Hi Gypsy, yes, it looks like it's just you and me. I'm really the sickest I've been yet. Feel like I have a bad hangover though I haven't drank anything. I lost my voice from Friday and it'd been getting worse till Monday, then was better yesterday. Oh, I do feel lousy. But I still stayed away from sugar. Everyone has been dropping with the flu around me so I think being off sugar may have helped me stay well this long! Hello to everyone! Hope to hear from you soon. Best of luck! :wave:

Hi Gypsy! Thanks for your support! I think all things that keep you positive and stress-free are good. I do need all the prayers I can get!
How are things in your world?

RB - Sorry you are sick! There are a lot of germs/colds/flus around here too! Late winter always seems to get a few who had made it through the really cold months. Congrats on not caving into the sugar and great way to look at it as the saving factor! :D

Edyie - How are you? Are you still checking in?

I hope everyone else is doing well!

I walked 10,000 steps yesterday and today and did resistance training this morning. I have not worked out in so long that I was already sore by this afternoon which means I will probably not be able to get out of bed in the morning! LOL! I did have wheat yesterday and today but did not feel great (it makes me want more!!) so I think I wil try another week wheat-free.

Macon, hello! Great going on the walking. You are doing fine! Don't look like it's you who needs prayer, more like me really! ;) I felt horrible this morning and my voice is worse than yesterday. I need to make some phone calls but can barely croak and the people on the other end would probably just hang up thinking it was a prank call! Hope you feel better today after your long walk! If not your muscles, at least you'll have that great feeling of accomplishment, no?

Good Morning! :)

Macon, good luck with the sproutling! And yes, absolutely whatever I can do to support you, thanks for asking! I think it's a great idea to go for 10,000 steps a day. I think that I always intend to do that, but forget my pedomter.

For those who asked, Wha Guru Chews are a health food store sweet that have been around for a long time. They're sweetened with barley malt, rice syrup and some have maple syrup. It's about the only thing that i can find that's allowable for me. I say again, it's so frustrating to be reading a label and be so hopeful and then there it is: evaporated cane juice. Why don't they just say plain old sugar?

RedBalloon, hope you're feeling better today. Here, have some virtual soup!

Went to a local trade show where we have a booth. They had a big buffet for the participants and last year I really went for the desserts. This year, I didn't even go into that room.

Drum roll........I'm on day 172 of no refined sugar!!! :D Like I always say, No one's more surprised than me.

I used to be an avid journal writer. [A regular journal, not just a food journal.] Anyway, I really want to start again, becasue I haven't kept one in about 10 years. So for inspiration I dragged out my old journals and was really shocked to see how often the subject of my weight and specifically my sugar addiction came up. I'm really proud that I was finally able to do something about those 2 things. That may be one of the reasons that I stopped writing, because I was so weary of saying the same thing over and over. :)

Edyie - :cb: :bravo: :flow1: :encore: :cheer: All the fun little icons I can find to your 172 days without refined sugar!! What amazing will-power and determination. Everytime I want a sweet - I think of you. Thank you!

Would I find Wha Guru at Whole Foods? Are they in the packaged cookie section? Maybe I will go today.

I have never kept a journal but think it is a great idea. My mother and I were recently talking about her childhood and I think it would have been so neat if she had a journal. Times change so much - plus, as you say, it must be interested to read your own from just a few years before. Do you think writing is what helped you decide to change your eating habits?

RB - Sorry you are still sick! Have you tried gargling with hot water and salt? This is an old wives tale but it really does work.

Confession: I am a late night binger. I can eat really well all day and then I get to the evening and I can not stop. Last night, after eating a healthy, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I went back and ate an english muffin (100% whole wheat, no sugar) with butter (somehting I rarely eat). I also had awful PMS so I broke down and had a huge glass of OJ (I was ready to go to the grocery store and get cookie dough so OJ at the time did not seem as bad). PMS aside, I have got to get rid of this trigger. Does anyone else have this problem?

Oh, so once again, today is Day 1 OJ and wheat-free. :mad:

Thanks Macon! :) You can find the wha guru chews in the chocolates/candy section at Whole Foods, btw!

