This n That...

So you mommy veterans failed to warn me that the day after Halloween crash was far worse than the buzz of after-trick-or-treating euphoria.  I swear, it was like my oldest was possessed by some hateful, no listening, malicious three-year-old yesterday.  We just had a spectacular time all day, falling and skinning knees, riding bikes too far down the road, pushing and kicking siblings...  So needless to say, the Halloween candy is getting trashed today.  I'm already done with it.  I've frozen all I think I can work into cookies in the future but clearly my children's attitude (and my drastically increasing pregnancy poundage) doesn't need it.  

Do I feel bad about this?  No I do not.  Candy has zero nutritional value and my children tend to lose dessert daily by either not listening or eating dinner, so guess who eats it?  The  same person who, yesterday, had two bags of peanut m&m's and three kit kats...  Oh yes...that would be me...  

Elizabeth Rose, burning off some energy in a productive manner.  This is one of her favorite things to do:  rake leaves.  Who am I to argue?

Then playing a rousing game of Stomp the Sister...

Speaking of no sugar...did anyone make it through the 30 days and live to tell about it?  I will share with you what I realized through the month adventure:  that I have no boundaries when it comes to sweets.  I swear, if I could just eat one cookie or piece of candy, I'd be fine...but I cannot.  So I'll probably continue to limit my intake simply because I do feel better and have noticed a difference in my complexion - plus it really made me second think what I was eating instead of just throwing everything into my mouth.

I say this as I just ate 3 mini kit kats writing this.  I swear, it's going in the trash now.  

Which brings me to my next nutritional adventure:  limiting sodium.  Do you know what I snacked on when I couldn't have sugar?  Snacks...salty ones...  Crackers, chips...these became the things that now had no limit.  I admittedly CRAVE them right now, which is a major problem considering that I am retaining water like a sponge.  So, after talking to Scott about it, I decided to take out all the obvious salty things in my diet starting yesterday...

And last night, I felt amazing.  No swelling at all.  No itchy legs.  It was heaven.  So if I can just get over the cravings of wanting to eat chips with sandwiches and crackers with soup, I'll be ok.  I'm not asking you to join me on this one because you may not be ballooned up like a pregnant whale.  But if you are, you may be a cracker-a-holic like myself.

And speaking of pregnant whales... :)

Tomorrow, we get to see our little punkin.  And I.cannot.wait.  I still don't feel it all the time, so to just know that it's doing ok and is healthy will be such a blessing.  And to know WHAT it is...although Elizabeth has given us fair warning that she simply cannot wrap her head around it being a boy.  

Yay.

My friend Susie is being a saint and is going to keep the girls for us so we can enjoy the ultrasound without pinning down two sets of wandering mitts.  I shall certainly let you know what we find out!  Thanks for coming along the adventure with us!

Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater!

Ok, so poor Peter - I took his nursery rhyme for my title - but it was just too catchy for what I needed.  

I told you Thursday about how Scott and I were doing this cleanse together and it omitted certain things from our diets, including coffee??  

Well, I am happy to report that I stayed steady for a little over 24 hours...and then I threw in the towel.

Friday morning I woke up, not wanting eggs without cheese.  In fact, the idea flat made me gag.  I glared at my happy children enjoying their yummy, warm oatmeal and the coffee pot just sitting there on the counter, not even earning it's keep.  It took me an hour to get everything ready to make the vegetable juice that would be my breakfast and I then drank it begrudgingly rather than joyfully.

Stupid trying to get healthy...stupid...  (You know you're losing it when the moping in your head doesn't even make sense.)

Don't even get me started on the sad puppy of a husband that followed me downstairs and couldn't have a shake for breakfast.  

My rain cloud followed me to the gym, where I made it through my workout, but I didn't break any records, not to mention much of a sweat.

Stupid no energy from this stupid diet...stupid...

Scott met us back home, as he was going to work a couple hours from the dining room table, and I heated us up some leftover beef stew from the night before.  The food improved my mood, but not much.  An hour later, I'd had enough.  Draping myself dramatically across the table, I looked at my working husband and said, in my best whiny three-year-old imitation:

"I want to cheat."

He didn't even look up from the computer.

"Ok."

I popped up.  "What?  OK?? What about the cleanse?"

"We did it a hundred percent for 24 hours.  Let's just make modifications for the things that we absolutely need.  Like coffee and shakes."

