Day Two: Sugar headache

So at first I thought I would be okay to follow a sugar detox that was already created: The 21 day sugar detox. But after reading up on it more I realized that I would have to cut out bread, oatmeal and fruit and that just doesn't really fit with my lifestyle. The bread that we eat only has 1 or 2g of sugar in it and my morning oatmeal is super healthy, made with flax, chia, hemp and either a few blueberries or pieces of cut up apple. I usually have it with honey, but I figure if I cut that part out, the rest of it is very low sugar.

Fruit is one that I am debating. I actually want to encourage myself to eat more of it and a bigger variety of fruit, however I do recognize that there is a lot of natural sugar in fruit so I think I will do a bit more reading on whether or not it's truly necessary to cut natural sugars out when you're trying to stop yourself from eating refined sugar.

In any case, yesterday I went the whole day without a single sweet tea, piece of chocolate or any refined sugar at all! So yay me!

However I started having a headache around 9pm and went to bed super early and even though I woke up at 7, after a good 10 hours of sleep, I'm still very sleepy this morning and the headache is back. Darn. I have heard that I might feel foggy and have a headache for a good week, so I was expecting that, but it doesn't make it any better.

Today's breakfast was the same as yesterdays: 2 egg omelette with grape tomatoes, spinach and feta cheese. And then, of course, I was starving around 10:30 so I made a green smoothie. Almond milk (unsweetened), vanilla protein powder, a large handful of spinach, 1/2 a banana and some frozen blueberries.

I now feel full, but sleepy again. I feel like I could sleep for a week.

Here's is a very blurry picture of what I'm having for lunch. Broccoli, carrots, beet crackers and two tablespoons of hummus. Delicious but I'm guessing I'll be hungry again in another couple of hours. All this sitting around and studying has me very bored and boredom leads to hunger. You know what would be really good right now?

Persian tea with honey. Mmmmm. I can almost taste it.

Instead, back to my veggies and dip.

Day One: This is hard

This is already hard.

It's 9:19 and I had breakfast about an hour ago and I'm already feeling hungry again.

Two eggs, spinach, grape tomatoes sprinkled with a decent amount of Bulgarian sheep feta. It was delicious.

But now I'm sitting at my desk, studying for a final exam that I have on Friday and so I'm bored. Bored and thirsty. Sweet tea would be really good right now.

I will try some water with a slice of lemon and see if that helps.

It was good, but it didn't help.

So then I had a slice of toast with organic peanut butter. And that helped.

But it would have been better with a bit of honey.

I also had a cup of tea with no sugar in it which was as horrible as it sounds. I hope I can get used to it, but I'm doubtful.

Then I studied, off and on, until 1:30 when I was hungry again and decided to have lunch.

I wanted to have a salad, or some raw veggies with this but we are completely out so I am going to head to the grocery store once I pick the kids up. In any case, this tuna melt plus 1/2 cup of Annie's lentil soup hit the spot. There was 2g of sugar in the slide of whole wheat bread and 3g in the lentil soup, however, so then I looked at the list of foods that I'm allowed to have on the 21 day detox and realized that bread is not on that list. Whoops! Lentils are on it, but only a 1/2 cup per day, which is fine as it's what I had.

I wonder why bread is not allowed? The one we buy has very little sugar added. I guess I'll have to wait to read the book to find out. And then I'll have to decide if I want to follow the detox that strictly or if I just want to cut out all of the honey and sweets that I've been having. I think I want to follow it strictly, but I'm not sure I'm a fan of such a low carb diet. I'll have to think on that for a bit.

Why am I doing this?

I consume way too much sugar.

This statement has always been true. I used to have a daily cup of sweetened tea, a few cookies here and there, gelato in the summer and if I'm honest, a handful of chocolate chips whenever they were in the cupboard. Oh, and cookie dough. Don't even get me started on that.

However then I started a Master's program and my sugar intake doubled or even tripled. Now I am drinking three to four cups of sweet tea a day and although I'm not into the cookies or gelato as much as I used to be, when I measure it out, I'm drinking a ton of calories in the form of honey. And so, inevitably, I've gained some weight. 15lbs to be exact.

This is me, on the right, indulging in Mexico goodness

And lately I've been worried about my health. I turned forty last summer and I've started to think about how much life I have left and how I want to live it. That sounds a bit gruesome, but there it is. I definitely don't want to do any permanent damage to my body so that I won't be able to continue to do the things I love, like running, bootcamp, hiking, biking and just overall enjoying life with my family.

So I'm going to try my first sugar detox and see if I can't kick this habit for good.

My ultimate end goal isn't to eliminate all sugar from my life. No gelato in the summer after a long bike ride around the seawall? That would be awful.

Instead it is to start fresh with a clean slate and try to keep my sugar down to the recommended 25g per day for women on most days, with the occasional splurge here and there. I want to get to the point where I can drink tea without honey, and enjoy the sweetness of fruit rather than chocolate.

So that's where the 21 day sugar detox comes in. I have ordered the book from the library, but I don't want to wait to start the program, so I've also downloaded a cheat sheet. A list of foods that are acceptable and unacceptable and I'll start with that. The book should be here by Thursday and so I can spend some time reading it on the weekend and make sure that I'm following the plan well.

I know this is going to be hard. I'm already craving my morning tea.

But it has to be done.

I have to prove to myself that I can do this.