Viewing Category: My Personal Journal

Crashed Today

August 23, 2010 • Comments (2)

I’m away at school for the week and students have three square meals per day provided by the local eatery. The food has something in it that kicks my butt. Also, not being able to eat for hours at a time and then dropping a big breakfast, lunch, or dinner is not my style. I’m an eat-a-little-all-day kind of guy and might be hypoglycemic.

For the first time in a long time, I crashed and napped for two hours this afternoon. It’s not hard to tell when food is effecting me after having been sugar-free for so long. I felt irritable, groggy, distant and got a headache in the back of my head. That was before I ate. After eating I couldn’t focus and grew tired and lay down. Two hours later I was up and it was time for dinner.

I want to get off the roller coaster. I’m going to try eating nothing but whole foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That means only fruit and veggies that haven’t been cooked in whatever it is they use.

Sorry eatery chef, I know you’re just doing your job. But it’s killing me!

Posted on Aug 23, 2010 • Comments (2)

3 Ways to Avoid Cake in the Community Room

August 23, 2010 • Comments (2)

Cake

I’m away at a college residency. The program director turned 40 and they gave her a cake. It was a big chocolate production with icing and chocolate covered strawberries around the outside. Now there’s a bunch of left over pieces sitting out in the community room waiting to be eaten.

The cake looked really good when it was served. People who had some said it is really rich, which is just how I like my chocolate cake! Still, it’s easy to resist. Why?

You’re Sick of the Roller Coaster

When you first go off sugar for a while you’ll find that you have good and bad times. That is, you’ll last for months without sugar only to fall off the wagon and start eating sweets again. Do that enough times and you’ll start to associate a little taste of sugar with falling out of control in a not fun way.

Exercise Your No Thank You Muscle

If you’ve just started to avoid sugar, expect that it’s not easy. In the Stop Being Sweet eBook I explain that saying no (with your words or actions) is like exercising a muscle—you have to build it up by repetitively using it. The only way to get good at avoiding sweets it to keep avoiding them. My “NO” muscle is strong enough to deal with most any typical situation where sweets tempt me.

Don’t Be Around It

If you are still having trouble with the stuff, stay away from the stuff. Sugar is tempting. If it’s not within your reach it’s easier to avoid eating it. I’m in the same room as the cake but not at the same table!

It’s Not the End of the World

If you make a mistake then just move on. You don’t stop talking just because you mispronounce a word. Keep going, little by little. eventually a little becomes a lot and one slip up doesn’t ruin your unsweet lifestyle. (See yesterday’s post.)

Posted on Aug 23, 2010 • Comments (2)

Carob Covered Almonds: Sweet?

August 22, 2010 • Comments (0)

I’m away at school for a week long residency. While here, I like to go to the food co-op and purchase some unsweetened carob covered almonds. Yesterday I did just that.

When I got back to my room, I began to eat a few. They were even sweeter than I remembered so I ate a few more. And then I ate some more. Before I knew it, the whole bag was gone. Had being away from carob covered almonds for so long made them taste sweeter?

Today I was back at the co-op and noticed that the carob almonds are in the bin directly next to the grain sweetened almonds. I must have gotten the wrong ones. No wonder I was peeing all night long. Today I’ll eat the carob covered almonds and see how they make me feel.

Posted on Aug 22, 2010 • Comments (0)

Eating on the Road

August 15, 2010 • Comments (0)

Real food

I’m currently in a motel after the first day of a long distance bicycle ride to protest the BP oil disaster. When I asked the front desk attendant about where to get some food within walking distance (I’m tired of biking and I have a flat), she directed me to the “pretty decent” food mart at the Texaco across the street.

I went across the street but every single item they had for sale was pre-packaged junk food products. They did have a few sandwiches but they were microwavable long-shelf-life kinds of scary things.

I asked the cashier if there was a deli nearby. She looked at me and repeated, “Deli?” I said, “A place with sandwiches and stuff.” She directed me to the Quick Mart (I think it’s called) located inside the gas station at the bottom of the hill where she said they serve nice sandwiches and a salad bar.

The Quick Mart did have some natural foods. The salad bar looked like the condiments selection of a Subway sandwich shop but was really neat was the fried food display. They had all kinds of brown, crispy things including egg rolls, chicken and corn dogs! There were also FIVE machines for making flavored, sweetened ice drinks.

I ended up with two hardboiled eggs, carrot and celery sticks (didn’t touch the Ranch) as well as a small bag of potato chips and some potato salad. Mayonaise often has added sugar or HFCS which I didn’t even consider until tasting it.

It’s always a chore to not eat sugar on the road.

Posted on Aug 15, 2010 • Comments (0)

Nothing for Me, Thanks

July 30, 2010 • Comments (2)

How to Go to a Bakery and Order Nothing

Last night I went to Last Thursday with Gwenn and our friend Dave. Last Thursday is a monthly outdoor street festival here in Portland (see pictures). Dave wanted to stop at a one of his favorite bakeries and so we did.

Dave knows I’m off sugar, or at least he’s been told so in the past. Yet, he kept asking if I was going to get something, in a nice way. He’d be like, “You’re not getting anything? Did you look?” I simply said no thanks several times. Dave got a white chocolate thing and Gwenn got a chocolate thing.

