Day Eight 3/8/16

Hello everyone and welcome to the finish of day eight in my wonderful experiment of not eating any sugar or flour for the month of March.  I’m still chugging away and haven’t slipped yet, so thanks for your support and for not having pizzas delivered to my house.  For this blog, I wanted to share some “behind-the-scenes” stuff that helped me get to this point.  I call this……..
How Facebook helped shape my experiment.

After my most recent annual physical, the doctor explained that my aches and pains weren’t due to some horrible illness that he could remedy with a pill or a laser.  Instead he nicely explained that I’m getting older and I’m not eating the way I should be.  This wasn’t the explanation I was expecting because over the previous months I had gotten accustomed to an ache here and a twinge there as part of daily life.  After pondering things for a while, I realized I would have to discover for myself the impact a poor diet had on my body.

Around that same time, it seemed that many friends on Facebook were sharing the same Memes about staying in a log cabin for a year without internet for a million dollars, or spending a night in a haunted house for a million bucks.  I’m sure you’ve seen them, or something similar, asking what you would do for some reward.

This started me thinking, what would I do to not have aches and pains for prolonged periods of time?  What would I give up or start doing in exchange for that reward?  I watched a documentary called Fed Up, which talks frankly about the sugar industry and the control it has over our lives, and at the end was a challenge to go a week without sugar to feel the change.  That started my brain working on a plan to begin an experiment.  While I’m not a glutton for punishment, I did know that a week was too short a timeframe to try anything new.  You barely feel the effects after a week and you haven’t really put any change into effect.  It takes 21 days to change a habit and the information I read about sugar stated it would be around two weeks for your body to adjust to functioning without it.

I’m not going to lie to you, my original plan was to use February as my experiment month, but the timing just wasn’t right and I hadn’t mentally prepped myself or the family for what was to come.  I wanted to use a full month, start to finish, so March became the deadline.

My goal isn’t to preach the gospel of “no sugar” to folks or look down on soda drinkers out there.  I think at the end of this month, which I hopefully survive, my plan is to have you ask yourself, “What would I do in exchange for feeling better, minimizing a medication I'm taking, not having to use insulin, or not feel aches and pains”.   If you look at it as an “experiment” like I am, then you aren’t thinking about living the rest of your life without things.  Suddenly it doesn’t become about eating your last slice of pizza ever or enjoying a final brownie before entering the dark world of no sugar.  It simply becomes a test of your will, with an exact ending date.

The catch here is that when I get to the end of the month, I don’t know for sure how I’ll feel or where my mind will be.  Maybe the “me” at the end of March will determine that my experiment is worth extending because of feeling better or seeing positive results.  You just never know, but you can guarantee you’ll never find out if you don’t start.  This month is just my start.

What I ate today

Do I even have to list my breakfast anymore?  How about I list it if I don’t eat something other than some scrambled eggs, kielbasa, and some shredded cheese.

I was out on the road today so I thought ahead and brought a banana, which came in handy when my trip around town took longer than usual.

Lunch was a small taco salad because I’m still trying to use up that taco meat.  I also used the cloud bread and made up a ham and havarti sandwich on it.  Cooked it in the microwave for a minute and tried it out.  The cloud bread held together like bread, but I thought it felt more like I was eating a very light omelet with meat and cheese.  Not necessarily a bad thing.

Dinner was meatloaf, corn, and applesauce.  I didn’t realize that applesauce would be such a hit with the family during this time.  It’s like my 8 year old had never eaten it before and is constantly asking for it.  One tip here though, make sure you buy the “natural” applesauce and not the regular.  Check the ingredients and make sure it just says apples and water.

​Well, off to day nine!