Resolve This: Week 4 (Sugar and Fast-Food Free)

The last week of my sugar-free month was massively unsuccessful, due to a sushi outing that ended with mochi, and inclement weather that just BEGGED for Hot Chocolate. But going over 3 weeks without sugar was still a great success for me at the time.

In going sugar free, I did watch my weight drop a little bit, but that was really the only thing I actively noticed that changed. However in this first week with sugar back in my diet, I have been a complete wreck. My weight has jumped even higher than I started, despite me taking care not to binge sugar in compensation for the last month, and my already dodgy levels of anxiety are through the roof. Sleep has not come easily and I have been finding myself really feeling uncomfortable in my skin due to the jitters and rush from the sugar I have reintroduced into my system. It seems that my body has completely forgotten how to process high-sugar foods, even after only a few weeks away from them.

How I feel after one glass of hot cocoa with marshmallows.

I honestly think I may start dodging sugar more intentionally from this point moving forward because adding it back into my diet has been so chaotic. I found quite a few alternatives to my usual high-sugar items, and have always preferred savory to sweet anyways. This past month has been an eye-opener not just to my overall poor eating habits and routines, but also helped me realize that sugar is presented to me in WAY more areas of my life than I had originally thought, and that removing sweets from my diet has not really made me miss much.

What’s funny about this is that I’m lactose intolerant.

So now, we’re into February – The month of No Fast Food. I successfully did this last year and the biggest challenge I encountered was defining “Fast Food” and making smarter lunch choices on days when I forgot to bring something from home. Last year, I would often eat at full blown dine-in restaurants in place of the usual fast-food joints – a loophole that often resulted in higher calories, larger portions, and a bigger price-tag. So, this year, I am stating up front where I can and cannot go that may be defined as “Fast Food” to ensure I still have some options in a pinch without fully failing this month’s resolution.

This…. Isn’t wrong….

Local Fast-Food NOT OK
McDonalds, Culver’s, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, Arby’s, Steak & Shake, Panda Express, Noodles & Company, Dairy Queen, Firehouse Subs, any grab-and-go fast-food type grocery store meals (such as burgers, fried chicken sandwiches, tenders, etc), and the two places I don’t eat anyways: Chick-Fil-A and Burger King.

Local “Fast Food” OK
Panera, Cousins, Subway, Jimmy Johns

The Pizza Rule
Pizza isn’t fast food but deserves some acknowledgement for this month. My partner suggested we limit our consumption to twice this month at most, to which I have agreed. But this will mean pizza only, I will pass on my usual boneless buffalo order, and skip on calzone day with my coworkers.

Essentially, the thought is to dodge the places that pair every meal with something fried, or where every other entree is fried, slathered in sauce, or otherwise packed with empty calories. I am allowing places known for having a higher ratio of healthy options, primarily serving soups and sandwiches that I would be bringing from home anyways. This seems like a healthier way to handle it, rather than going instead to the local Chinese buffet for a meal, or getting an expensive restaurant meal, or skipping meals entirely.

Wish me luck in this new month! Let me know in the comments what YOUR new years resolution was, and how you’re doing with it!

It’s a double edged “blessing”…. But just roll with it.

Resolve This: Week 2 (Sugar Free)

HOOOOBOY ya girl stepped on the scale at the beginning of this week and saw a high number she’s never seen before. It’s my first time on the scale in months and WOOF let’s never see that one or any above it ever again! The bright side is that I now have a quantifiable starting point.

Official Starting BMI: 33.3

This adds about 10lbs to what I thought my weight-loss goal was. Still VERY doable, as I could literally double my goal and still lose weight at a healthy rate, it was just very unexpected.

Unfortunately this little shocker of a number brought back some old mind-demons.

I have a history of having a poor relationship with food. I actively tried starving myself for a chunk of time as a teenager and it’s easy to slip back into skipping meals, cutting calories in extreme amounts, and actively ignoring intense hunger pains until someone forces me to eat. It’s because of this history that I’ve tried adopting more of a “treat yourself” and “you deserve it” mindset with food, but that mindset has resulted in me gaining too much weight instead of settling into a comfortable, healthy weight.

