Week 2, Day 3

So, back at work! Still a little groggy, but not enough to excuse myself any longer. Plus, it would really be a pity to stay indoors another day with weather as glorious as this. :)

Breakfast:
3 rice crackers with peanut butter
1 glass of spelt milk
(Yay, I managed to eat something! In the morning! Without being late! Success!)

Lunch:
1 chicken kebab
(eaten in the park, basking in the sunshine - the only way to eat really, if I could...)

Afternoon:
1 glass of oat milk

Dinner:
Whole wheat pasta with self-made sauce consisting of tomato sauce, onion, courgette, and yellow bell pepper, smoked mussels for protein, some herbs

See, it's much more fun when I have loads of vegetables at home. No sugar anywhere - and what a difference to the madness of last week.
I think that food and eating it is much more fun when it's quite colourful - so the pasta sauce is red, white, green and yellow.

To vary things a little, I got a glass of cashew butter today, wonder how that'll turn out. And soon, I have to visit the one store I know that has mixed nuts butter, which I know to be extremely tasty. :)

Edit: I must admit, later that night, I had two small spoonfulls of the cashew butter - and, boy, it's one of the tastiest things I've ever tried. Wow. (I also had a cup of herbal tea, but that really pales in comparison.)

Week 2, Day 2

I haven't even mentioned what this week is about. Week 1 was about reducing sugar intake (and I mainly used it to reduce remaining sweets in the house and becoming more aware of where sugar is actually hidden). Week 2 I am supposed to learn how to deal with food cravings by eating more healthy fats, like fish, avocado, nuts and seeds. The theory being that sugar just makes you go on eating, but fat (and protein) fill you up. Of course, the main thing is still eating mainly vegetables and proteins and some healthy carbohydrates - I won't be eating crisps and all that now just stuff myself with any kind of fat.
I think this week is also supposed to teach how to deal with cravings in general. Replacing sweet treats with other treats, like drinking a nice cup of tea.

What did I eat today?

Breakfast:
1 bowl of porridge made with spelt milk, with the last of my frozen berries and a lot of linseed added, also some brown sugar because something went wrong and it tasted awfully watery and I almost couldn't eat it at all :( (S)

Lunch:
2 slices of bread with grilled cheese, plus several radishes (7 or 8 maybe?)

Dinner:
half a chicken breast and three small chicken nuggets (S) (I bought these before I was aware there was any sugar added, now they're gone)
salad made of rocket, radishes and cherry tomatoes, with a dressing made with lemon and poppy seed oil
one cup of Kukicha

Week 2, Day 1

I must admit that yesterday is slightly blurry. I didn't sleep at all during the night, then had a nap from morning to noon. The rest of the day felt rather dream-like and consisted of alternately knitting and reading books for my exam next Monday.

I think I had these things:

Breakfast:
3 rice crackers with peanut butter
1 large cup of Yogi Tea Chocolate

"Lunch":
1 large cup of hot chocolate (using up the last remainders that were still hanging around) (S)
2 eggs
some dried tomato
some corn crackers

Dinner:
Thai Chicken Masamun Curry (S)
I succumbed. I couldn't face cooking or another slice of bread or more eggs, so I ate something ready-made. I love these things, but I think this has been the last time for quite a while.

Feeling slightly better again today. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be fine again.

Week 1, Day 7

Breakfast:
3 rice crackers with peanut butter
2 cups of ginger tea with lemsip (S) and cayenne pepper

Lunch:
5 small falafel
steamed vegetables with some butter
yoghurt dip with herbs, garlic and pepper

Dinner:
Omelett made with 2 eggs, some parmesan and other cheese, (lots of) pepper
1 slice of bread

...and loads of ginger tea throughout the day.  Thankfully, the only thing with added sugar today was the lemon drink. (It's not really lemsip, but some lemon drink to be made with hot water...so I just added it to the tea.)

