reality this year

It turns out that we don't need one person to make America great again or to tell us how to be stronger together. All we needed was a great game of baseball

Congratulations, Cubbies. And thanks for the memories.

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I learned more from 5 days without sugar than in 20 years of dieting

Chicago Cubs win the World Series (all you need is baseball)