Dave Dessert Gwenn Dessert

The good thing is that Gwenn got something otherwise Dave probably wouldn’t have gotten anything. That’s why you (unsweet person that you are) are no fun to go out with. When people want to get dessert and you don’t, they suddenly feel self-conscious and want to deprive themselves of their confectionary desires.

Don’t Look

I didn’t even look at the array of sweet delights that the bakery had on display inside their glass counters. That’s the first step to avoiding sweets. When you can’t see what you’re missing it’s a lot easier to not want it.

Ask the Server

What I did instead was ask the server at our table, “Do you have any sugar free desserts?” Doing this always produces a strange reaction on the server’s face, but they’re usually really sweet (pun intended) and say something like, “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’ll check.”

Asking if there’s any sugar-free dessert at a bakery is a bit like asking if there’s any alcohol-free beer at a bar. Most likely the answer is no. However, candy shops often have a sugar free section but the stuff is usually sweetened with Maltitol. Not good.

Anyhow, the server returned with the desserts and placed them on the table before she remembered to ask if they offer anything sans sugar. She made a display of asking another employee right in front of me and the other employee said no. I was not surprised.

Drink Water

I sat and observed as they ate their desserts. I drank water. It was hot outside. I also noticed that each and every table at the bakery had a huge jar of sugar on it. As if the desserts weren’t sweet enough, you might just feel the need to add a little more.

AddSugar

Keep in mind that I’ve been off sugar for about five years now. Had I been just starting I would have ordered something without sugar to eat. An appetizer, small salad or sandwich would have kept me busy and not made anyone feel odd nor would I feel left out.

Posted on Jul 30, 2010 • Comments (2)

No Sugar = No Limits

July 16, 2010 • Comments (0)

Years ago, when I was obliviously eating tons of sugar, I went mountain biking with some friends. It was one of those “let’s ride together this weekend” kind of casual invites. Mark had been biking pretty regularly and he was looking to act as a mountain-trail tour guide of sorts. As a result, he took us over some tricky, hilly terrain. I’ve ridden bikes my whole life but about 20 minutes into it I got completely wiped out and had to stop. All of the energy drained from my body and I nearly passed out.

Everyone waited and stared as I lay against a tree just trying to breathe! It was awful and embarrassing. Who knows what I ate for breakfast that day; I can’t recall. In fact, I never made the connection between sugar and that event until years later.

No-Sugar Power

At the end of August, 2010 I am going to embark on a 450-mile Beyond Petroleum Bike Ride. I’m pretty confident that I will survive simply because sweets are no longer a part of my diet. I’ll be blogging here at the Stop Being Sweet blog about sugar and food as I ride and the details of the trip will be located in the BP section of my site. It should be an interesting adventure!

Posted on Jul 16, 2010 • Comments (0)

Do Not Eat Maltitol Sweetened Foods!

June 20, 2010 • Comments (0)

Last night I was feeling desperate for something sweet. We were at the store and so I caved and got some sugar-free chocolate covered pretzels. I ate them when we got home, before bed. They weren’t even good. Maltitol sweetened chocolate doesn’t taste like real chocolate.

In the middle of the night I woke up with my stomach feeling like a balloon inflated to the point where it was about to pop. Thank goodness I was so tired that I managed to fall back to sleep and remain unconscious through the majority of the war in my belly. I feel better this morning, but PLEASE learn from my mistakes!

DO NOT EAT MALTITOL SWEETENED FOODS!
DO NOT EAT MALTITOL SWEETENED FOODS!
DO NOT EAT MALTITOL SWEETENED FOODS!

Temptation Never Goes Away
Maltitol Sweetened Godiva Chocolate Taste Test

Posted on Jun 20, 2010 • Comments (0)

How to Survive a Wedding Sugar Free

May 31, 2010 • Comments (2)

Yesterday, at a wedding, Gwenn mentioned that I don’t eat sugar and therefore she gets to have two pieces of cake. It was a cute joke, and it’s true! But it provoked questions. A girl at our table looked at me with a furrowed brow and said, “What, are you diabetic?”

“No,” I said, “If I eat sugar it’s all I want to eat.”

“You must be a lot of fun,” she quipped.

I guess she couldn’t imagine a party without sugar. She had also made several comments about the fact that there was no alcohol at the wedding reception. As a therapist (hopefully not for substance abuse) I would think she knows the saying “to each their own” but that wasn’t the case, she wanted an explanation.

Truth is, after having been off sugar for many years, it’s easy to make it through a wedding without eating cake. What’s not so easy is dealing with the comments that arise as a result of not eating sugar. How do you deal with it?

Your best bet is to simply not to eat dessert and make no fanfare about it. Chances are that nobody will notice you aren’t having any wedding cake when you’re sitting at a table full of strangers who are hungry for dessert. Even if they did notice they might assume you didn’t like the type of cake offered. Either way it’s fine. However, if they notice or if the subject comes up somehow, you might feel like you have some explaining to do. Don’t explain. Don’t tell people you’re off sugar. Don’t explain why you’re saying no. Just stop being sweet. And if they keep pressing you, just excuse yourself and take a walk to the restroom or go talk to another guest. By the time you get back the subject should have changed.

• I Made It Through Another Wedding
• How to Say No to Dessert at Someone’s House

Posted on May 31, 2010 • Comments (2)