No Sweets? No Sweat! 30 Day Challenge - Day 30 (THE END)

With a lot of people like me who are trying to lose weight, one of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome is giving up sweets. For the next thirty days I want you to take this challenge with me.  Eat nothing sweet!  Let's cut out all the indulgences we take for granted, and prove to our bodies, our minds, and everyone else that we don't need sugar to survive!  I'll be posting periodically about my progress.  I want you to leave comments about your progress as well.  Let us inspire one another!  

Day 30

So how did you do?  Be honest.  Was it hard?  

For me, it certainly was a hard challenge.  I slipped up a few times.  I blatantly disregarded the challenge a couple of times.  But that wasn't the point.

The point of this whole thing was to prove to ourselves and others that we don't need sweets to get through our days.  We proved that we didn't need sweets to keep our blood glucose levels maintained at a reasonable level.  Most importantly, I hope we all found alternatives to sweets foods that satisfy our needs and cravings.

One thing that has surprised me over the past few weeks is how much gum I chewed gum.  My wife asked me at least four or five different times if I needed more chewing gum.  I finally asked her, "Do I really go through that much that often?"  I guess the answer was, "Yes."

I know that I'm able to walk by the candy and gum isle at the grocery store now and not give it a second look.  I can also see a gallon of sweet tea or lemonade and not be thirsty for it, because nothing beats my bottle of ice-cold water.

Did anyone else learn anything about themselves through this challenge?  If so, please leave a comment with your experiences.

No Sweets? No Sweat! 30 Day Challenge - Day 25

With a lot of people like me who are trying to lose weight, one of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome is giving up sweets. For the next thirty days I want you to take this challenge with me.  Eat nothing sweet!  Let's cut out all the indulgences we take for granted, and prove to our bodies, our minds, and everyone else that we don't need sugar to survive!  I'll be posting periodically about my progress.  I want you to leave comments about your progress as well.  Let us inspire one another!  

Day 25

Did you think I had forgot about the challenge?  Sadly for the both of us, I have not.  How have you been doing through these past 15 days?

I've not did too terribly.  I've cut out so much of the sweetener that I use in my coffee that I sometimes don't put it in at all.  Then again, I'm not drinking nearly as much coffee as I used to be.  Over the past 15 days, I can think of 5 times that I've slipped up and had something sweet.  Each time, I felt a little bit of remorse when I was done, but I knew that I could handle life without sugars.

For the "haters" out there, I'll let you know that I have been checking my blood glucose levels at random intervals during this challenge to see if it's having an effect on me.  Before the challenge started, I was having blood glucose readings that sat in the 90-120 range.  Now that I've cut regular intake of sweets out of my diet for the past 25 days, I have been surprised to find my blood glucose levels sitting between...

90-120.  Yeah, I know it's not a change at all.  I wasn't really surprised, either.  I just wanted it to be suspenseful.  

See you guys in 5 days!

No Sweets? No Sweat! 30 Day Challenge - Day 10

With a lot of people like me who are trying to lose weight, one of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome is giving up sweets. For the next thirty days I want you to take this challenge with me.  Eat nothing sweet!  Let's cut out all the indulgences we take for granted, and prove to our bodies, our minds, and everyone else that we don't need sugar to survive!  I'll be posting periodically about my progress.  I want you to leave comments about your progress as well.  Let us inspire one another!  

Day 10

The holiday weekend was tough.  I have to admit that I did give in twice over the weekend.  The first time, I was offered a delicious dessert at my family's cookout that I could not resist.  The second time, I was with my in-laws at a campground and we had ran out of bottled water.  I had no choice but to drink a diet soda.  Other than the late night Taco Bell run on Saturday (first time at that place in over six months, and it will probably be another six before I go back) I had a decent weekend!

I am currently working on cutting back my artificial sweetener in my coffee.  When I started out, I was using 3-4 packs of Splenda in a cup.  I'm now down to 2 packets (I think that's what normal people use) and I'm hoping to be using none at all in another 10 days.

No Sweets? No Sweat! 30 Day Challenge - Day 5

With a lot of people like me who are trying to lose weight, one of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome is giving up sweets. For the next thirty days I want you to take this challenge with me.  Eat nothing sweet!  Let's cut out all the indulgences we take for granted, and prove to our bodies, our minds, and everyone else that we don't need sugar to survive!  I'll be posting periodically about my progress.  I want you to leave comments about your progress as well.  Let us inspire one another!  