Balance isn’t something I’ve been able to find yet with food; it’s either a reward or it’s the worst possible thing I could do to myself. I know logically that I need it to live, that food inherently isn’t bad and that you just have to choose the RIGHT foods and eat the correct amounts of them. But something in me says that all calories are horrible and should be avoided at all costs.

The point of all of this is that I was not the healthiest this week, not from what I chose to eat, but from what I failed to eat. I skipped sugar, sure, but I did it wrong because I was also skipping important meals and eating minimally, clocking one day in under 400 calories. And I made myself sick from it, to where processing any food at all was difficult on my body for another day or two after. I was in a constant state of hunger and nausea, and to eat even simple foods made me feel sick. I had to gradually reintroduce food into my system until I could comfortably keep it down again. It was effective but uncomfortable and NOT my objective.

I stopped counting/logging calories already, mostly because of this. I get too obsessive over keeping the number as low as possible as opposed to trying to meet a goal.

Ultimately, though, I continued to skip the things I’m SUPPOSED to skip – desserts, candies, sugary drinks and juices, and am starting to try out some sugar-free options and sugar alternatives for those moments when I just HAVE to have coffee – because blackcoffee is just plain disappointing. I’m allowing fresh fruit and carb-foods that have sugar in them, but sweets themselves are a success.

When going sugar-free, a packet of Splenda or a bit of SF French Vanilla Coffee-Mate is heaven.

Whether it was the skipped meals or the skipped sugar that did it, I lost weight. I dropped my BMI from 33.3 to 32.9, which is a success if I can keep it this way and continue healthily moving forward!

New! BMI: 32.9

 

How can I improve my weekly updates? What would you like to see more of? Let me know in the comments!

Resolve This: Week 1 (Sugar-Free)

When deciding to go sugar-free this month, my thought was to avoid processed sugars like candies, sodas, and chocolates, but I’ve realized as I started that sugar is hidden in WAY more places than that. While I won’t be as strict on the hidden sugars as I will be the obvious ones, I’m still trying to fully remove sugar from this month’s diet. I’ve fired up my LifeSum account again and am trying to get back into the habit of logging my food to keep track of nutrition, calories, and most importantly right now, sugar intake. Here’s how it went:

Days 1 & 2

Daily intake 1/2/19

In my first two days, I tried to make smarter, lower-carb & lower-sugar meal choices, and successfully turned down and the many opportunities for sweets such as hot cocoa and cake. However I slipped up with a big glass of sweet red wine with dinner – Something that hadn’t even occurred to me was an issue until I started writing this recap.

It’s probably a good thing that detailed nutritional facts on wine/liquor are so hard to find in accuracy (I doubt the accuracy of details uploaded into Lifesum), because with the amount of natural and processed sugars in that bottle are likely astronomical, and I’m better off not knowing just how badly I failed in my first days.

So, I try again. The great thing about this is that my whole resolution isn’t negated from one slip up, and to act that way would be a cop-out. #NewDayNewMe

Day 3

Daily intake 1/3/19

Lunch was fried, but sugar free. It figures that buffalo chicken tenders and fries from Culvers have 0g sugar, while a grilled chicken sandwich has 6g. Definitely makes me question whether sugar removal was really a better decision over setting calorie goals. But I am curious to see how it all pans out.

I skipped snacks and sweets throughout the day, had a hearty and healthy dinner, and finished off at karaoke with some vodka lime sodas that were low in calorie and sugar, cutting my sugar intake for the day SIGNIFICANTLY down from the day before. I think I’m getting the hang of this!

Day 4

I’ve still successfully avoided sweets, but those hidden sugars are hard to avoid. I also am

Daily Intake 1/4

not giving up alcohol this month and there’s NO nutritional values out there from the manufacturers to be able to keep great track. My mixers I keep sugar-free – This time brewing up some mint tea to use as a mixer for the honey whiskey that a friend brought over. But the liquor itself? Probably packed with unknown amounts of sugar.

I’ve been moving more towards higher carb and higher fat foods in my attempts to avoid sugar, but I feel like I should be leaning towards higher PROTEIN foods, almost taking on the keto diet for this month to have this sugar-free attempt be worthwhile… But I’ll see what happens. I’m honestly just happy to be cutting out the candy and desserts, which had started becoming more liberal in my diet lately.

