Are you a sugar addict? I am.
In 2005 I vowed to quit and began
writing about life without sweets.
This site contains a forum,
product reviews, my journal,
educational Sugar Challenges,
and the Stop Being Sweet ebook.

November 1, 2009: Day 2

November 01, 2009 • Comments (10)

Day 2 of my “annual sugar bindge” (I am going to stop calling it that) has begun. I don’t want to eat all of the junk food I got. Still, I’ve eaten Fruit Loops, Pop-tarts, and chocolate. I’m not even enjoying it. It’s too sweet, too acidic, and it makes me feel awful. This is precisely why I do this every year.

Sugar is like a charismatic but abusive partner from the past. Sugar never made me feel good, sapped all of my resources, always got me into trouble, abused my health and my emotions, took my money, and wasn’t even good looking! But for some reason when I am away from sugar for a long time and see so many people having fun with the same sugar I used to love, I begin to feel nostalgic. Sugar starts to look good again. I long to spend time with my sugar. Sugar is always there waiting for me because it is I who left sugar. Sugar didn’t leave me. How could so many people be wrong?

Then I get excited. Sugar, I’m coming back to you! And sugar opens it’s arms. I run right back to that place only to find it colder and smaller than I remember. Less colorful. Desolate. Sad. Pale. Dry. Grainy. Sticky. Childish. Foolish.

Each year when I do this, it is clearer that sugar is a symbol of who I used to be. As I enter into the second half of my life I want to declare sugar gone. Something from way back. Something that makes each day without sweets a good day.

4:30 pm It’s strange. I ate all of the packaged candy and a bunch of chocolate covered pretzels. I feel awful. Bloated. Heavy. Tired. Gross. I look forward to Tuesday so that I will stop eating this stuff. It’s my own self-imposed parameters that “give me the window” to desecrate my body with junk food. Why? It makes me feel terrible. And yet I’ll eat this stuff until Tuesday. It’s like I’m worried I’ll miss something if I don’t eat it.

Why do you eat sweets? What are you getting out of it? It’s a complete waste of your time, money and energy. I bet, if you really look at it, there’s some kind of child-like motivation behind your desire to eat yourself into oblivion. Can you locate that motivation? Can you change your paradigm? It’s easily said and not so easily done. Or is it?

My brother says it’s easy..

Posted in My Personal Journal on 11/01/09 • Comment

Sugar-free Carob Chip Cookie Recipe

October 31, 2009 • Comments (1)

Ingredients:

1 cup of wheat flour
baking soda
2 eggs
vanilla
white grape juice concentrate
3/4 stick of butter
oats
carob chips

Instructions:

Mix 1/2 cup of flour, butter (softened), baking soda.
Add eggs, vanilla, grape juice, and another 1/2 cup flour, oats.

If it’s dry you can add water or milk.

Mix in carob chips.

Place on un-greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 315 degrees until done.

Sorry about the lack of exact measurements, I tend to just shake a little of this-or-than into the mix and judge the amount visually. If you have been eating sweets then the results of this recipe will taste like cardboard. However, if you’ve been off sweets for a while then these are pretty darn nice!

Addendum: Carob contains natural sugars. However, unsweetened carob has less natural sugars than sweetened chocolate and therefore does not cause me to want to binge on it.

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on 10/31/09 • Comment

October 31, 2009 - Halloween

October 31, 2009 • Comments (0)

I ate sugar last night—a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's Half Baked ice cream. I also had some cookies. Today I will eat more.

When I woke up this morning my eye had a big crusty in it. That's a sugar thing. It's rare that I wake up with crust in my eyes (de-lic-ious!) when I am not eating sugar.

So far this morning I just feel hungry. More to come, I will keep updating.

1:00 pm Amazing. I have a bunch of chocolate sitting there waiting for me but I am not craving it. I feel kinda gross having just eaten a few bites of a Nutella Crepe. Last night, after I ate the ice cream, my teeth were coated with sugar. It was way nasty.

5:00 pm I have a bunch of chocolate in the house but don’t want it. I am not craving it at all. I have eaten some chocolate covered pretzels and, although they were not very good, kept eating them. I am going to skip dinner and will probably have some more junk before the day is done...

Posted in My Personal Journal on 10/31/09 • Comment

Sugar Challenge: November 2009

October 28, 2009 • Comments (20)

It’s back! The Monthly Sugar Challenge is back!

November is now NOvember.

From Sunday, November 1st through Thanksgiving day (November 26th in the USA) eat no sweets. No refined sugar. No cookies. No dessert. No soda. No candy.

Just Say No.

If you’re gonna eat sugar, do it on Halloween and get it out of your system. Abstain until Thanksgiving and eat whatever you want on that day. The next challenge will take us through the holidays.

You can do it… if you want to.

Whenever you find yourself wanting sweets, eat something healthy. Remember that you will be able to eat dessert on Thanksgiving day, so just put it off until then. Procrastination can be a good thing. NOvember 26th is just a few weeks away. And now it’s even closer.

And now it’s even closer…

Posted in Sugar Challenge on 10/28/09 • Comment

Four More Days ‘til Halloween

October 27, 2009 • Comments (0)

Halloween Candy It’s that time of year. In just four days I’ll be eating something sweet. Gwenn just returned from France with some really special chocolates. My friend Gabe says he’d like to make me some chocolate mousse. I hear it’s amazing and so of course I am pleased. Mousse is one of the things on my list for eating every year. Rich chocolaty things are my favorite.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I only eat refined sugary sweets for four days once every year. From Halloween until my birthday on November 3rd I eat whatever I want. This ritual has kept me sugar free 361 days out of the year for four years (with a slip up here and there). This year I made it all the way through with no mishaps. It wasn’t easy at times, but I made it.