Trying to Make Sugar-Free Sustainable without Caving and Eating all the Monster Cookies in Sight

Mark and I are starting month number four of no sugar – or at least very little sugar. I’ve begun to ease up a little bit. From what I’ve read, the important thing about giving up sugar for a period of time is to reset, in a way, your body’s insulin sensitivity. If your insulin isn’t freaking out multiple times a day, that gives your hormones some breathing space and they can begin to focus on some other more important bodily functions than trying to keep track of the insulin that’s acting like a teenage girl with PMS. 

I don’t know if that’s entirely true. To be honest, I don’t really understand the relationship between insulin and my hormones and PCOS. But that’s kind of what I imagine happens.

So, I’ve let up on myself a little bit in one area: I’ll allow myself to have a serving of a dessert if it’s a very special occasion, like someone’s birthday. I figure this will amount to about one or two servings of desserts per month. I think my body can probably handle that.

I would like to reinstate some fruit into my diet. I did, in a moment of weakness at the grocery store last week, buy a grapefruit. I ate it in two servings, at two different meals, and it seemed like the sweetest grapefruit I’ve ever tasted. It was delicious. Since then, I’ve had at least one dream about fruit. Apples, mainly. I love apples. I miss them.

I’ve wanted to write a post for a while on how I’m planning to make a low-sugar diet sustainable but I’ve been putting it off. Frankly, I’m afraid to bring fruit back into my diet. I’m afraid to bring much of any sugar back into my diet. So far I’ve only seen good things happen to my menstrual cycles since I gave up sugar. (Not so many good things happening to the PCOS-induced acne, but that’s a post for another time.) I kind of don’t want to shake things up.

But at the same time I kind of do want to eat a banana again, or some blueberries, and definitely an apple with peanut butter. And at some point I want to eat a monster cookie again. When is the right time to bring those things back into my diet? Ever?

And the more realistic and probably more important question, how can I make a mostly no-sugar diet sustainable for a family? (‘Family’ at this point just means me and Mark, but I’m thinking optimistically about the future here.) Right now for breakfast we generally eat sugar-free baked oatmeal, which incidentally I have come to love. I don’t miss the sugar in it at all. Or we eat sourdough English muffins, or better yet, sourdough English muffins with fried eggs and cheese in them. Mmmmm.

But is that enough variety in our breakfast diet? What about coffee cakes and scones? And are we never to have pancakes or waffles again? (We tried sugar-free pancakes without syrup. It was about as fun as eating slices of dry bread.)

I know I’m probably whining too much. I mean, realistically, if I try to keep my diet in perspective, I still eat a much wider variety of food than most of the world. And when I’m at home, I’m satisfied with my sugarless hot chocolate and my snack of raw almonds. It’s just when we’re with friends and someone squirts a big dollop of whipped cream onto their sugar-full hot chocolate or when a co-worker brings monster cookies to share at work that I begin to feel discontent.

Really, I can handle saying no to the monster cookies. It’s not easy, but I’m sure it builds character or something. And I am perfectly content to eat baked oatmeal for breakfast, most of the time. What this whole post boils down to, I guess, is my musings on when to let fruit back into my diet and how much. Monster cookies I know I can live without. But I don’t know about fruit. Fruit has a lot of health benefits giving weight to its argument to be back in my diet.

So, I don’t know. I don’t have a plan yet, and I’m not really sure what to do. It’s not life or death and it doesn’t keep me up at night, but I’m just not sure.

Any ideas?

Update on Sugarless Diet

I’ve been meaning to update on my relationship with sugar. I really have. I had lofty goals of sharing delicious sugarless recipes weekly, but obviously that hasn’t happened. Mainly, that hasn’t happened because I’ve been busy - studying education psychology, theories of ESL education, linguistics, and math, mostly. But it also hasn’t happened because I don’t feel like I have many recipes to share.

Most things that we eat for dinner (and then for leftovers for lunch for the following days) are sugarless anyway. I have to avoid anything that has ketchup as an ingredient or barbeque sauce (which makes me really sad). And we can’t eat any store-bought salad dressings, at least not any that I’ve found.

But just to give you an example, here’s what I might eat on a ‘normal’ day:

Breakfast – Sugarless baked oatmeal is my favorite breakfast right now. (We also have a granola recipe that uses Stevia powder that I really like. But I’ve read a few more controversial things about Stevia recently, so I don’t eat that everyday.) And coffee with cream. I haven’t given up on my coffee. But it’s usually half-caff.

Snack – If I’m home, I’ll make a pot of tea, usually decaf Earl Grey, and slowly drink my way through that with a handful of raw almonds. If I’m at work, I usually don’t think to eat a snack.

