A few years ago, the hubby and I tried going gluten free for 10 days. It took a lot more planning and a lot more thought, but we tried it to see if it improved how we felt. I would say that we did notice some small differences, overall there was not enough of a noticeable change to continue.
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about the effects of sugar on our bodies. There are opinions and facts and diets and recommendations galore, if you go looking. There is a information stating that it is addictive. Our diet at home is generally very low on sugar besides fruit and what I put into baked goods. We buy very little in the way of prepared/processed foods. We are careful about reading ingredient labels when we do buy something in a box or bag. We bake our bread without sugar. We make our own unsweetened yogurt. We don’t drink much juice, zero soda, unsweetened coffee/tea, etc. etc.
We did have a habit of eating a small dish of ice cream each night, usually the Turkey Hill All Natural variety with only milk, cream, vanilla and sugar. Sometimes we went crazy and added hot fudge, or bought chocolate ice cream with peanut butter, or even Ben and Jerry’s, but usually it was the vanilla. I chose the word “habit” carefully in describing the nightly ice cream.
After chatting about it for a few days, we decided to see if eliminating what little refined sugar we had in our diet would make a difference in how we felt or in our weight. We opted not to eliminate grains, legumes, and other foods that some diets indicate, just refined sugar. We tried this for two weeks. We tried to make sure we were drinking a ton of water.
The only goody I baked was Healthy Chocolate Granola Bars, which didn’t look much like the picture, but which were delicious. I’ll be making them again.
Instead of ice cream, which was missed, we had a date bar, popcorn, or nothing. We walked by sugary treats in our respective work places. I we ate out, we tried to choose foods least likely to have sugar added. I’m sure we weren’t perfect, but tried to stick as close to it as we could.
After two weeks, there was no weight lost (of course, actually getting back to routine exercise might help there). I missed baking. We don’t feel any different mentally or physically. I do think we will continue to forego the nightly ice cream. I do think we will continue to be thoughtful about ingredients, to pass by sugary stuff at work, and to be conscious about moderation. But I will go back to baking. I already try to use as little sugar as possible in my baked goods, but I’m not going to worry about cutting it out completely.
Meanwhile, Fargo will continue to play with, and to destroy, his balls. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Who me?