Day 5

I didn’t log my meals. I had BBQ for lunch but skipped the actual BBQ sauce since it’s a sugar-packed condiment, so really it was just a shaved prime rib sandwich. After picking up some friends from the airport I had a slice of pizza that had some BBQ sauce and pineapple on it, but it was at least small. I feel like I did ok? But without logging the day I can’t quantify it properly.

Day 6

Mmm…..Yikes.

I made sugar free food choices, but went to a brunch buffet with bottomless mimosas. Another day of unlogged food, and copious amounts of fruit juice with heaven knows how much added sugar. There are worse ways to cheat, and despite knowing I had a massive cheat day with the mimosas, I still skipped dessert and opted for some fresh pineapple slices and a blackberry crepe instead. If I’m going to cheat with some sugar, let’s keep it more natural.

The food itself on the buffet was all Mediterranean so it overall wasn’t bad for me! I ate a lot, but it was all high protein and vegetable based. Dinner…. we ordered Pizza Hut late, so, not great. But it was low/no sugar!

Day 7

Mondays means we’re back on track with logging, and it was a simple, well behaved lunch day and Pizza Hut leftovers for dinner. I miss hot chocolate.

The Big 3

My 3 larger goals this year – Pay off my credit card, lose weight, and stop skin picking – were all successfully kicked off this week. Most notably, I’ve had a great week in combating my skin-picking issue, which I had identified as the most difficult goal to approach as it is not measurable and is deeply habitual. The approach was a bit drastic – I kept gloves on all day at work, only removing them to use the restroom, eat, and moisturize – but it worked! I didn’t pick at all at work as long as the gloves were on. At home and when I was out and about, I kept the gloves off and it was SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult to avoid picking, but I tried to be more aware of my habit and was able to catch myself at it and stop before doing as much damage as usual and negating my success from the workday. I spent a lot of time sitting on my hands or holding my partner’s hand (and he’s been helping call me out on it more to get me to stop, too). It’s not easy, but I feel like I made progress. I did notice I was chewing on my lip a lot more when my fingers weren’t available.

Financially, I planned. I’ve determined that I currently have to contribute about $350/paycheck into my credit card in order to get the balance to $0 by the end of my 0% interest period. Because I simply don’t have an extra $350 free in my budget each payday, I have a 2nd card that will start covering some expenses previously paid by debit (gas & groceries), and every time the new card increases in balance, I am paying the same amount from my debit into my old credit card. Essentially, what I can’t pay off immediately, I am transferring gradually into the new card, which has 0% until 2020, to buy myself more time. The new card has a smaller limit, and when the old card is paid off, I can use the aggressive amounts I was putting into my old card towards paying off the new one so that both are ideally fully paid off by the end of the year.

In regards to my BMI… I made a mistake and didn’t weigh in the morning of the 1st to give myself a starting point. I will have to start properly tracking next week. But with the no-sugar rule I’ve been more intentional in my meal choices and I cut out a HUGE calorie-consumer from my diet, so I would imagine that it’s been OK so far, unless I’ve been replacing the sugar with too many carbs and fats. I’ll find out next week!

Reflection

I’m not certain that cutting out sugar only is the BEST approach towards improving my health, but it seems like a good step. There are many foods that have sugar in them that are healthy and PLENTY of foods that are sugar-free but horrible for you. Like any diet, it’s about balancing numbers and knowing what the good and bad forms are of each nutritional component. Simply cutting a component altogether will help you get started, but won’t last long-term or actually lead to a healthy lifestyle. I am curious to see if the removal of sugar was enough to impact my weight at all by the end of this month, and compare it to later months when I remove things like fried food, fast foods, and alcohol (which I’m noticing in this log I have almost daily, so that should be a big one…).

One thing I catch myself at, that can be mentally healthy but also physically and financially problematic, is my treat-yourself mentality. I keep justifying slip-ups and poor food choices or purchases by saying that they’re deserved or creating a false need in my mind. I’ve struggled with healthily balancing out my meals in the opposite direction – forcing myself to starve to lose weight – so I find myself now over-correcting trying to keep myself away from that mentality by allowing myself more “cheats” than I really should. Really what all of this boils down to is balance, and the only way I know to get there is to continue researching and being mindful of my choices and actions.