Lunch – Leftovers. I try to incorporate lots of vegetables into our main dishes and lots of fat. I used to take an apple or other piece of fruit as a side dish for lunch. Now I take vegetables of some kind. Sometimes we have some delicious vegetable dish prepared at home, but sometimes – I’m not going to lie – I just shake about a cup of frozen peas into a container and put that in my lunch bag to heat up at work.

Snack – If I’m home, probably more tea or homemade hot chocolate. No one else seems to like this hot chocolate but me: it’s basically hot milk that I mix cocoa powder into  and then add some hot water. It’s not sweet, but I still like it a lot. Could just be that I’m craving chocolate and will take it any way I can get it. Who knows? Either way, it satisfies me. If I’m home, I may also choose peanut butter on a sourdough English muffin if we have some of those made. If I’m at work, maybe I’ll eat more nuts. Maybe pickles. (I’ve developed a weird pickle fetish in the last month or two.)

Supper – More vegetable-laden mostly-vegetarian dishes. Lots of quinoa recently. And then some kind of vegetable side dish. Sometimes we’re creative and sometimes not.

Dessert/After-supper Snack – No dessert. And I don’t usually get cravings for dessert anymore anyway, except right before my period. Then I really do and I want to cry because I can’t eat a brownie or some gingerbread with real whipped cream. Instead, we might have a snack of homemade popcorn. Or corn chips with salsa or guacamole (if avocados are on sale). Or we might just have a cup of herbal tea.

So, that’s it. That’s what I normally eat. Mark’s diet is a little more American, since he’s a cook and does some of his eating at work. We both figure that this diet is for me anyway, so if he can be supportive at home and not bring Oreos into the house and waft the open bag in front of my nose, then he’s doing his part.

So, that’s all great, and it sounds really healthy, but have I noticed any differences in my health since starting this sugarless diet? The short answer is yes!

I’ve noticed, happily, that my energy levels are much more stable since I’ve been off of sugar. I used to feel a major dive in energy about mid-morning and then especially mid-afternoon. Usually about 3:00 I would begin to feel exhausted and eat a piece of chocolate or two or three conveniently located in a bowl in our office to bring my energy back up. Now I can go all morning and all afternoon without a snack and I don’t notice any shift in energy. (As noted above, I often do eat a little snack, but this has more to do with hunger rumbles in my stomach and an interest in maintaining body weight than it does with a need for energy.) Honestly, it feels great and I didn’t realize that I could feel this great at 3:00 in the afternoon.

I’ve also noticed that I don’t get episodes of the shakes anymore. When I was really hungry I would often get shaking too and mumble to myself, “Oh, it’s just my hypoglycemia acting up again!” And maybe that was true. (Is hypoglycemia something that can go away if you don’t eat sugar? I don’t know.) But I don’t shake anymore. That’s nice.

I also don’t get headaches as often. That’s nice too! I never would have attributed my headaches to sugar or sugar deficiency but now that my body’s not relying on the sugar throughout the day I don’t get the headaches. Lovely.

And the verdict is still tentatively out on this last notable change: my cycles. For the last two years since I went off of birth control my cycles have been about 50-60 days long. NOT NORMAL. And so frustrating to know when you’re trying to conceive that you have roughly about half the chances egg-wise to conceive that a ‘normal’ body has. But, since I’ve stopped eating sugar, my last two cycles have been about 33 days. Big difference! I almost didn’t believe my thermometer the first time my thermal shift happened at day 22 instead of day 45.

Side note – I just read this book called What Alice Forgot about this woman who smacks her head really hard and forgets ten years of her life. She’s 39 but when she wakes up from her concussion she thinks she’s 29 and pregnant. That book really got me thinking about what about my current life would surprise me if I woke up and thought I was 16 again. And I’ve realized – all the biology I’ve voluntarily learned about my body – the cycles, the eggs, the PCOS – that would surprise me. And the fact that I have temperature charting lingo that I use when I blog about my body’s cycles: all that would surprise me too. Maybe disturb me a little.

So, as I was saying, my last two cycles since leaving sugar behind me have been pretty much normal. Could it be coincidence? Maybe. Could I be less stressed? Maybe. Well, no, probably not. And I haven’t changed much else about my lifestyle in the last two months except that I stopped exercising.

Mark and I came to the conclusion that 20 minutes of walking – to and from work – was probably enough exercise for me since I’m barely hanging onto a healthy body weight. So I gave up Jillian Michaels and dumbbells. But I don’t think that would have miraculously sparked normal cycles. That seems kind of counter-intuitive to me. Only time will tell!

