Sugar Count? ...Ain't Nobody Got Time Fo' Dat!

I will start off by admitting I do not have numbers for you this week. And I will also admit that while I did better in some aspects this week, I did much worse with the overarching goals: No Sugar.

Well, I think I did worse at least... While I did continue to track my food and sugar content this week, the problem came in the fact Mingus packed LouLou "over the river and through the woods" to Mamaw's house in Indiana. 

While Mingus and I are very conscious of our food intake and working to get good nutritional value (and keep out the bad stuff), we are far from perfect. This means, when we travel, usually fast food is involved. That's where things got dicey this week. Over the three days we were away from home we had Long John Silvers, Chick-Fil-A and Arby's. Additionally, we also ate Mexican out with the family. It's not that we indulged in treats on any of these occasions. I even passed on Chick-Fil-A's Polynesian Sauce after I looked at the ingredients and saw that high fructose corn syrup was the first thing listed. (I shouldn't be surprised at all, but it was still a major disappointment... I love that stuff!) We skipped sodas and really we just ate sandwiches and fries on all occasions (minus the Mexican of course). But based on what I am learning about sugar's sneaky ways of getting into our foods, something tells me those sandwiches and fries had sugar in them--at least to some extend, if not a major extent. 

I know I probably could spend a good chunk of time with Dr. Google and find out the exacts on everything I ate, but, really... Ain't nobody got time fo' dat.

In addition to the fast food, we weren't overly picky about the food that was available to us and I'm sure we picked up a little extra sugar in things like the peanut butter I ate or the crescent rolls for breakfast.

Next confessions: I used my once a week cheat allowance.

32oz Frozen Margarita: 156g Sugar Source

Mingus and I split a frozen margarita... Although we didn't exactly split it as half of it was remaining when we left the restaurant. Neither of us had had one in ages. For whatever reason, I felt better about this being my 'cheat' than something like cake. Maybe, because it's truly something I rarely indulge in and in the big scheme of things, when Lent is over, I hope to avoid indulging in sugary treats on a regular occasion (ie, any time the opportunity presents itself) and only for the rarities. The margarita is a perfect example: something I don't have the opportunity to enjoy too often. (The fact Mingus and I agreed, together, to allow this cheating moment also made it feel OK. He and I are in this together.)

Since it was my 'cheat', I did look up the sugar content of the margarita. I found that a standard 32oz drink has 156g of sugar!! Wowzers! Luckily, Mingus and I only had a 20oz drink... But only drank half of it (10oz) and I (at most) had half of that (5oz)... Which means I had approximately 24g of sugar. Still...so much sugar from 5oz!

Considering what this week could have meant... I did really well. Before our margarita splurge we'd attended our nephew's 4th birthday party, complete with a beautiful cake and scrumptious looking cupcakes. I originally thought this would be my cheat... But when it came time for cake cutting, it just didn't seem worth it. Probably the harder temptation to turn down this week was a brownie... Ooooh brownies. Nothing gets me quite like a ooey, gooey, chewy brownie full of chocolate goodness... But I resisted nonetheless.

At home, everything actually progressed (if that makes up for the weekend at all..) The only bad sugar I consumed came from ketchup, hot dog buns and one can of Campbell's soup. All other sugar was primarily natural occurring with a few things that had natural sweeteners like honey and agave syrup.

What I have learned is what a HUGE amount of sugar--naturally occurring sugar--we get from our fruits. It's crazy actually and when you do realize this, you truly understand why there is absolutely no reason to add sugar to your diet. Our bodies do need some, yes, but when you can easily get more than enough from a single apple, the refined sugars are completely uncalled for. I eat raisins practically everyday because of my oatmeal which means I'm probably getting over 20g of sugar just from that!

Source

If you are more of visual person, this blog post gives a very simple and easy to understand picture of how much sugar we get from fruits, as well as from other foods. Take a look...then consider what you're eating for breakfast... or what you are feeding your kids for breakfast. 

Source

On to another week... No major traveling happening so hopefully I'll be back on track!

Sugar Dump Week 1: 9g/day... Fail?

One week of NO SUGAR (well, refined sugars to be specific) down ...aaannnd... How'd I do?

Excellent...yet failed miserably at the same time!

