It’s
the final day!!! Tomorrow, we’ll do our
weigh-in, and then dig into some pizza, ice cream, and brownies (haha, just
kidding—or maybe not!). Unbelievably, I
feel almost sad that this challenge is coming to an end after today. I talked to JK about it, and he agrees: we
are doing so well, and it feels so good (so. many. vegetables!) that it seems a
shame to stop now. Of course, we both
agree that sinking our teeth into a loaf of bread or chocolate bar would also
be nice… I’m not going to pretend we
made it through this without any cravings.
Of course we had them! But, we
were able to stave them off by eating really tasty foods and not being hungry. With a very few intentional “slips”, we
successfully stayed the course of our 10-Day Challenge! (Slip ups: at the Farmer’s Market Breakfast, I’m
sure there was flour in the quiche crust and lots of fruit sugar in the apple
cider, and I did “indulge” in 1 tablespoon of sugar-added ketchup and orange juice
once…)
This
10-Day Challenge was not a “low-carb” diet, since we were still eating all
whole-food carbs (white and sweet potatoes, squash, bananas) and even some
grains (rice and oats), but it felt so good to get rid of those empty, useless
carbs (sugar, white flour). I’m not sure
how much weight loss the scale is going to show tomorrow, but regardless, I
feel like this challenge has greatly increased the “healthy” foods we’ve been
eating. I haven’t really had ANY junk
food! My guilty pleasures have been a
couple of date-sweetened, no flour “desserts”, if you can call them that. And wow, they felt so guilty and sweet, even
though they couldn’t hold a candle (in sugar/flour content) to our “normal”
desserts!
I
have been reading lots of diet-related books lately (thanks, library!), and I’ll
list out the ones I’ve enjoyed and my thoughts on them in a future
post (soon). Overall, I am feeling more and
more against the idea of eating useless “carbs” such as processed sugar and
white flour. Ugh, what good are
they?! (Ok, they make delicious pie
dough, cookies, and cake. Damn.) Other than tasting delicious, they are
literally worse than useless, since the evidence keeps pouring in that sugar
and flour both affect the brain, hormones, and waistline, all in a negative
manner. I’ve even read that eating these
could possibly mean a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease (oh crap!).
But,
come on, how am I going to stay away from sugar and flour (and therefore bread
and beer and desserts and…) for the rest of my life?! Ugh, that’s so difficult to contemplate. Though it’s not impossible, it is very tricky
to navigate the landscape of avoiding these since sugar and flour is SO
UBIQUITOUS in our society! Not to
mention it’s baked into the fabric of our holidays, rituals, and traditions,
etc. I remember being annoyed years ago when
a friend of mine was following a low-carb diet similar to the South Beach
Diet—she was such a pain to eat out with and cook for. I don’t want to be that (annoying) person! And yet…it’s my life, and if I choose to do
that, so be it. People have been known
to follow their own “diets” in my circle from time to time, and we do our best
to ignore/accommodate them (ha!), so I won’t be any more demanding than
them.
I’ll have to come up with a savvy
way of explaining why I’m avoiding sugar and flour, as if the unhealthy-ness of
them is not self-evident to all (weirdly, it’s not, and I’m sure I’ll be
constantly defending myself and deflecting attention/criticism). I think the only thing that I’ve learned from
past “diets” is that I’m not going to intentionally draw attention to myself,
and I’m not going to try to convert other people (other than JK!), unless they
are truly interested. I think my best
bet will be to lay low, and try to say as little about it as possible to my
friends/family. When you eat a diet
contrary to those around you, there is a very real possibility of those people
becoming annoyed and defensive when they see you not eating their foods, like
you are almost “attacking” them and “putting down” their foods, and that their
foods are “not good enough” for you to eat.
I get it, but I don’t want to get stuck in those wars, and I will be
trying to deflect that kind of attention as much as I can. I plan to say something like “I think I’m pre-diabetic and
somewhat intolerant to gluten, so I’m trying to avoid sugar and flour as much
as I can.” It’s probably true! I will have to forevermore bring an item or
two of “approved” foods when traveling to visit family/friends, and that’s
really not a big deal. I already have
been known to bring a dish to pass.