Feeling a little better, but still down with a temperature. :(

Week 1, Day 6

This evening will be another sugar fest, the last one though. We're visiting some friends, who today celebrate a tradition from Vorarlberg. There, carnival only properly ends at the Sunday after Shrove Tuesday, with a huge bonfire and large amounts of special donuts eaten with apple sauce. I see this as another experiment, observing what effects this will have. But, I must admit, I'll probably also enjoy eating the stuff. ;)

Morning snack:
1 small cup of hot chocolate made with rice milk (S)
3 rice crackers with peanut butter (made with just peanuts, no additives)

Lunch:
Wild salmon steak with some macadamia oil
Roast vegetables with garlic
Some sweets still remaining from Christmas (S)

Evening:
1 bowl of apple sauce (S)
approx. 10-15 of the donuts (they're quite small) with sugar (S)
3 cups of ginger tea with added lemsip (S) and cayenne pepper [Turns out I fell ill... :( ]

Week 1, Day 5

Breakfast:
1 cup of Earl Grey
2 slices of bread with dark chocolate spread (now also used up) (S)

Lunch:
2 different types of bread, one with tiny pieces of bacon added, one with oats and raisins (S)
some cheese
1 egg
(no veggies...all I have at home right now are tomatoes, and I can't face those right now)
2 small pieces of chocolate (now also gone, none left lying around) (S)

Evening (not really "dinner"):
Small bit of gingerbread my great-aunt made (S)
2 small bottles of beer
2 glasses of white wine
Some puffed millet balls (a snack which is just slightly salted)

We visited friends and played Descent, which might explain the beer...

So, no veggies at all - bad. :( And the list of things I did eat sounds...very strange. I need to change that.
But I'm becoming more aware of sugar content, checking everything I buy, reflecting on how things with some sugar make me feel.
Also, the curry things I ate at the restaurant apparently weren't all that good for me. I slept badly and woke up feeling odd. So, I suppose, no more curry at restaurants for the time being.

Week 1, Day 4

Day 4! I'm going out for dinner this evening, so I wonder how that'll turn out.

Breakfast:
2 slices of bread, one with tuna spread (S) and one with cheese
1 cup of Chococino (it's finished now. Gone. Yay!) plus some added chocolate*, with some rice milk as well

Lunch:
3 small potatoes, roasted with olive oil, plus some cheese and roast tomatoes

Dinner:
Coconut Curry soup
Fish curry with I think it was either pumpkin or sweet potatoes (and kale or chard?), some rice
1 glass of (white) spritzer
1 tall glass of Kardamom Mint (a drink that a chef in Graz has developed and which has since popped up at several locations, it's some mint syrup plus kardamom plus mineral water and some lemon/orange) (S)

I can't say for sure whether there was any added sugar in the soup and curry, but if so then there can't have been all that much. Plus - more veggies today, as promised. 

I think one of the reasons why reducing sugar isn't that much of a problem is that I never really had any regular sugar intake (like some people have, eg. always some honey in their tea and a biscuit after lunch or something like that, a habit). I eat sugar if someone places it in front of me (chocolate biscuits, anyone?) and I am concentrating on something else and just start to munch, OR I'm having a lousy time and buy some chocolate and have a small binge (oxymoron? maybe, but still true). Recently, with currently being able to make use of a nearby sauna, lousy times haven't been that much of a problem (I go there instead of stuffing myself with sweets), and I think if I take care I can avoid eating cookies just because they're available.
Other things (like Innocent smoothies etc) I normally get because I think of them as healthy and a small treat. Since I can't drink them right now (because I want to figure out whether they're actually good and healthy for me), I'll just get myself delicious tea as a treat, and that'll be that. :)

*I made some of these (with a different recipe, less cream) for Christmas presents, ended up with too many, kept some for myself, now using them up.

Week 1, Day 3

After breakfast today I decided to give up on my silly plan of eating up all the sweet things remaining...not very helpful. Instead, I'm hiding them away. Out of sight, out of mind, you know.

What have I eaten today?

Breakfast:
(More like sugar fest...)
1 large cup of instant coffee (Chococino...S) with some oat milk
3 slices of bread with butter and this sugary stuff

Lunch:
Potato salad with some field salad added, and 1 egg, mustard (S) and yoghurt (which replaces mayonnaise quite nicely), some herbs and cayenne pepper (and some poppy seed oil again, very little).
Not the healthiest thing I've ever eaten...but also not the unhealthiest...
(Kept me from getting hungry for a long time though.)

