Saturday, March 26, 2011

The New, Sugar-Free Me

After much contemplation, I've decided to significantly reduce my sugar intake.  I read somewhere that women are only supposed to consume 25-35 grams of sugar per day.  That's like, one Dannon Light yogurt!  Are you kidding me?  Sugar is in everything, I've realized and I can feel the way it makes me crave more food.  I'm not sure of all the science behind it, but I realize that it's extremely hard for me to feel satisfied (and not snack) after eating sugar.  So, I'm going sugar-free.  I've reduced my sugar intake now for about 2 weeks and it's not really that bad.  I think I can still keep reducing but to be honest, I am just not ready to give up fruit (which apparently is loaded with sugar).  I mean, fruit is nature's candy.  I can't give it up.

Here's a typical day of eating for me on my new "sugar reduced" program:

Breakfast: 2/3 cup of oatmeal with a spoonful of almond butter.  This is really not that bad.  Before, I couldn't imagine oatmeal without sugar or dried fruit or SOMETHING, but with almond butter it is actually very hearty.

Lunch: salad with tofu

Dessert #1 right after lunch - dark chocolate covered almonds from Harris Teeter.  Guys, giving these up is going to be a struggle.  I am so accustomed to eating sweet things after lunch that it's going to be hard to give that up.  Major withdrawal.  I eat 1/2 a serving, which is only 6 grams of sugar.  Still it's the 2nd ingredient in the food so I know it's got to go.

Snack around 4:00 - Plain greek yogurt with some muesli and an orange.  I know this is a pretty high-sugar snack, but I run out of ideas!

Dinner around 8:30 - Salad with tofu, falafel, some sort of protein.  I've had to seriously curtail the amount of dried cherries on the salad because, as I've discovered, those are basically pure sugar.

Dessert #1 - A FEW chocolate covered almonds.

I'm going to keep updating this blog to reflect how the sugar-free program is going.  So far, I can't complain and it's definitely, definitely decreased my cravings to eat more.  I can stay full longer.   We'll see how it goes!

No comments:

Post a Comment