Today's the first day I had to have a little conversation with myself about whether or not to eat a certain food. I had fallen behind on my food prep, had been awake since 5:30 due to a certain little girl's current early schedule, and was at the end of a pretty long stretch without the Hubs home. The kids were down for their naps in the afternoon and I hadn't had time to really sit down and eat a legit meal yet (not something I normally do and I highly advise against it. Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day). One of the drawbacks of eating this way is there aren't many meals you can just open your fridge or pantry door and make in 2 minutes. So when you haven't prepared in advance and you're super worn out from the day it's tough to motivate to put in the effort to make a salad or cook up some rice or wilt some greens. Instead, you look at your son's leftover pancakes from breakfast for a good minute. You see them on the plate, just a few bites, and think to yourself that if you weren't living sugar free you would have already eaten those three hours ago when you were cleaning up the breakfast dishes. But there they still sit.
People often think the toughest thing about living sugar-free is not being able to eat legitimate desserts. Ice cream, chocolate cake, candy. My friends often apologize if they eat a cookie in front of me. Honestly, that isn't too difficult. Yes, there are times when I just want some chocolate or feel left out if people are celebrating a birthday with cake, but for the most part that doesn't get to me. I know I can't eat dessert, and dessert isn't necessary. It's not like I'm starving and the only option to eat is a huge batch of cookies.
The tough parts are when I literally can't find something to eat! It's days like today, when my only easy lunch options are carrot sticks with hummus and a bowl of oatmeal with cinnamon, peanut butter and coconut flakes. Those foods give me calories but are not what I had in mind for lunch. When my meals don't satisfy me then I start looking for something I shouldn't have...normally something with wheat, white flour, sugar and other processed junk.
But I didn't eat them! Woo-hoo! Instead, I got some more carrots out and sat down to watch some re-runs of The Office. That show seriously was so much better with Steve Carrell. Watched The Deposition today - when Jan tries to sue the company and brings Michael in for questioning. I laughed out loud at least four times. Laughing definitely gets your mind off food!
So I chalk today up to a big victory. This go around with sugar-free I just have so much more knowledge. I love that I know why I wanted those pancakes:
1) I needed something to eat
2) I haven't been doing a great job of putting variety into my diet or creating great tasty dishes for myself. This is when I start looking for sugary type stuff.
Hopefully I can find some time over the next week to prepare myself some food. Tomorrow I am starting on my 20 staple meals!
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