Shaking hands on the deal, we both jumped up, me to start the coffee pot and him to raid his BSN stash.  Of course, we didn't agree to cookies, but I managed to have five of them that afternoon (blowing my no-sugar week out of the water) and also my beloved Friday dinner sandwich - as pregnancy cravings win out over diet plans most days of the week for me.

Sunday was a full cheat day for us and we joined our friends, the Jebsens, for Pumpkin Pancake Palooza at their house after church.  Susie made the most amazing pancakes with warm apple syrup...mmmm...and coffee...and a teensy slice of apple pie for dessert.  Good food with good company - what a great Sunday!  We topped off the night with pizza, since the day was a loss anyway and went to bed happy and full.

This morning, I was in a much better frame of mind to enjoy my specified hard boiled eggs and grapefruit and be back on the plan.  We have noticed a difference, even if doing this for a short time.  Of course, my husband has lost ten pounds while doing this for less than a week (men!!) and I have noticed a significantly lesser amount of swelling in my legs since starting this.  After Rachel was born, I held a lot of water around my legs and when I got pregnant this time, they seemed to swell up a little too quickly for my liking.  So the relief the past few days has been wonderful, although I wonder which element of my diet was contributing to this...

Thankfully, I can rule out coffee... ;)

Happy Monday, my friends!  If you are No-Sugaring it with me, we have two full weeks left!  Tell me about your cheat weekend!!

30-Day Sugar Challenge!!

Yay!  Day 1 of the 30-Day Sugar Challenge!!  I hope I have some of you on-board with me and you've already been conscious of what you're eating this morning.  I'm going to post some tips on what I've found to be helpful and ideas you might have to substitute sugar and I'm looking forward to hearing your success stories!  

One of my weakest moments is after breakfast - I always fish in the refrigerator for dessert from the night before or just something little and sweet.  Until this morning...I had a half a grapefruit to wrap up my eggs and toast and, let me tell you, I want nothing else.  

Ever eat or drink anything after grapefruit?  BLEH!!!  I'm not even looking forward to brushing my teeth.  

So, just an idea.  Of course, if you don't have or like grapefruit, you could substitute any fruit to satisfy your sweet craving.  If after meals are your weak time, to immediately brush your teeth as soon as you get up from the table will help keep you from picking as you clean up the kitchen.  Or you could keep mouthwash beside the sink to gargle.  Or in your bag or desk to use at work when you're tempted by the vending machine.  Whatever works!

Speaking of whatever works, how you do this is your call.  As I said earlier, I'm not doing artificial sweeteners, but am sticking to honey and maple syrup because I'm pregnant.  You may decide that you want to give yourself the leniency.  It's up to you!  Also, I am using the weekends as cheats - so I eat clean all week and then whatever I want on the weekends.  Let me tell you, this was my first weekend doing so and I feel like a slug today.  I did get rid of all those pesky cookies and remaining Rice Krispie treat that had been screaming at me from the refrigerator all week though...  Although I'm actually looking forward to going back strict today.  

Decide you want to do this but have leftover sweets you don't want to waste?  Bag 'em up and freeze them to save them for the weekend!  We do this with birthday cake anyway since we can't eat it all at once.  And that's my plan for the rest of the apple pie I got from the grocery store yesterday...

Hey!  It was my cheat day!  :)

Good luck with your day one! 

Dropping Sugar Like A Bad Habit...

Oh, I sound real tough, don't I?

But honestly, this is a big one for me.  And it has several factors going behind it.  I have read more than a couple articles recently about how we eat way too much sugar and how the white stuff isn't good for us - far past rotting my teeth out like my parents used to threaten.  It can be linked to not only the obvious health culprits and obesity but also depression, heart disease, acne and cancer.

I know...yikes!

Aaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnndddddddddd last week, I might have eaten a whole bag of Hershey Kisses by myself.  And a half batch of oatmeal cookies...and some rice krispie treats....and a large sweet tea from McDonalds.

Actually, it was the sweet tea that did me in, as I sipped on it while reading the last and final article on the badness of sugar that pushed me over the edge.  

It's not that I don't think that sugar is fine in moderation - I do...I just also know that I have no moderation when it comes to sugar.  Therefore, I decided to join some other bloggers I follow that have been providing positive peer pressure and go without.  Well, sort of...