It’s just that the type of food I would like to make now (meats and
veggie dishes) would be a really big shift away from my former delicacies
(cake, cookies, etc). I’m a good baker,
damn it. It’s hard to slip that title
off of my shoulders and move in a different direction…
Fortunately,
I haven’t had time to miss baking because, DAMN, I am spending a lot of time
cooking in the kitchen. (Whew, and the
dishes, yikes!) I am lucky I have the
time right now. I can see how this would
be a difficult template to follow if you don't have much time or desire for
cooking. I have never been a big meat
eater, so eating some form of meat every single day, and possibly at multiple
meals, is really a big change for me. It
feels good to cook “real” meat though; ie, not processed, not cured (well,
except for occasional bacon), and many meats with the bone-in and/or
skin-on. These kinds of meats do take a
bit of time to cook properly. And
cooking real vegetables takes time too: all that peeling and chopping. Overall, cooking is cool though, because not
only is it fun to experiment with new recipes (of which I’m doing), but then you
get to eat it. How cool is that?! And I find that the best recipes lately
include some ethnic-inspired flavors: French, Mexican, Italian, and Asian. I think these cuisines know how to handle
meals that include no sugar and no flour better than our Standard American Diet
(SAD), if you know what I mean!
So
that leads me to tomorrow: do we continue on with this No Sugar/No Flour Template,
or do we re-introduce these items back into our life? The problem is, it’s so easy to say, “I’ll make
sure that I eat X (sugar / flour / junk food / etc) only in moderation”, but so much harder to actually do it. I used to
be a big believer in “everything’s OK in moderation”, but I don’t believe that
anymore because there are two problems with that. One: I don’t think moderation is OK. And two: I don’t think moderation is actually
possible (at least for me). I think sugar and flour just mess too much with a
person’s body and mind and cravings and moods.
I don’t think smoking cigarettes is OK in moderation, and so I’m
starting to think that sugar and flour aren’t OK in moderation, either. And because I’ve learned that sugar is
addictive, affects moods, and causes major cravings, I know that it’s really
impossible to think that I could have it “moderately”. Also, I’ve now discovered that flour (gluten,
in wheat flour) does the same thing: the addiction/craving cycle. Now, can I honestly say that I will cut out
all sugar and flour for the rest of my life?
No, I doubt it. But as a result
of this 10-Day Challenge, I’ve come to realize that I’ve been basing way too
much of my diet, and my meals, on eating these two useless, harmful, damaging,
addictive ingredients. I have my food
diary to prove it. Even though I was
trying to eat “healthier” starting back in October, I was eating sugar and
flour in some form EVERY DAY, if not multiple times a day. Therefore, I’m willing to take a gamble on
swapping those foods out for healthy meats, fats, and veggies. It’s a gamble because the jury’s still out on
meat (and fat)—some say it’s bad, some say it’s good—but the jury is IN on
sugar and white flour: they are definitely BAD for humans!
Some
might ask why I don’t follow a whole-foods, plant-based diet that eliminates
added fats, and the reason is: I just can’t commit to that right now in my
life. Plus, I do think it’s unnatural,
and probably unhealthy in the long run, to completely eliminate meat and fat
from the diet. I know it has been shown
to reverse heart disease, but I am not convinced it’s the diet that’s right for
everyone. Perhaps there are a number of
good templates that exist that could prevent heart disease in the first place…and
I’d bet those would eliminate processed foods (including sugar and flour), trans
fats, and potentially contaminated conventional meats and dairy and produce
(GMO, Factory-Farm, CAFO/feed-lot,
Non-Organic/Non-Local/pesticide-/antibiotic-/hormone-/chemical-laden
foods). I’m lucky enough to be educated,
have access, and have the money to eat this way. And I’m going to do it, and support my
local/organic farmers!