Back from the trade show and again avoided the buffet room--came right home and had already prepped stuff for black bean soup in my pressure cooker so turned that on as soon as I walked in the door and within 30 minutes I'll have a nice homemade meal of soup and a quesadilla. I love it when I can get it togther enough to do that--make me feel so capable and efficient! And grown up! :lol:

Hello everyone. In between trying to work. What a wonderful distraction! I was just thinking. Yesterday was four weeks without sugar. Hurrah for me! I don't know what I would have felt like had I been eating sugar but I know I wouldn't have been feeling at all proud of myself as I do now. Well, I mean, just a little proud. I'll bet the convenience store people are wondering where I've been. Funny, how if I'm not pigging on sugar I just have little reason to go in there (I also gave up nuts and that was a daily thing, maybe 2 or 3 times a day1) :yes:

Well, OK, my piddling 4 weeks, a mere 28 days is nothing up against EYDIE!!! Hurrah! :bravo: 172 days?! Wow, that is great! How do you ever do it? And thanks, I do feel better today though I decided to stay home from a press conference and a union meeting I was supposed to go to. I forego the latter saying I had to go to the former and then decided to sack that as well. I do have a ton of work to do here at home and though I feel much better I'm still draggin. My voice was barely more than a croak yesterday but today I can speak, though I still sound weird. So, Eydie, I think your cyber soup did help! :thanks:

And thanks for explaining Guru Chews because I was wondering but just figured, why bother, I'll never see them anyhow. . .but I did want to know. So, are you OK with barley malt, rice syrup and maple syrup. I'm trying to figure out which is bad for you, which spikes insulin, that kind of thing. Are these OK because they're not processed? It's the processing that is bad, right? There are so many ways of saying things that I'm not sure what to avoid either. Evaporated cane juice, that is simply sugar, no? or is it unprocessed? Do you eat pure brown sugar, not the granulated soft stuff but the chunks? don't know if you can get it in the States. Guess you can.

Eydie, I keep a journal too. Have for most of the past 24 years with some blank years. Right now, I'm in a bit of a slump, I think mainly because I'm writing on this forum so much, but it is a great thing. I always like having a journal close at hand. Stop into a cafe or so and it's just soothing to write out a few pages, allows you to get in touch with your feelings, like coming home and relaxing.

And Eyd, good for you for avoiding the trade show buffet! Ah, you are so organized. Wish I could get that way, black bean soup ready to heat. Sounds yummy!


Macon -- thanks for the concern. I have tried hot water and salt and it does help. I had forgotten about that. Will give it a go. I use salted toothpaste. Love salt. I don't think you are surprising anyone but "confessing" to being a late night binger. I often am, although recently I'm a bit better, especially because I have nothing to binge on since I gave up sugar. Really. That was my binge of choice. Recently, I've been able to stay away from other foods too. I just say to myself. It's just going to sit there on you, the fat. If you quick fall asleep you won't feel the hunger anymore. But, my weakness now is bread and butter late at night. Must stop that. Why can't we binge on apples or something? :lol:

And Macon, I see you're going wheat-free again. Good luck! That would be tough! Wow! May I suggest some good German rye bread. You must be able to get some there, no, though it may be hard to find all rye. Have you tried it? I used to live in Germany and they have all sorts of non-wheat breads. Of course, I don't know if they are wheat mixes or not but I do know there are pure nonwheat breads. I think pumpernickel is such. Do you know anything about different breads. Also, do you eat buckwheat. Japanese are big on bigwheat, make noodles from it that are so yummy. That is a great substitute for wheat. You can even use them as a spaghetti substitute although it's a bit hard to cook them right. They get soggy very fast. They require almost no cooking time. Have you tried them? If, not, get thee to an Asian foods shop soon! Also rice noodles are good. Actually, now that I think of it, maybe I will give the no-wheat thing a try sometime. I said I was going to and then chickened out but I could start small, a day or two at a time.. . .hmm. . .

Whoops Macon, am I being a jerk here? Is buckwheat just as bad as wheat and are you going wheat-free because you want to be gluten-free. I was just doing a bit of research on the Net and started thinking maybe it's the gluten you're trying to avoid and it looks like rye still has that. Hmm. I think I'm all confused with what people are doing and why. There are allergies, and insulin spikers and wow, it's all getting too confusing! :stress:

RB, I agree, it IS confusing. So much to keep up with! :dizzy: Sometimes I'm envious of people who just don't give any of this kind of thing a thought. Sometimes I think I'm too much into it!

Macon, I don't think you're shocking anyone with your night-time binge confessions. You'll have to come up with something juicier than that! :lol: I find for me it's best if I just don't start---just gut it out until morning! Every night I want toast with butter [like RedBalloon!], and if I indulge I keep it to one slice, though I could easily eat 6!
I like the all-rye bread that RB mentioned--it's very satisfying and heavy, but pleasantly so.
About the buckwheat noodles, read the ingredient list carefully, cause most have wheat listed as well.

Anyone have plans for the weekend? I have to work. There's an art class at work and I'll be making lunch for the artists.

Ah yes, you're right Eydie, about the buckwheat. I forgot it is a mix of wheat. I was only thining of the low glycemic index for the noodles and forgot that it contained wheat. Sorry. The cheaper the noodle the more wheat is in it. I don't know if you can get pure buckwheat noodles or not. It would be probably be impossible over there. I do know you can just buy buckwheat flour though. Do you make your own bread or have you considered it. I used to make a great quickbread in a can but it used sugar and, of course, wheat. It was very easy to make though. Perhaps there is a similar recipe you could use that would allow you to be wheat-free and sugar-free.