Afternoon:
1 cup of Earl Grey

Late Evening
1 avocado, smashed up, lemon pepper and cayenne pepper added
10 or so corn crackers

Writing this down publicly is working, I think. Guilting me into thinking more about what I eat. During breakfast today, I realised I couldn't bear one more day of writing "And I ate all these sugary things for breakfast to start my day".
Also - tomorrow I'll eat proper vegetables again. :P

Week 1, Day 2

Well, today is Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake (Tues-)Day if you're British. This means that people will eat ridiculous amounts of food and consume even more ridiculous amounts of alcohol today, at least around here.
Me, I'll use it as an excuse to eat up as much of the sugary stuff left in my cupboards as I can, which probably won't be all that much in the end, but let's see.

Breakfast:
1 large cup of Yogi Tea Chocolate
2 slices of bread with butter and this stuff (S)

"Lunch":
1 small latte (regular milk, because I really should talk more loudly I suppose :P)
1 ciabatta with goat cheese, bell pepper, watercress and red pesto (S?)

"Dinner":
3 large beer (...)
1 large hot dog with onions and barbecue sauce (S?)

So, not very sweet after all. Not very healthy either, but I never expected that today, anyway. I assume some sugar in the added condiments with my food, but not sure about that.
Now, tomorrow will be interesting again. More effort in eating healthy stuff. Yay!

Week 1, Day 1

I just decided to write down a food diary for these weeks. I have, on several occasions, tried this with a little book that I always carry with me, but I never manage to keep it up for very long. Maybe doing this every day and openly and for a limited period of time will work better.

So, today I had*:
1 large cup of Earl Grey
1 big bowl of porridge (oat milk+oats), with some berries (S), maple syrup (S) and linseed
2 handfulls of small tomatoes
1 cup of yoghurt with herbs
2 hard eggs
and then dinner which was potato salad with mayonnaise (S) and mustard (S), field salad with some poppy seed oil, and some chicken nuggets (S).
Also, I'm just about to make a huge cup of hot chocolate (S), to use up some leftovers (ie. to get rid of sweet things still in the house).

[Edit: I forgot...also about five corn/maize crackers.]

See where the sugar (S) is hiding? Some of these are quite obvious (berries, maple syrup, hot chocolate), some I suspected (mayonnaise, mustard), but what really annoyed me was that there's sugar in the chicken nuggets. Guess I really need to be careful about these convenience foods...anything breaded etc.
While at the grocery store, I also checked some snacks, and soy milk...roasted nuts with added sugar, sugar in the soy milk...
This is going to be interesting, challenging, enlightening. And fun, I guess. :)

*I don't always eat like this, but I slept in today and only went grocery shopping in the evening, so I had to make do with what was still left over from before my one-week-holiday away.

Lent

Come Wednesday, Lent starts again. Last year, around this time, I fasted for around a week or so, drinking a lot of tea and juice and only eating rice and steamed veggies. It was...interesting (food never smells better than when you're not eating most of it), but I doubt whether it had a lasting effect on the way I eat, or my health. This year, I'd like to try something different - reducing and then ceasing my sugar intake for several weeks.

The way I reached this decision was one of those internet things again. There are a lot of blogs whose feed I receive, a long list in my Google Reader. There are some that I read regularly, but most, I just sometimes check them out. In this case, two weeks ago, late at night, working on a project but needing to take a break, I randomly clicked on one, and found that the author had dramatically reduced her sugar intake around this time last year, and had only good things to say about it.
This clicked with my dislike for any kind of dependency. I don't smoke, I don't drink much, I have problems accepting help because I think I should be able to do everything by myself, that kind of stuff. But I know I have this thing about sugar. And it's been annoying me for years.

So...this week should be week one, where I aim to reduce my intake. Which will probably only properly start on Wednesday, what with the festivities until then, plus the remaining sweet things in the house which need to be gotten rid of. So, two more days with lots of hot chocolate (and some of these, I guess), and then...reducing.