Day 5

This day wasn't all that great for me.  I brought some chicken salad with me to work that had pineapple in it, and I only intended to eat a couple of bites and then share the rest with my coworkers.  

Things didn't go according to plan, and I might have ate more of the chicken salad than I originally intended to.  I also might have ate a piece of sweet bread.  It was so good.

Tomorrow is a new day!  I will try my best to make it through this challenge.  I do foresee a small roadblock coming up though, as I intend to meet with my friend Harrison for some tasty Primal cooking.  He's already told me that he's found an alternative to ice cream involving frozen bananas.  I can't lie and say that I'm not intrigued!

No Sweets? No Sweat! 30 Day Challenge - Day 2

With a lot of people like me who are trying to lose weight, one of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome is giving up sweets. For the next thirty days I want you to take this challenge with me.  Eat nothing sweet!  Let's cut out all the indulgences we take for granted, and prove to our bodies, our minds, and everyone else that we don't need sugar to survive!  I'll be posting periodically about my progress.  I want you to leave comments about your progress as well.  Let us inspire one another!  

Day 2

All I can say for today is that this might be harder than I thought.  The feeling of wanting to have something sweet is almost overwhelming at times.  This might be worse than when I quit smoking!

No Sweets? No Sweat! 30 Day Challenge - Day 1

With a lot of people like me who are trying to lose weight, one of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome is giving up sweets. For the next thirty days I want you to take this challenge with me.  Eat nothing sweet!  Let's cut out all the indulgences we take for granted, and prove to our bodies, our minds, and everyone else that we don't need sugar to survive!  I'll be posting periodically about my progress.  I want you to leave comments about your progress as well.  Let us inspire one another!  

Day 1

Today went by fairly well.  I found out very quickly that this wasn't exactly going to be a walk in the park.  Then again, a walk in the park can be hard depending on where there park is and how big it is...

I digress.  The only times I had problems today was when I was doing some work on a computer at home and I was waiting for a process to be over.  I got bored while waiting and before I knew it I was standing in the kitchen looking through the pantry.  "How did I get here?" I asked myself.  Stopping to think about the fact that I was bored, not hungry, and didn't need a sweet food to help me fixed it really quick.  I returned to my chair and opened up a book while waiting on the process to end.

The only obstacles I see coming from this experience are going to be:  Getting snacks from the kitchen,  getting snacks from the gas station, and getting snacks at work.  Note to self to avoid.  This feels like when I quit smoking.  

MIND OVER MATTER!

No Sweets? No Sweat! 30 Day Challenge

With a lot of people like me who are trying to lose weight, one of the biggest obstacles we have to overcome is giving up sweets.  This is anything from candy and pastries to fruits and yogurts.  All of these foods may taste great, but they are full of sugars that turn into glucose.  If that glucose doesn't get used as fuel, it gets stored as fat.  We want to be burning fat right now, so creating more of it is no ideal for our goals.

For the next thirty days I want you to take this challenge with me.  Eat nothing sweet!  Our bodies will still get the glucose they need from the other foods we eat.  Let's cut out all the indulgences we take for granted, and prove to our bodies, our minds, and everyone else that we don't need sugar to survive!

I'll be posting every few days about my progress.  I want you to leave comments about your progress as well.  Let us inspire one another!  

With any challenge that we take, ground rules must always be set up.  I am making them personal to me, and I encourage you to make personal ones for yourself, but feel free to use mine as a guideline.

1. For the next thirty days, I will do my best not to eat any sweet foods.  These foods include candies, pastries, fruits, gums, chocolates, and food additives like sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla.
2. The only thing sweet that I will imbibe over the next thirty days without remorse will be the protein shakes I make for myself after my workouts.
3. I will gradually use less sweetener in my coffee every time that I drink it.  I need to be drinking it black by the half-way point in the challenge.
4. If I make a mistake during this challenge, I will not beat myself up for it.  I will simply strive to do better the next day.

I hope you all enjoy this with me.  I look forward to getting off this crutch that my subconscious has made for me.  I want to no longer depend on sweets as a quick-filling, bored-eating, feel-like-I-need-it food!