Overall I did well. I was able to resist temptation about 97% of the time which, if I were to give myself a letter grade, is still an A. As my reward, I bought my favorite candy bar. Yeah, I know, the gurus say we are not supposed to reward ourselves with food but, well, who cares? It was my first trial and for the most part I was successful.

The biggest difference I have noticed since the changes I’ve made has been in my energy levels and mood swings. I’m not tired all of the time and I’m not as cranky and aggravated. I find that I’m a little more patient and a lot less depressed. I’m not sure if this is due to the reduced intake of caffeine, sugar, high fructose corn syrup or all of the above.

As far as weight loss goes, I’ve lost about 1.5 pounds. Not a whole lot but since I’m not exercising, I didn’t really expect much.

I’m going to stick with the no cookies, no cakes, no high fructose corn syrup. I’ve put candy in the once a week indulgence column with the caveat that it cannot contain high fructose corn syrup and it has to be an organic product. In all actuality, I’ll probably only have chocolate (my favorite) from now on and leave the rest alone. With the exception of tea and hot chocolate, I’m going to stick with the no caffeine rule as well. I love coffee but I love being stable in energy and mood even more.

I was going to start another 30 day trial of drinking water everyday right after the last trial but I decided to start it on the first of April, that way I’m in sync with the months. I’m not sure, however, how much water per day I should shoot for. The recommended amount, 64 oz, is a lot for me. One of the things I want to avoid is the inevitable bathroom break every five minutes situation that happens every time I start drinking a lot of water. Right now, I’m drinking about 1-2 cups a day so I think I’m going to shoot for 1 liter a day which is about 4 cups and see how that works out.

I ate the first one and my taste buds were like, “Meh”. I didn’t really want to eat the second one but I did anyway and was left unimpressed and wondering what was so attractive about them in the first place. The answer was simply the fact that they were there to eat. If they hadn’t been in my line of vision, I probably would not have eaten them but they were there.

I’m thinking that this is a step forward in my dietary progress. I don’t go out of my way to buy the sweet stuff I’m not supposed to be eating (cookies, cakes, candy, caffeine). In fact when I think about going to the store to get things to snack on, I am able to bypass these things and go for healthy stuff (fruit, Stacy’s Pita Chips, trail mix) without a lot of complaints from my stomach.

I’ve got ten more days on this 30 day challenge but I’m thinking they are going to be a breeze compared to when I first started it. For my next 30 day challenge, I’m going to work on drinking at least 16oz (2 cups) of plain water everyday. I know it’s not the recommended 64oz (8 cups) a day but I’m not a huge fan of plain water and really something is better than nothing.

In other health news, I belong to a forum for webmasters and someone posted this video about Aspartame. I never liked “Diet” anything simply because I was always suspicious about what was being substituted for the stuff they were taking out. Still for a time there in my twenties I frequently drank Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi and I even used Equal and Splenda in my ice teas. However I stopped drinking that stuff simply because I couldn’t stand the taste anymore. Shortly after I just boycotted all “Diet” stuff preferring to just eat less of the “real” stuff.

Well I never really ate less of the “real” stuff but after watching this video, I’m so glad I stopped eating the diet stuff. I have heard stories of the dangers of Aspartame but it didn’t really hit home until after watching this video. This video has inspired me to switch to organic foods and to work harder on getting my own house so I can grow my own vegetables. It’s sad and maybe slightly paranoid but I no longer trust processed, manufactured foods.

I encourage everyone to watch and to stop consuming this poisonous product as soon as possible. You won’t regret it.

Here’s the link to the video. For some reason I can’t post video on this blog.

This here is my diet blog on 3FatChicks. Honestly, I really started this blog because I’m trying to prevent another diet fail. I actually have a personal blog that I’m using to detail my journey into owning an independent publishing business as well as talk about other personal stuff. But right now there is a package of Hostess Cupcakes calling my name and I’m trying to drown out their tiny but amazingly powerful voice with busy work.

On February 11, 2009 I started a 30 day “trial” of a dietary change. I use quotes because most likely this change will be permanent. On that day, I decided that for 30 days I would not eat any cakes, cookies, candy or have any caffeine as well as eliminate products that contain High Fructose Corn Syrup.

I’ve already experienced one and half diet fails. The first one happened last Sunday when I had a handful of chocolate chip cookies. The half diet fail comes from the fact that I have been drinking tea which, I was recently told, has caffeine.

On one hand when I decided to forgo caffeine, I was thinking more along the lines of no coffee or soda which I have been true to since the beginning. I really didn’t think about tea. Additionally, tea doesn’t have as much caffeine as coffee and only has slightly more caffeine than soda.

On the other hand, caffeine is caffeine and to stick to the diet, I have to give it all up. So I guess that’s that.

So far, though, I’ve done much better than I thought I would. I’ve run into many moments of temptation and have managed to come through without succumbing. So far my coping skill has been to distract myself and/or remove myself from the scene of temptation. I just wished I was at that point where those foods were just not appealing to me and thus it is easy to say no because I have no interest in them. Will that day ever come, I wonder.