I
think I’ve come to a decision though: JK and I are going to slowly work our way
towards a very limited sugar and no (wheat) flour lifestyle. We’ve seen that we are both susceptible to
the mood/craving/addictive effects of these ingredients, and we’d do best to
avoid them whenever possible. I also
suspect both of us may be somewhat gluten sensitive, and so I would like to
move away from wheat/wheat ingredients for health reasons. However, I’m not going to throw away
everything in our house that contains sugar and flour right now. I am way too much of a food pack-rat, and
that would equate to TONS of money down the drain. But, I think it’s wise to consider moving
that direction. I will not be buying any
more sugar, and no more wheat flours (of any kind), for the foreseeable
future. It helps that I have a couple of
bags of each (sugar and flour) in the house already (Christmas baking
leftovers), in case I do need (want) to whip up something for a family/friend
gathering. But right now, my focus will
still be on eating from the 10-Day Challenge Template: healthy meats, healthy fats,
and vegetables, with some dairy, fruit, nuts, non-wheat grains (rice, oats),
and legumes mixed in for good measure.
I’ve got a whole host of sugar- and flour-laden items in our 2 freezers
that we’ll have to eat our way though: homemade pizza, rolls, cake, and cookies,
etc. What I'm not sure of is this: would
it be better to gorge on those and “get it over with”, and then go back to a
very limited sugar and no flour lifestyle?
Or slowly eat through them while mostly maintaining our 10-Day Challenge
foods, with them sprinkled in, now and then?
I think I’m leaning towards eating though them fairly quickly (1-2 items
per day), so that we can get back on this bandwagon as quickly as possible. I feel like every day that we eat sugar and
flour adds to a higher chance we get sucked back into that pleasurable, but
addictive, fatty, SAD lifestyle. Sigh.
Today
JK said he passed up some doughnut holes and breakfast pastries at a morning
meeting because of our Challenge (and avoided loads of both sugar and white
flour, yay for him!). If we start to include
those items “in moderation”, I’m pretty sure both he and I will eat them at
every given opportunity. They are
addictive, and we can’t moderate them.
That’s why I’m on the fence about re-including them. I think our best chance of moderation is to
follow some new rules (I know, I’m obsessed with rules) about how we can
incorporate sugar and flour, and yet not be addicted and ruled by it.
The “No Sugar / No Flour”
Template—Rules for Real Life:
1.
Eat the already-made items in the fridge/freezer/pantry. This includes: homemade pizza, rolls, cake,
cookies, jam, maple syrup, and honey, etc.
2.
Do not make any additional baked goods.
Stop. Don’t do it.
a. For now, focus my kitchen energies on
“healthy” cooking, especially new ethnic recipes.
b. Then think deeply and talk with JK about if/when
I’ll want to re-incorporate baking into my life. Do I just use coconut
flour/nut meals and honey/maple syrup?
Do I use wheat flour, but only for special occasions/holidays? Do I take 1 month or 3 months or 6 months off
of wheat flour and refined sugars entirely?
3.
Decide if/what we could “donate” to other people from our pantry: unopened bags
and boxes of wheat pasta, flour, cookies, crackers, cereal, etc.
4.
Eat the rest up quickly, and/or freeze it to eat it slowly, and/or bring it to
family/friend gatherings to limit how much we are actually eating of it.
5.
Never eat high-sugar and/or high-flour food items when eating out. Those rolls and pasta and sweets are almost
always of terrible quality, and not worth it!
6.
Save our favorite high-sugar / high-flour establishments (Madison Sourdough,
Batch Bakehouse, Greenbush Bakery) for very special occasions, like a visit
during our “staycation”, Valentine’s Day, holidays, birthdays, and our
anniversary. Not random
weekdays/weekends!
7.
Bring a low-or-no-sugar/no-flour item to all family and friend gatherings to
ensure there’s a “safe” dish available for us to eat. And/or eat a little something (healthy!)
before going to gatherings. Try our best
to avoid eating high-sugar and high-flour food items when eating with family
and friends (eat all other items, avoid junk items).
Do
you think it’s possible to follow my 7 rules?
Any suggestions on how you limit your sugar and flour intake, if you
already do?
Forward
Flavor!
