winter warming.

One thing I've been missing are cups of hot chocolate. When me and my daughters have been out on a cold day - and we've had some cold, wet days this year! - we love coming home, getting warm and having hot chocolate together. Some days an infusion of lemon and ginger doesn't really do it.

So my physio had a fantastic suggestion.

Why don't you have a mug of cocoa, sweetened with honey?

My mum used to make us cocoa on cold winter days and I didn't really like it but I was a child and sugar was a part of my life so I bought a tub of Cadbury bourneville cocoa today and heated up some milk. I mixed a teaspoon of cocoa with a little cold milk, I mixed in the hot milk and added a squeeze of honey.

Oh. My. Goodness! It was divine!!

I'm so glad that I can still indulge in hot chocolate :)

forgetfull

I don't think about writing here as much as I should. But there is a good reason. A reason that I haven't quite come to terms with.

Sugar rarely tempts me.

Okay, there was that blip as the weekend but I didn't actually eat anything sugary. But yesterday at the breastfeeding group I W's cutting cake for the mums and didn't even consider cutting any for myself. Not at any point did I wish that I could have had some.

Later on I saw a tv advert for Twix - a chocolate bar. As they drizzled the chocolate over the biscuit centre I tried to imagine the taste - as I have many times before without effort. I've drooled or of desire for that chocolate. But yesterday? I just couldn't achieve that reaction! It was like trying to imagine the taste of wood!

So now I have these feelings - kind of like I've lost a part of myself. Sugar has always been there. I love the extravagance of scones with jam and cream, cakes with slightly too much icing. A chocolate bar sneaked here and a packet of custard creams in front of a movie. These threebgs all seem lost to me now.

No one mentioned the grieving.

dopamine.

I was at my regular physio appointment last night. I'm a runner and was injured last year, I'm slowly (literally!) getting back into the swing of things but to avoid re-injury I need to pay for pain on a regular basis.

Knowing that he believes the same as me, that fat is healthier than sugar, I talked to him about my 3 month plan (between screaming and swearing as he cracked my back, loosened my itb and kept my achilles loose). He told me something interesting.

Apparently nearly all food releases dopamines in our brains which causes us pleasure from eating. The only food that he knew of which doesn't have this affect is broccoli! This is why most kids don't like it - of course 50% of my kids do.

Anyway, if we eat food regularly the quantity of dopamine released becomes lower which encourages us to eat a balanced diet. We look for new foods or food that we haven't eaten recently in order to get a bigger dopamine release.

However - the release of dopamine doesn't decline with sugar consumption meaning that we never get sick of these foods and that includes many pre-packaged 'savoury' foods which are packed full of sugar too.

It's certainly something else to think about. And reminds me about a complaint I once had about mother nature not realising that we had invented the supermarket. Why couldn't we evolve away from the need to overeat.

This helps me to understand that it isn't about needing to evolve - it's about our reliance on crap food.

aaaggghhhhhh!

I WANT SUGAR AND I WANT IT NOW!!! 

Talk me down people, talk me down!

Premenstrual and with a prepubescent, hormonal child who just OD'd on sugar at a pizza hut party. She's rolling like a roller coaster on super speed and I'm just waiting for the crash.

It's going to be ugly...

forgive me blogger...

...for I have sinned. NO!   I haven't eaten sugar but I've been away too long!

At first I thought that this blog could rapidly descend into boring-land as I was likely to get drawn into repetitions of "i didn't eat sugar. I feel super energetic." Ya know, it's not screaming "fun!" is it!

So... I planned to read a little. A little pro sugar some anti sugar and report on my findings and thoughts but Holy Crap there is A LOT out there in interwebs land *shudders*. All sincere and all contradicting each other. One thing I found interesting was a sort-of investigation done by identical twins. One gave up all sugars for a month while the other gave up all fats for the same month. Given their identical genetic make-up it should make it a fairly even test. 

Their findings were that neither option seemed better than the other and further findings showed that the big issue was with the mix of sugar and fat. Apparently it's the combination that switches off the 'I'm full now' switch in our brain. So chocolate, desserts, cakes all these things that we consider to be treats are what lead us to eat more of them.

For me it's been, what? A couple or three weeks? Something like that and I'm hardly getting cravings. I would still like a big fat slice of carrot cake but that's different from losing sight of everything until I manage to get some. 

Although my daughter came home from a trip to Cadbury World today and, in her possession were three bars of chocolate and a bag of chocolate buttons. I must confess that I dove into the larder with a teaspoon and had a mouthful of honey to  deal with wanting the chocolate!

All in all, and so far, life without sugar is going well. Of course, I may have pms to deal with - I'll let you know how that goes...

interesting side effect.

It's been over a week since I ditched the white (and brown) stuff and things are easier. I'm a teensy bit jealous at breakfast because my youngest daughter wanted some Kellogg's Krave which is such a yummy, delicious cereal but I know I'm better without it and I really enjoy my porridge. I've bought a variety of different dried fruits and nuts so I can keep it interesting.

Trust me I get really  bored with flavours if I have them too often!

So, to interesting side effects... The first is TMI! My poo has become lighter in colour! Good or bad thing? Who knows!

Also, I've lost weight. I will be the first to fess up and say I have a few pounds to lose but I'm also happy with the way I am and that isn't the reason for the sugar embargo. However, I lost 2lbs this week with no sugar. It will be interesting to see if it carries on since I'm certainly not holding back on the fat eg. Lunch was a salad. This salad contained, as well as lettuce, tomato, cucumber and celery, avocado, bacon, olives and cheese. It was soooo delicious!

And, it's 22:55, I need to sleep and so I'm off. G'night.

it may be late...

... but I feel I should write.

It's almost midnight but I'm aware that I've nearly missed two days of writing.

Since the Great Cookie Battle of Saturday I haven't been faced with much temptation - not that I haven't been faced with sugar laden food (chocolate fountain and Eton Mess on Sunday or example), but the temptation wasn't there.

However, it's late and we have a trip to Butterfly World tomorrow so Ttfn!