As promised, I have been keeping record of what I'm eating each day to track my sugar intake. I've kind of categorized things in 3 ways:
     - Naturally occurring sugars (like those in fruit)
     - Natural sweeteners (like honey, agave)
     - Refined Sugars (sugar, high fructose corn syrup)

With the first two, it's hard to track my sugar intake unless they are being used within another food that I bought at a store and the nutritional info is listed. For example, I've eaten a lot of grapes and pineapple this week... NO idea the sugar on those so they are not included in my totals; I simply mark them on my sheet to denote I DID get sugar from them. (Although I'm sure I could research online and get the info easy enough.) On the other hand, I bought a bag of apples and they had nutritional info.... 16g of sugar per (what they considered a) small apple! Perfect example of why there is absolutely NO reason to ever add sugar to your diet!

And I'll tell you one thing I've already learned... What's the fastest way to get me to refill the honey pot? Tell me I can't have sugar!! Our squeeze bear and our honey pot have both been empty for a couple of months now... We have VERY limited honey left from what we extracted two years ago (plus it's a sticky mess to refill), so both Mingus and I have put off refilling either... But, let me tell you, two days into no sugar you can bet I was digging out what honey we had left!

But, the point is, I did consume honey last week... in multiple things... I can't really track that one either, assuming it brings some type of sugar into my system. 

So total, for what I could track--of good and bad sugars--I consumed 233g last week, averaging 33g a day. How much was refined sugar? 63g... 27% of it. I averaged 9g of refined sugar a day even when I was cutting out everything to the best I could!! Now just imagine how much sugar I have been getting on a daily basis when I WASN'T cutting it out? When I was enjoying bagels, instant oatmeal, ice cream, chocolate...

So here's where my refined sugar came from:

• Pasta Sauce: It's REALLY hard to find it without sugar... And we figured we didn't want to throw out what we already had open so this was definitely our biggest downfall. The Ragu we had contained 12g in 1/2 a cup of sauce!!
• Ketchup: We LOVE our Brook's ketchup... Bad news... It has high fructose corn syrup :( But, again, we didn't want to waste what we already have open, but it has 5g/2T!
• Store-bought breads: hotdog and burger buns plus any bread. I guess I need to get back to making my own and not just bumming a loaf a week off of my mom! These breads had 3g/serving... And sugar was actually listed as an ingredient. I'm sure our bread has sugar, but in the natural way and from the honey.
• Balsamic Vinegrette Dressing: It's open in our fridge and for the little bit that is in there I have gone ahead and used it on the salads I made this week.... 4g/2T...
• Ritz Crackers: For the record, I only ate a few... Because the packet was already open and would go bad if they sat for 40 days!

So, you can see, it's not like I was consuming the obvious sugar-loaded foods. In fact... most of the things we ate that had refined sugar were very minor amounts (in comparison to most sugar foods), but it adds up so quickly! Again, if I'm getting 9g/day and really trying to keep the stuff out... just imagine the overload we all get when we're not paying attention?

Has it been hard? Yes and no. 

Ironically, the hardest and most tempting place I've been has been church! Darn the good people and their delicious baked goods!! Both on Ash Wednesday and after Sunday mass there was food in the basement. I know I gave myself the "cheat once a week" rule and I was SO tempted to use it this past Sunday, but I opted out... I knew if I just got out of there I wouldn't regret not touching any of those donuts or pastries... 

The other hard part is breakfast... Not so much at home. I have been fixing oatmeal, but last Friday I headed out early. There was absolutely nowhere I could stop and grab something to eat, particularly because, in combination with the no sugar, as a Catholic I don't eat meat on Fridays... so no breakfast sandwiches either. At least I thought of my limited options before I left the house and I grabbed an apple... (16g of sugar right there--but natural!)

I did make a trip to Whole Foods to shop for items we needed (spaghetti sauce) and items I could use for snacking throughout the day. (This breastfeeding thing keeps me hungry constantly!) While I did not find teriyaki sauce or pasta sauce with zero sugar... I did find it with either organic cane sugar, cane syrup or agave syrup instead. In fact, everything I got at whole foods that had some amount of sugar content, I was able to get with one of those natural, organic sugars/sweeteners.

How did the shopping trip turned out?

Having new, safe, healthier snack options in the house has saved me big time! It's kind of funny when I think about it... I thoroughly enjoy snacking on what my options have been this week: grapes, pineapple, apples, sesame sticks, dried fruit and nuts, rice crackers, sweet potato chips, peanut butter... I think my past problem has been two fold: (a) I have bad sweets available in the house (b) As long as those sweet treats are there, the 'healthy' snacks don't appeal.

