Six Weeks and When to Ask for Help

I’ve been at this no sugar thing for six weeks now and I’m still feeling great. Last week I came very close to breaking down and I did have sugar. I did something radically different this time though. I confessed to my nutritionist and asked for her help. I wasn’t sure what advice she could give me but she really did help. If only by encouraging me, it was enough to keep going. Part of the trouble I was having was huge temptation all around me. My dept was having a bake sale and I not only made goodies for this bake sale, I was a seller! So it was really hard to be around all these yummy treats.

I knew that if I told myself no-no-no, it would just lead to a sugar binge so I instead said YES to the best possible treat I could in the group. Someone made double chocolate paleo cookies, only sweetened with coconut sugar. In general I try to avoid coconut sugar because it’s still SUGAR but I feel like this was OK.

At this point, I know what I consider good and bad and I don’t really need to justify it anymore. I have opened the door to sugar just a tiny bit more in the last week or two. I’m hoping it isn’t a slippery slope. I now eat a square or two of dark (>80%) chocolate almost every day. It has <7 grams of sugar per serving and I eat less than half a serving, so I'm OK with that. I'm still being diligent about cookies, cake, pastries, ice cream and many more forms of refined sugar and processed food in general. Now that my hand has mostly healed, I'm ready to resume yoga. I DID accomplish my 30 minute walks while I had to take a break from yoga. The walking felt wonderful mentally but the issues with my feet flared up and I want to return to activities that don't aggravate it. My new goal starting Sunday and going for three weeks is 1 yoga session and 1 swimming session/week. I also want to add in a nutritional goal of eliminating white bread. I don't eat a lot of it but I want to reduce my overall carbs to only complex carbs eventually. I'd like to include more beans, starchy veggies like sweet potatoes and yams and lentils. Most of the bread I eat is sprouted wheat bread but I'd like to reduce that too. Usually I eat eggs and 2 slices of toast for breakfast. I'll swap out one slice of bread and replace it with fruit.