Resolve This: Fresh Starts

“New Year, New Me” is a cheesy eye-rolling phrase that’s passed around at the end of every year, that has become the butt of every joke (and now the title of a Hulu original horror film). The sentiment of it, though, holds actual importance and meaning;  that with a new calendar year comes a clean slate and a universally recognized opportunity to start fresh. This “clean slate” makes it extremely helpful in resetting goals and trying once again to better yourself in whichever ways you wish.

Besides being devastatingly cliche, “New Year, New Me” is typically mocked due to the common weakness to set goals every New Year, and lose sight of them within a month or two. Three for the strong-willed. New Years resolutions are famous for being broken, leading more to a “New Year, Same BS” kind of result.

So, a couple years ago, I decided to try a different approach to the concept of New Years Resolutions, and elected to instead set monthly resolutions for myself – ideally which all feed into a larger long-term goal. I’ve found that refreshing my goals and my intention every month helps keep me motivated and on task, and I’m more likely to succeed.

This year I’ve elected to try writing about my experiences as I work my way through this next calendar of goals. I’m hoping to keep myself accountable by involving others in my “journey” (gag) and give myself a public task to track my progress so that my goals remain active in my mind and my intention stays fresh and focused.

Here’s the breakdown. I set 3 primary goals for myself: 

1) Pay off my credit card

Paying off my credit card is a measurable goal that ideally should be done by May, when my 0% APR “grace period” ends and the dreaded interest begins. Right now I am still able to bail myself out without any real financial damage, but it will take some aggression,  tough strategy, self control, and around $400 a paycheck to pull off. I’ve opened a 2nd credit card, also with a 15 month 0% intro period, that I will use to help with some expenses as I chip away at the larger balance. Ideally, by moving some expenses on to the new card so I can allocate more to paying off the old one, I can buy myself some interest-free time, bring that $400/check amount down to something more realistic, and make myself fully debt free by the end of 2019.

2) Get my BMI to 28.3

Another measurable goal! I know, I know, BMI is an outdated and inaccurate measure of healthy weight and nobody should put much stock into it. And I’m not actually focused on whether my BMI says I’m obese, or overweight, etc. I’m only using it here to avoid disclosing my actual weight, because… well… I don’t want to.

I’m setting a smaller goal for myself than I think is actually POSSIBLE, because while drastic weight loss would be fantastic, I’m hoping that taking it slow and steady will allow for some longevity in the result. I want to focus on developing healthier habits, and the thought is that with these new habits, the pounds will start to shed. And maybe I’ll exceed my goal – who knows?

3) Stop skin-picking

I have a body-focused repetitive behavior disorder (BFRBD) where I pick at my skin until it’s raw, sore, bleeding, etc. Almost every day for the last 10+ years, I break skin or rip it down to the softer pinker underflesh that feels hot and painful when exposed. Every time I go to get my nails done, the manicurist asks “What happened? Did you burn yourself?” and it’s an embarrassing and painful habit that I’m determined to break. This particular goal will be difficult. It’s not measurable, and I often don’t realize I am picking as I do it, but it’s probably the most important to me, as it effects my life and comfort the most.

I’m acknowledging upfront that this may be something that I am unable to do on my own. I will try some “home remedies” for the first 6 months of the year, and if I don’t feel like any progress is being made, I plan to find a therapist to give me some additional support and resources.

In order to achieve these goals, I’ve assigned each month a more specialized task that will help bring my closer to my larger objectives, or just help me refocus on what’s important.

January:
NO Processed Sugar

February:
NO Fast Food

March:
NO Fried Food

April:
NO Alcohol

May:
NO Social Media

June:
Daily Lunch Break Workout

July:
NO Fancy Coffee

August:
Daily Declutter (Remove/Sell 1 Item or Category a day)

September:
NO Unnecessary Spending

October:
NO Alcohol (Anniversary Exempt)

November:
NO Fast Food

December:
Phone Less, Read More

Most of these goals are focused on saving money (which goes in turn towards my credit card, assisting with Goal #1) or eating better/moving more (contributing to Goal #2), with a few for mental wellness and hopefully some anxiety reduction (for Goal #3).

I’ll elaborate more on those as each month arrives and progresses, so for now, I’m going to shut up and let the goals BEGIN!