Lent, Day 2 - no sugary sweets

Sooo...yeah.....I decided to give up sugary sweets this year for Lent. My sweet tooth had gotten WAY out of control. When I get overly tired or stressed I reach for the sugar, and with a new baby that was pretty much every day. I have lost a good portion of my pregnancy weight but those last 6 to 8 lbs (depending on what day I step on the scale) just will not come off. I'm thinking the truck-loads of candy and cupcakes I keep shoving into my pie-hole might have something to do with that.

Now I haven't gone overboard with the NO SUGAR thing. Mainly I've cut out the junk sweets: anything where the nutritional value of the food does not outweigh the sugar content (i.e., cookies, candy, cakes, cupcakes, chocolate, etc.). With this philosophy I am allowing:

• fruits
• low sugar yogurt (like Chobani)
• low sugar oatmeal
• natural peanut butter
• sugar free creamer for my coffee (shut up...I know it has no nutritional value but at least I switched to sugar free)

Let me tell you this is MUCH harder than I had anticipated. Especially when I have these staring at me:

 OMG these jellybeans are the BEST and they only come out for Easter.

Mmmm.....Tagalongs.......

And add to it that I've been ramping up my workouts a bit so I'm rungry all of the time. And "RUNGRY JEN WANT SUGAR!!!" (in my cavewoman voice).

Day 1 I was fine until about 2:00 p.m.  The afternoon blood sugar dip hit me HARD. I wanted to reach for the sugar so badly...just one jellybean. No one will know. Problem is, I would know and I would be disappointed in myself. So, I made a huge glass of water with NUUN and had a few strawberries.  It helped. Day 2 I tried to be a little smarter and ate a bigger breakfast and drank water steadily throughout the day. That helped some but again - 2:00 p.m. BAM! the cravings hit. Again I scrounged for alternatives to combat the cravings.

I'm on Day 3 today and I'm starting to learn a few things already:

• My blood sugar dips and my cravings spike about the same time every day - 2:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Knowing this helps me prepare for these times a little better. I'm trying to incorporate a healthy snack right before these times. My favorites are raw almonds, fruit, string cheese, yogurt, light popcorn or laughing cow cheese.
• I find I eat less of a healthy snack as opposed to a sugary snack. A couple of strawberries or a few almonds will do the trick where as I will mindlessly eat cookies or candy. The little "you need to stop eating!" dude in my head just seems to take a siesta when I start chomping on the sugar.
• I need to eat a better breakfast. I usually just grab a Luna bar and some coffee. Nope...not gonna work. A breakfast bar just does not cut it. I need protein in my breakfast to help me last through the day.

I will be curious to see if my sugar hiatus will make a difference on the scale. I plan to weigh in after 7 days to see. Stay tuned, I will report back on it. *fingers crossed*

What are some of your favorite healthy snacks? How do you monitor your sugar intake?

Today I LOVE: rainy, stay-in-your-pajamas-and-read-a-good-book-days.