I told two people when I decided to start this:  Scott and my best friend.  I no sooner typed the email to Amanda when she called in a panic.  "What do you mean, you're going off sugar?"

You see, she was around when I went off sugar the first time.  Back in college when I had an elbow that wouldn't heal and I didn't want to miss pitching my entire junior season so I went to a chiropractor that told me that my diet was horrible - too much sugar, too little protein or complex carbs, too many hydrogenated fats, blah blah blah.

I know...what did he know... *pshhhh*

The 20 year old Annie and her friends viewed it all as a bunch a bull-hockey, but I wanted to pitch so badly that I thought I would give his theory a try and went off my beloved sugar, Poptarts, and crackers.  I learned to read labels and plan my meals.  It really was a learning experience, and even though I did eventually go back to the dark side (once I was able to pitch again - HA!), it taught me a lot about nutrition.  

But anyway, a week into my new diet and my best friend showed up at the door with what would save me:  sugar-free Jello with fruit cocktail mixed in and enough spoons to go around for us and my roommates.  We ate it right out of the bowl and it was the best thing I swear I had ever tasted. 

The whole situation became quite hysterical - as we sat and ate the entire bowl and laughed.  I think we'd been studying...for a very long time...AND if you never hear from me again after this post, they have massacred me for posting this picture!

And I was just darn loopy from no sugar...I couldn't tell you what I was doing here.  All I know is that I would LOVE for my forehead to have that few wrinkles again!

So, understanding her concern, I tried to talk her down.  "Yeah, I'm getting a little out of control and I don't want to gain a million pounds with this pregnancy,"  I told her.

"Tell me how you're doing this," she delved. "I mean, are you avoiding everything with sugar because you know pretty much everything HAS sugar in it."

Looking down at the peanut butter I was smearing on a piece of toast, I gulped.  She was right.  So right then and there, I decided that I was giving up sweets and soft drinks - the obvious stuff.  My husband was in full support of my decision - having seen the Kisses bag in the trash and knowing that he didn't eat any - but convinced me to just go during the week, giving myself the weekends to cheat.

Which sounded perfectly logical to me, considering that I am deeply in love with fall sweets.  (Cue Homer Simpson voice)  Mmmmm...pumpkin and apple ANYTHING....mmmmmm...

Now supporting me and being in love with me can be two different things though, as my sweet hubby called on the way home yesterday and was running through Sonic to get something to drink as a pick-me-up.  Did I want anything?  Oh, temptation washed over me like a flood.  But I sighed, "No...I'm not doing sugar.  Can you get me something unsweetened?"

So he came home with a little strawberry lemonade for Elizabeth and Rachel, a drink for himself and an unsweetened tea for me.  And, you know, it wasn't too bad!

Now, the question remains about other sweeteners and, currently, all I'm using is either honey or maple syrup.  I don't trust any other, although I haven't read all the research on Stevia yet.  And I really don't want to fool with it while being pregnant because I'm not really looking at this as a weight loss answer.  So it's not like I've traded my beloved baked goods in for items that are "diet" or "fat free."  Honestly, I'd rather have the sugar and just deal with the side effects I know. 

Other people who try this have claimed improved complexions, loss of excess weight, more energy and just a better overall feeling.  All those things sound just about awesome to me right about now.  

So I am wrapping up my first week of this and have noticed a couple things.  One, I have dropped a couple pounds.  Now, don't fuss at me and tell my I'm depriving my baby because I'm not.  Mysteriously, I gained five fast ones that week that I went on my binge-o-sweets.  So I am just losing the crap I put on.  I think the baby weighs about an ounce right now...I assure you, IT'S FINE.  

Two, I am forced to snack better and I realize that my go-to when I was hungry was something sweet.  All.the.time.  Now, I grab a piece of fruit or cut up some raw vegetables or heat up some leftovers.  At the same time, my kids are snacking better because Lord knows a mama can't eat a thing without a little bird coming up and wanting a bite.  

Three, I am looking forward to the weekend and enjoying what is forbidden during the week.  Gluttony is dangerous and to just throw things in your mouth isn't good...so I really think that I will savor what I choose to eat this weekend.  

So...anyone up for joining me?  Do you think allowing cheat weekends makes it more "do-able?"  Or perhaps you could use a 30 Day No-Sugar Challenge??  (Which, consequently, should wrap up right at Halloween?! ha!)  Let me know!  Maybe we'll start this full swing on Monday.