Goodbye, Sugar, For the Second Time

I meant to write a thoughtful reflection on Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Day or the day after, maybe something about the sad state of our country: Black Friday shopping that now starts on Thanksgiving day and continues until Cyber Monday, which extends up to a week after Thanksgiving… But I never did get around to it.

So, suffice it to say, Thanksgiving was wonderful. We had a great time with family, ate heartily, did partake in the Black Friday shopping (though not in the madness of midnight shopping), and spent some time healing our shopping-ravaged souls in the quiet slowness of an Amish community on Saturday.

Today is December 1. For me and Mark, this is a significant day.

Why?

Because we are cutting sugar out of our diet. Again. I always feel a little funny telling people that we’re making a major counter-cultural diet change. It’s probably because people always look at me askance when I tell them we’re giving up sugar. “Is that even possible?” they ask, and I’m forced to admit that in our society it’s actually very hard. It’s hard because any food that is even remotely processed probably has some kind of sugar in it. It’s even harder because at work and family gatherings where there is food, most of the food present will have sugar in it. It’s also hard because if people invite us over and they know we don’t eat sugar, then they wonder what to fix.

But I still think that for us, or at least for me, this is a necessary diet change, drastic though it may be. I’ve mentioned before on this blog my struggle with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and how that has affected, up to this point, our ability to get pregnant. PCOS has a lot of other super irritating symptoms that go along with it, like acne and male pattern hair growth, both of which can wreak havoc on a woman’s self-esteem.

I would really, really like to get rid of my PCOS. Or at least diminish its symptoms, both for the sake of overcoming infertility and for the sake of self esteem. So, if I hear repeatedly about a diet or lifestyle change that could diminish my PCOS, I will pay attention. If I were to hear repeatedly that drinking gasoline cured PCOS, I don’t think I would try it, but the fact that I had to pause and think about whether I would drink gasoline tells me one thing: I’m a desperate lady.

From my research on PCOS, I’ve found that the sugar in a woman’s diet, particularly highly refined sugars, can aggravate the symptoms of PCOS, and cutting sugar out can decrease many of the symptoms. Cutting sugar out of my diet is a lot less drastic than drinking gasoline, so I’m willing to try it!

We’re keeping it simple this time: starting to cut sugar out of our diets in the next two weeks, including all of the obvious culprits, all fruit, and most grains. We’ll maintain that diet for about three months and see if we see any changes in my health (or in Mark’s health—hey, maybe it will be good for both of us!). If we see some of the desired changes, we’ll continue. If we don’t see changes, we’ll give it up and go back to our mostly-health-albeit-sugary diet.

Throughout our three-month trial period, from today until March 1, I will keep you updated by sharing recipes we’re using, changes we’re noting, and frustrations over not being able to eat chocolate chip cookies or my favorite birthday cake. 

Freezer Chocolate

Husband and I have been trying to add more fruits and vegetables in our diet and cut out a few more animal products. We don’t want to become vegans (no offense meant to any vegan readers) but we believe there are health benefits to be gained from eating more fruits and vegetables than animal products and we like living cheaper and closer to the bottom of the food chain.

As you may remember, I’m also trying to cut the amount of sugar I consume down to, well, less. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve had to resort to incentives to cut down on sugar (I just love it too much, I guess), but Husband has been supportive and smilingly compliant with my ideas for combating low willpower.

A friend of mine shared with me a recipe that she came up with to help combat chocolate cravings and appease the sweet tooth without eating too much sugar.

Freezer Chocolate

Mix equal parts of:

Peanut butter

Butter, melted

Coconut oil, melted

Honey

Cocoa powder

Pour into ice cube trays and freeze. After about one minute in the freezer, pull out and add toothpicks.

I won’t pretend that these are healthy in any sense of the word, other than that they don’t have much sugar. They are, however, rich enough that one is enough. And since I know all of the fats that go into these, I’m usually not inclined to eat more than one anyway!

Freezer chocolates are nice for when you’re at home, but you really do have to eat them right out of the freezer. Because of the peanut butter and coconut oil, they start to go soft pretty quickly after coming out of the freezer.

Mmm. I think I’m going to go have one right now.

A False Start and Sugar Detox Reviewed

I've been wanting to write a post about infertility that was a little tongue-in-cheek because I think I am far too serious about this topic, but I just can't do it. Maybe I'll be able to look back at myself and laugh in a few years, but right now all I can do is sigh and shake my head.


In fact, I don't even want to talk about it now. Consider that a false start.


