The No Sweets Diet?

The Reasons:
I couldn’t button my pants.
I needed a sweet after every lunch and dinner.
I was eating too much.

I rarely discuss my daily diet because I just don’t see the need to, but I am feeling so inspired by the last 5 days that I must write about it!

One of my friends only really eats sugar on occasion due to some stomach issues. She will have fruit, but besides that no sweets. The first time she mentioned it I was in shock. No sweets, like at all?

I have never been able to resist a sweet.

As a kid we never had dessert after dinner. Maybe, maybe we would all share an apple or two, but that’s it. I never cared or thought about it. In college my friends taught me to have a dessert after dinner. Soon that turned into a sweet after both lunch and dinner. Most recently, after a weird month or two, it meant eating a sweet after lunch, feeling hungry an hour later, eating a snack, and then eating a sweet after the snack!

Eating sweets was making me eat a lot more in general!

I needed help and I needed it right away. I literally could not button my pants, and it was depressing. I didn’t feel like myself, and my running issues (due to some IT band issues) were contributing to that. Less running than I’d like and a diet with too many sweets was turning me into a person that I am not. I wasn’t my smiley self every day and I hated how I looked in the mirror. Que horror! I love smiling! Smiling’s my favorite!

When I gain a lb or two it immediately shows in my face and belly. I usually just cut down a little bit on what I eat or increase exercise for a few days and that lb goes away, but a few extras had crept on. Sneaky little guys!

So after debating back and forth for a few weeks and trying other solutions, I gave up sweets.. COLD TURKEY.

I am not obsessive about my diet in any way. I eat what I want when I want it, although I typically eat breakfast around 8, lunch around 12, a snack around 3, and dinner whenever my husband comes home. I try not to think too much about what I eat aside from satisfying cravings and making sure I am eating my veggies.

You guys don’t understand how hard giving up sweets was for me. I feel like an addict sometimes.

I haven’t had any sugar, except from fruit, in the last 5 days. At first the afternoons were hard and I would literally suck down glass after glass of water until the feeling passed, but today I saw a chocolate covered pretzel rod (candy cane ones here) drying on my counter and I didn’t even have the smallest desire to eat it.

Who am I?

Thursday morning will make an entire week without a single sweet. A record in my book. Even when I lost the 25 lbs I gained in college I had a sweet every day. This is so new to me, and I really love it.

I am taking a break this weekend for the Foodbuzz Festival and San Francisco in general, because I want to have fun and taste everything. After the weekend I think I will choose to continue with a no sweets diet though. It is really weird to even be writing that, because I am known as a lover of sweets! Whenever I really want a sweet I will have it, probably about once a week, which is completely reasonable. I might change my mind sometime, and that is completely fine, but I really love feeling so good and balanced.

The part that is making this so easy is that every night, in lieu of my normal dessert and TV time, I have been having a mug of hot water (am I the only weirdo that loves plain hot water?) and a bowl of frozen grapes. Delicious.

I feel so energetic, and I know it is because my intake of fruit and veggies has increased with my decrease in sweets. I am also sleeping better zzzzzzzz and eating better. Weird how changing one small habit can have such a tremendous positive outcome.

And another bonus? After just a few days my pants fit again! Hip Hip Hooray!