Mingus has been happy with his decision to nix the sugar as well. While we don't keep soda on hand, he typically drinks it for lunch and cutting it is definitely helping him. We've enjoyed a lot of popcorn for our late night snack (no microwave of course). 

Oh... And I have found my ice cream substitute: plain organic yogurt with honey and a drop of vanilla... Yum!!

A Sweet Farewell

It's official. No sugar.

Or something pretty darn close.

After paying attention to everything in our pantry over the past two weeks, I realize that completely cutting sugar will be next to impossible. Luckily, it will be easier since Mingus has decided to take on this Lenten goal with me. (Meaning he won't be tempting me with sweet treats and stuffing the cabinets full of things I can't touch.)

I admit, we've kind of gone overboard on sugar the last couple of weeks, knowing we were going this direction. We used the excuse of giving it up to kind of overdose lately. (I was also using the excuse that I needed to eat up anything in the house that would be tempting me later!)

So, I won't be eating anything that is outright sugary. However, I'm giving myself a couple of rules of allowance since this is a bit extreme.
(1.) If I make it from scratch, we can eat it. (With a 4 month old, a part time job and plenty of house work, it's not like I have time to bake cookies and cakes on a daily basis or anything.) I usually try to use at least partial honey as my sweetener anyway.
(2.) I'll give a once a week exception to a sweet treat.

Having mentioned honey already, I should note that we are OK with natural sweeteners like this.

Here are a few things that are going to be hard to work with:

• Pasta Sauce: Mingus tried to find one without sugar over the weekend at our regular grocery with no such luck. Pasta is an easy staple, so we will probably still make it with our current sauce, but we are on the look out for something better at a health food store. (We also have a couple of jars of our homemade, but we're saving that for a rainy day.)
• Teriyaki Sauce and Soy Sauce: Another go-to staple in our house is stir-fr. We always have veggies and rice in the house and usually some chicken breast or tofu. Again, though, these sauces have sugar/high fructose corn syrup. We will be using Tamari in place of the Soy (Tamari is REAL soy sauce... as in ONLY soy... Why it isn't called 'soy' sauce, I cannot tell you...) We'll have to keep looking for a healthy teriyaki option
• Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing: Probably our most usual salad dressing for our quick salads we eat with a lot of meals. We have made our own dressings in the past and it looks like we might need to get back to that.
• Crackers: A lot of crackers have some sugar in them, so it's just something else we'll have to pay attention to when shopping. Also, I've taken to liking Wheat Thins as a snack, but they will definitely be out during this process. (Graham crackers will too obviously.)
• Peanut Butter: We're actually OK with this one. We currently have a jar of Earth Balance peanut butter and its only sweetener is agave nectar. However, I know a lot of PB has plenty of sugar in it. 

Since I can't give up sugar completely at this point, I am going to do my best to track how much sugar I do have in a day's time. I'll write down the amount in anything that has a food label. Now, things like fruits and veggies all have an amount of natural occurring sugars in them I'm sure and I won't know how much I'm getting from these, so I'll just note if I ate certain fruits on a given day. I'm very curious to see how much sugar my body is still getting when I'm cutting out the obvious sugars.

Wish me luck and good luck to you and your Lenten sacrifices and penances. May it be a blessed season of reflection for us all. 

Now back to my last pint of ice cream I'll be enjoying for awhile...

March for the win!

- 60-70 degree days and sunshine........................................................... +20 

- Tornados, rain and snow........................................................................ -15 

- Flowers blooming................................................................................... + 3 

- March Madness basketball action.......................................................... +10 

- March madness consuming tv & facebook............................................. - 5 

- Losing an hour of sleep from daylight savings....................................... -10 

- Longer days and more hours of sunlight................................................ +15 

- Possession of Jotul stove for the future home....................................... +12 

- Apartment painting resulting in clutter and mess...................................  -7 

- 2 Godchildren birthdays......................................................................... +10 

- Sister & sister-in-law birthdays............................................................... +10 

- St. Patty's Day!!!!!................................................................................... +30

- No meat on Fridays................................................................................ - 5 

- Fish Fry Fridays ..................................................................................... +15 

- Hanging out with friends in Lex............................................................... +20 

- Missing friend's birthday in Lou............................................................... -12 

- Spending lots of $$ on car maintenance................................................. -20

- The Hunger Games movie comes to theaters........................................ +20 

GRAND TOTAL IS.....................................101%

I'd say that spring is off to a great start....! :)