New year resolutions: I quit sugar! For a month.

One of my New Year resolutions is to quit sugar. The reason is simple: Health. Is not that I am sick, but I want to prevent being sick, and I also want to embark myself and my family into a more healthy life style. I’ve been reading and listening about different sugar-free experiences and all that I get is just wonderful changes in the daily life, despite the hard of the beginng.. But which start is easy?

My mom has reduced her sugar consumption for years already, and the changes are more than visible, in the positive way, so as a good daughter, I am also starting this one month experiment.This is also in meory of a good man, husband and father who recently passed away and to his wife, whom I admire a lot. And finally, I also want to support, even from the distance, my friend Gaby and her husband Piet, in their new challenge.

I have been able to convince Tuli to live this with me; I honestly won’t be able to do it without him supporting me as he always does.  So here we are, at the second day of our one month sugar free:

Day 1: Sunday, 1^st of January. It went really easy, we do not eat that much sugar any way and if we don’t buy cookies or sugar, then we really don’t miss it (That much), so we had our usual breakfast for Sunday which is Pannekoeken, without sugar, but again, that is usual, we accompanied them with banana and cheese. Easy –peasy. For lunch we had a tosti with ham and cheese, as we were in a children indoor playhouse and the options were very limited.  That was the healthiest that one could get. For dinner we made a delicious salad with lentils, broccoli and apple, served with andivi stampot (A 100% Dutch plate), and white yogurt as dessert. This was not difficult at all, as it was our usual way of eating… the difficult came at night with the tea before going to bed, we usually have a cookie or four, and yesterday we just had tea. A bit sad, but with the support of Tuli, we made it!!

Day 2: Monday 2^nd of January: I woke up full of hopes that I had already lost some weight, but I knew I was being too much optimistic, so I didn’t bother to weight. I won’t do it till the end of the month, just to avoid frustrations.  The main reasons of not eating sugar is not losing weight… but my jeans know very well that some kilos less would benefit us both. For breakfast I had to improvise as my initial plan was oats but the one that I had thought contained sugar, so luckily I found one with no sugar… With this experiment I am becoming more aware of all the food that has already sugar on it… and it is a lot!!! I mean, even oats? Well, anyway, I grab some  snacks for work, which were seeds, and fruit.. Thanks God one of my colleagues is allergic to sugar and she shared a date with me because I was starving in the afternoon. For lunch I had  a salad, but the quality of the salads at my work are not the best, and somehow my stomach was pretty aware of it. But I survived! On my way home, I went to the biological supermarket and spent 30EUR in healthy food. If I would have bought the same food in my usual super market, I am sure I would have paid at least the half of it… Eating healthy is expensive… that is my second conclusion of this experiment so far.

And the third conclusion (wow, I am only in day two and I had already 3 conclusions.. If I am not getting thinner, I am getting wiser, that for sure, hihi)  is that eating sugar free with kids is really an utopia. Or maybe I am just in the automatic way and then I have to change it, but puff… it is really difficult. Today, my son baked some cookies in the BSO (daycare) and he was eating it in the way home, and I just wanted to share with him the joy so I asked him for a piece which he unexpectedly quick agree to give me, and then when I realized it, it was already in my mouth.. My tongue is already more sensitive and I could feel the loads of sugar on my mouth, so I had to take it out. It was difficult then to explain to my 4 year old son why I did it if that is the most delicious thing for him… But he and my daughter are also the reason of why I am doing this, I want to teach them a healthy way to eat, and to taste the pure flavor of natural food, the real stuff!!!!

For dinner we had a delicious pasta (integral) with spinach and fish. They loved it, and we too. So, second day was also a success. I am happy that the 5 dates I have eaten the last half hour do not count as sugar in my experimentJ

Thanks Marjan for the good tips today, and be aware that I will be asking you for advice the coming weeks.