I realized that I have neglected to share an update about Husband's and my sugar detox that we undertook for the months of January and February. We finished last weekend, after undergoing a week with zero added sugar or bread products. 


I told my husband after we enjoyed a delicious caramelly pie called 'Crack Pie' on Friday night that I thought the last week of the sugar detox was the easiest week. It was almost as though not getting even a taste of sugar was like switching my sugar cravings into the off position. Nothing was fueling the fire of desire, so to speak.


Honestly, I didn't feel amazing on the sugar detox. At least, I didn't feel any more amazing than I usually do. I may have noticed a slight increase in my overall energy level, but it's hard to say. I did enjoy a lot less guilt while eating on the sugar detox. As I chewed away on my fruit leather instead of a cookie, my brain was telling me, You are so good. You are eating something that will nourish me. Yay!


The sugar detox began the process of ingraining in me the idea that all those sweets that I love so much (cinnamon rolls come to mind ...mmm...) are really empty calories and empty energy. They fill me up and fill me out but they don't feed my body with the nutrients it needs. I've also recently learned that refined sugar is an immune depressant. Lots of good reasons to stay away from excess sugar.


I don't think that Husband has any long-range goals for the sugar detox, but I think, given my current reproductive health, that some long-range goals are in order for me. I'm keeping it simple. Going off of an idea that was shared on another blog (I can't remember which one or I would link to it!), I'm going to limit myself to four 'desserts' per week. Desserts include anything from a cinnamon roll for breakfast to a sweet bread to cookies or cake. I'm also going to try to completely avoid candy. I don't tend to crave candy unless I eat a piece, so I should be pretty successful on that point.


All in all, the sugar detox was a good experience for me. I hopefully have been able to make some life changes from the experiences of the eight weeks. I learned a lot about new ways to cook, ways to cut back on sugar in the things that I do cook, and most importantly, that I can live without chocolate if necessary.

Hosting is Tricky on a Sugar Detox

 I don't mean the hosting itself is tricky on our sugar detox, but deciding what to feed our guests is tricky. Do we stick rigidly to our detox rules and force our guests to participate? Or do we fudge our detox guidelines and give our guests a more enjoyable dining experience? 


Main and side dishes haven't been too hard, but desserts have been. I'm new enough to cooking on a sugar-restrictive diet that I can't stick to our rules and feed our guests delicious desserts at the same time.


I think we came close with a black bean grain-free brownie recipe that I found a few weeks ago, but the texture still gives the recipe away as healthier than your average brownie.


Ah, well. Either way, we have enjoyed spending the weekend with Husband's parents at our house! Husband and his dad fixed a few pesky problems around our house (a door that didn't latch well, a finicky light switch, and a sticking drawer). We enjoyed introducing them to the joys of playing Dominion and Alhambra, and they treated me to Chinese food for my birthday. Crab rangoon. Mmmm. 


I was reminded yet again that there is abundant joy to be found in the little things.


Wonderful weekend!

Sugar Detox and Greek Yogurt Part 1

Stumbling Through the Sugar Detox

Today Husband and I are starting up the third week of our sugar detox. (If you would like to try a sugar detox yourself, you find the one that we are following on this website.) During the first week, we cut out all high fructose corn syrup, and during the second week we cut out all refined grains. We did allow ourselves some liberties with the detox, however.

For example, even though the garlic cheese biscuits that I made last Friday were made with white flour, when we started Week 2 of the detox, we allowed ourselves to finish them off, rather than throw them away (though I will not be making any more baked goods with white flour for the duration of our detox).

And as another example, we were invited to a dinner party on Wednesday night. Though the dessert served appeared to have been made with white flour, we ate it anyway: a special occasion, and no desire on our parts to be rude.

And a final example: a co-worker of mine gifted Husband and me with a pan of absolutely divine cinnamon rolls. We ate them—all of them—in about 36 hours.

So far the sugar detox hasn’t been too difficult for us. I’m pretty proud to admit that Husband and I do not have much in the house that has high fructose corn syrup in it. The list is about 25 food items, but frankly, in our corn-based foods society, I was expecting to find a lot more. Eating only whole grains has presented a larger challenge for us, especially in the way of breakfast cereal.

We love breakfast cereal. My favorite is probably a toss-up between Cracklin’ Oat Bran and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Oooh, my mouth waters just typing the names. Mmm.

Anyway, not many breakfast cereals are made with neither corn syrup nor refined grains, and because Husband and I eat cold cereal for breakfast pretty much every day, we are having to branch out, put forth a little more effort to procure healthy alternatives for breakfast.