HI Ladies!

Well - I feel off the wagon yesterday. I had a P&J (only the jelly had sugar but still!) sandwich for lunch and then after dinner, I ate 2 cookies. It was the first day of my menstrual cycle and I think my blood sugar was so low. I have not really craved sugar like that. I avoided all day but by night, I could not! :o Any suggestions for when your blood sugar might be really low? Oh, I know fruit! :lol: But I am determined again so for the next 8 weeks, I am sticking to my goal of eating healthy and working out.

The good news is that I did walk everyday this week (one day a little less then 10,000 steps but I made up for it the next day by walking more) and I have done resistance training everyday. I do not move my little weight ticker until I have been below that weight for at least 3 days so even with the binge, it is slowly coming off.

As for the wheat thanks for the suggestions. I do not think I am allergic to wheat or gluten. I am avoiding because I end up eating bread all day and no veggies. I am just doing no wheat short term to try to change some of my habits. For example, I bought spelt bread the other day but I could binge on that too! I think I am safe with oats (Gluten Free - Irish) and brown rice for now. I think pure buckwheat is actually wheat-free but in the States, lots of buckwheat products add-on wheat flour. My goal is not so much to substitute wheat with another grain as it is to eat less so I eat more veggies, fruits and nuts.

RB - Are you feeling better? Voice back to normal? Funny about the convenience store people. I bet they are wondering where you are! Congratulations on 28 day sugar-free! :)

Eydie - Now I am even more amazed at your 173 days! You rock! Did you know it is suppose to snow tomorrow? I am starting to get upset about this weather (a price for a mild winter?). Bring on the HEAT - I am ready for summer! Where do you work? Have fun at the art class!

Have a great day!
DAY ONE - SUGAR-FREE/WHEAT FREE

Hi, everyone! Sorry I've been MIA for awhile. Sometimes I get so behind with the posts that I put off posting, which of course means I get even more behind, so it's completely illogical. I hope everyone's doing well! Macon, your slip sounds really minor. Good for you for stopping it before it gets out of control!

My birthday's coming up soon, and I'm faced again with the dilemma of whether or not to indulge (I had been planning on chocolate cream pie). I'm thinking not, because Easter is soon afterwards, and I really love the Easter cakes my mom makes. With ice cream. :o I don't think I should indulge more than once a month. Then again, I'm worried that if I start indulging on Easter, I'll eat Easter candy, several pieces of cake and ice cream, and I'll be out of control. I'll keep you posted on what I decide.

Hope you have great, sugar-free weekends!

Macon, not to worry. It happens! I know I've ben perilously close sometimes. I had to make myself some allowable cookies today. Just pecan meal, rice flour, butter, and a bit of maple syrup. They turned out really good. like shortbread.
The thing that made me make the cookies was seeing that Nature Valley is making a pecan granola bar now. I used to love all their granola bars and since I choose not to have their version, I have to make myself a substitute.

And Macon, please don't feel that you absolutely have to start over at Day 1. You were still in there trying and the cookies and jam were just a fluke!

GypsyDancer, when's your birthday? I know what you mean about feeling uneasy about your birthday cake. I'd be afraid my sugar desires would snowball. Whatever you do, I totally support you though! ;)

Hi everybody,

I have been working out on a daily basis following the Self Challenge trying to lose some lbs faster, so I have been mostly lurking. I am afraid of jumping on the scale on Sunday, I haven't weighed for 2 weeks as I had my period last week. Needless to say terrified I am :(.

I love granola bars, I bought a box of Trial Mix and I love them!. Also, I have been eating dry fruit for the last 2 weeks and I have been regularly visiting the potty on a daily basis. I remember my Nona eating dry plums every day for her digestion, but I didn't know how serious the stuff was if you do eat dry fruit daily until now. :)

Cookies, doghnuts, etc have an average of 300 cals and it takes at least 30 mins on the treadmill at a 5.0 pace to burn it. So I am staying away from them. Chocolate OH MY, I gave it up for lent so I am looking forward to Easter to have a really nice piece, although I am not sure what brand nor what kind will be the honored to reach my mouth that day..... IT HAS TO BE GOOD.

BTW, I went to the store to get Quinoa (didn't find it), barley and brown rice, I recommend the new precooked brown rice in little bags, it takes just 20 mins to cook, just insert the bag in boiling water. No more waiting 2 hours to get the stuff done.

MP

Hey, where is everybody? :)

Don't tell me that everybody's gorging on Easter chocolates--heaven forfend! I'm still blissfully sugar-free.

Had my first mammagram today. I thought the machine was going to do it all, I didn't know it was going to be such a hands-on experience! :lol: Anyway, all's well and I'm glad I finally got around to doing it.