Sugar.
Sweet sugar, how I love thee.
How you rot my teeth, make me even fatter.
Sugar
Nectar of my soul
–Heather, Really terrible poems, Vol. 10
I’m on Day 16 of the no sugar challenge.
You skinny people who read this blog, go ahead and laugh. I know that’s pathetic.
OK, done laughing?
I heard the chuckle back there.
OK. *ahem*
Sugar challenge. I’m trying to give up the sweet stuff for a month. It was inspired by a friend of mine who did the same thing a few years ago, except she gave it up for a year, and also inspired by Rachel who is always doing amazing things, including running a 10K when she only began running maybe a couple of months ago.
My problem is I didn’t fully define this challenge when I started. I mean, I thought I did. I said, “Self, don’t eat any freaken sugar. Except for sugar on my cereal, mixed drinks once a week, and, if you get really really hungry, polish off these waffles in the house with syrup.”
But that definition was way too loose. My original intention was to keep from all the Snickers bars, pop, cupcakes, nuclear worms, See’s candy, that tend to populate my daily life. And that I have. I also had the intention of staying away from high fructose corn syrup, which also outlaws an entire other category of foods: I can’t eat most granola bars, most fruit drinks…
But it’s hard. Where do you stop in the no sugar thing when you’ve already started outlawing it in foods that aren’t considered sugary?
Ugh. Sugar’s everywhere. Consider:
Juice aisle the other night. That was an education. I was already aware of the non-fruit fruit drinks. Everyone is, right? I was looking for a two-fruit blend — cranberry and grape, to be precise — and all the two-fruit blends were something called a juice cocktail. Which is neither juice nor cocktail. Water and syrup, baby. WTF? So I finally found some 100% juice cranberry. I turned to look at the ingredients, and the first ingredient is grape and cranberry juice. I turn to the front; only cranberry is mentioned. I looked at the ingredients: grape and cranberry. I’m so confused…
Panda Express. I used to eat at the Panda all the freaken time, but I got burned out on it. That, and it makes my stomach do strange rumblies. Stuff’s probably toxic. But they serve huge servings of veggies. It’s hard to get that in fast food. And I’d spent the entire last week eating footlong subs from various establishments as my main food source for the day. If I saw another Port of Subs wrapper I was going to cry. I needed change. Which brought me to Mandarin Chicken. MMmmm, Mandarin Chicken. Wait a minute, this stuff tastes sweet. WTF? It IS sweet. Hell, sauce and chicken together have sugar amounts on par with pop!
The drug store. OK, I know, I have no business being in a drug store if I’m avoiding sugar. But I had planned poorly, I had been running late, it was a day I was going to be out of my house for 14 hours. I was hungry. And I found myself standing in front of some trail mix I thought was golden. Granola, dried fruit. No little M&Ms, none of that. But I’d forgotten one thing: Granola has sugar. I’d been downing granola this month, which I suppose means I’ve been cheating all along, but this day I stood in front of that display, my stomach protesting loudly, paralyzed by fear. What to do, what to do? I ended up getting Goldfish crackers instead. Traded sugar for salt. Probably not wise.
Speaking of trading… I’ve been finding myself eating more fried food/potato chips than normal this month. Which leads me to the drive through at McDonald’s and perhaps my true legitimate cheating of the month. I drove away with a pack of 10 nuggets and my favorite dipping sauce, the nectar of the gods, hot mustard. I’ve been in love with hot mustard well over 14, 15 years, when I fell in love with it as a wee lass in high school. On the way back to work I imagined biting into a piping hot, crunchy, salty nugget, dipped in the delectable stuff.
Once back at my desk, I realized something: In all these years, I’ve never, once, looked at the ingredients to the sauce. Nearly visibly salivating, I read the ingredients. Water. And… high fructose corn syrup??? You’ve GOT to be shitting me. It’s hot mustard sauce where the first two ingredients are neither hot nor mustard? But I can’t eat these nuggets without sauce, can I? I want it. I crave it. I won’t eat anything else this day.
Weak woman. I took a nugget, planning to nibble it to make it last longer, and dipped a corner of it in the sauce. Three times this went. And then I said, “No! Stop being such a puss.” And I threw the sauce out. Ate the rest of that nugget and the remainder of the box naked.
Ugh. Weakness. But alas, I’ve decided to keep counting, either until I hit May 24 or until I break down and eat the cookies our neighbor gave us last week/cookies/cupcakes/M&Ms that are ever-present in my office.
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