So, I made granola today. I love granola, and I have made it before. This is my absolutely favorite recipe:

Maple-Almond Granola with Dried Berries

Yield: 8 c.

5 c. old-fashioned oats

2 c. slivered almonds

2 t. ground cinnamon

½ c. canola oil

½ c. pure maple syrup (though I often use honey because it’s cheaper)

½ c. hot water

1 T. vanilla

2 t. almond extract

½ t. salt

1 ¼ c. dried cranberries or blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss oats, almonds, and cinnamon in large bowl. Whisk oil, maple syrup, hot water, extracts, and sea salt in a medium bowl. Drizzle over dry ingredients; toss to coat. Divide mixture between two baking sheets. Bake for 20 minutes. Stir. Bake until golden, another 20 minutes, or so. Move baking sheets to racks to cool. Sprinkle fruit over the granola and allow to cool completely.

See? Yum.

Greek Yogurt—to be or not to be?

With a great degree of trepidation, I have also begun a new project today: Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt is all the rage right now as a ‘health food,’ yet it is outrageously expensive in the grocery store. I had never actually had Greek yogurt before, and I’m not quite sure what possessed me to try to make it myself. The only reason I can think of is that I have noticed a particular urge in myself, in the last few weeks, to create, so when I saw a recipe online for Greek yogurt, I was drawn to it. I’m also considering trying to begin a sourdough starter at home. Sourdough bread. Mmmm.

I did have to purchase a small amount of Greek yogurt for the purpose of using its live culture. My husband did the shopping, and he came home with enough Greek yogurt that we could try some too. We tried it last night with supper, and I was surprised when I dug the serving spoon into it to see how thick it was. I plopped a blob of the thick white stuff down on my plate and took a tentative bite.

Love at first taste. I should have expected that. Any dairy product that is full-fat generally has my stamp of approval. But I did not expect to enjoy the firmness and creaminess of Greek yogurt quite so much.

Suddenly, my desire to make my own Greek yogurt at home was more than a passing fancy. If I can figure out how to make it at home, I can eat it regularly. If not, well, then Greek yogurt will merely be the occasional expensive treat.

So, at around noon today, I began to heat my whole milk:

I needed to heat it to 180 degrees. I monitored it’s heating up with this thermometer:

Never mind that it’s in a glass of half ice and half water and still says 40 degrees. It really was accurate. This picture must have been taken immediately after re-submerging the thermometer in the water.

When the milk got up to 180 degrees, I took it off the heat and let it sit until the temperature was only about 120 degrees. Then I mixed a half cup of the milk with a half cup of Greek yogurt (purchased for its live culture), added that mix back into the milk, and transferred the milk and yogurt to a pre-warmed crock pot:

The crock pot is not plugged in, and is actually never plugged in throughout the making of the yogurt.

I then wrapped the crock pot up really well:

Now it will sit until about 8:00 tonight, at which point I will set it to drain off the whey in a colander lined with a linen cloth, and we will see whether I have created yogurt or sour-tasting milk.

Stop by tomorrow to see!

Some Haikus to Describe My Feelings Towards Fall

Please excuse these haikus. I am by no means a poet, and these haikus may fail sadly at doing what poems are supposed to do: convey feelings from the writer to the reader. But here you are, anyway:

Crisp leaves skittering

Behind cars along the road:

A cherished fall noise.

Days growing shorter,

Leaves change color and fall fast.

Where did the yard go?

Children make a graph:

Red, yellow, or green apples?

Learning to love fruit.

Put on long-sleeved shirt

Take off, put back on again,

In-between weather.

This tree (pictured below) is in the lawn in front of our house. In the past week it has gone from green to brilliant yellow and dropped at least half of its leaves on our lawn. I mourn the quick loss of leaves not only because it means we have to make time to rake them up but also because I enjoy seeing the tree such a cheery color. I wish it would savor its fall colors like I do instead of getting rid of them so fast. Please, tree, show some consideration.

This is an apple oatmeal bake that Handsome and Wonderful Husband made for me a few mornings ago. He oh-so-wisely put the dish in the oven the night before and set the timer on the oven to bake so that it would be done about when he was finishing with his shower. 

We don’t normally do this kind of thing for breakfast because I don’t think of it. But when we do it makes me soooooo happy. When Husband’s parents came last weekend, they brought with them bags of apples (and when I say ‘bags,’ I don’t mean little-brown-lunch-bag bags, I mean, ready-to-grocery-shop-for-the-whole-family bags), which has incited us to an apple-cooking frenzy.

This apple oatmeal bake was a product of that frenzy, and I am so thankful to Husband’s Wonderful Parents.