Challenge Accepted

Hey everyone! I’m posting a little earlier today because I’m going out to dinner with my friend, then heading home to visit my cats, so I’m not sure how much opportunity I’ll have later to post. I just deleted all the pictures of my meals on my phone so if someone happens to look through my pictures, they won’t know just how food crazy I am. 

This morning, I had practice at 7:30. Well, sort of. I wasn’t on the water yet again, because the awkward number of people we had. Instead, I got to have the pleasure of timing all the boats. I got about 4 seconds of action in the more than 3 hours that the boats were on the water and it was FREEZING. Luckily, I had good enough sense to grab my iPod halfway through to listen to nutrition podcasts, but at least I had some time for reflection. 

Before practice, here’s what I ate:

A thawed quinoa breakfast bake and an orange. I got the recipe for the bake from Whole Foods. You can find it here. It’s still good 6 months later! 

After freezing through practice, I had a cinnamon raisin bagel because my coach brought bagels for the team. It was a really good bagel, nice and chewy! As soon as we got back, I rushed to brunch (it was almost 1 at this point) even though I had just eaten a bagel because Saturday brunches are probably my favorite meal of the week. Why? One reason. AVOCADO. Saturday brunches have Mexican food, and included in that is mashed up avocado. SO GOOD.

I normally make my Mexican food into a salad, as I did today. I figured I probably needed some veggies and protein to round out my meal anyway! At the end of my meal I wanted something sweet so instead of a waffle, I reached for a piece of whole wheat bread with blueberry cream cheese and peanut butter. 

After some work on a group project, I was ready for my second nap in 2 days. I may not have gone to bed as early as I should have last night. When I woke up, I had the hugest mug brownie craving. I tried healthy mug brownie take 2, this time with a different proportion of ingredients. I added less yogurt and more brownie mix, and it tasted more like the real thing.

Probably because it was more like the real thing. Ugh. After that, I decided that the best way to use the brownie mix in a healthy way was to get it the heck out of my room. After all, it’s been open in my room for over a month, and I had picked quite a few of the chocolate chips out, and let’s be honest. Way too dangerous. Plus, if I want brownies, I’m better off baking a full batch and sharing them because they’re way better when made for real. However, I decided to get the last few chocolate chips out, and discover that brownie mix+plain greek yogurt+cocoa powder=deliciousness. After that, I had a few frozen cherries to get some decent food in my system. I decided to forgo my workout for today and just do it tomorrow because brownie+rowing machine would not be a good combination. This led my to the main topic of today’s post.  I spent some time today exploring other food blogs, and I came across a post on fitcupcaker about a 30 day no sugar challenge. I’ve done a few no-sugar challenges, and my biggest success was 3 weeks. Ever since the holidays, I’ve been indulging in my sweet tooth a little bit too often, so I decided this was a great time to do the challenge. I counted out the days on my calendar, and it ends on my sister’s birthday, which is perfect because I can enjoy cake on her birthday to celebrate my (hopefully) achievement (well, and her birthday). One thing I love about challenges like this is that they inspire creativity. If I have a sweet craving, I have the challenge to find a healthier way to satisfy it. (Hint: 2 great ways: nut butter and baked apples). I’ve never blogged about a no sugar challenge, and I’m super excited to start. Hopefully the encouragement will help me, and hopefully I can inspire you! And don’t worry, I’ll make sure to do some posts on sugar during this time, as it is one of my absolute favorite topics in science. Want some inspiration? One of my favorite videos: Sugar:The Bitter Truth, by Dr. Robert Lustig. Enjoy! My motivation? Dr. Lustig’s new book, “Fat Chance.” I absolutely cannot wait to read it!

Would you ever do a no sugar challenge?