I have decided to participate in Danielle of Sometimes Sweet’s Clean Eating Challenge.

I actually eat pretty well *most* of the time – in fact, I lost about 40 pounds JUST by eating better.*

But after I started listening to Dishing Up Nutrition (as I blogged about before), I’ve been thinking about how much sugar I eat. A lot.

Especially in the summer when I eat watermelon for lunch. Especially at work where I am apparently the only person who likes vegetables. Especially after Christmas or Valentine’s Day when people gift us chocolate or other candy. Especially because we have diabetes (type 2) in my family. Especially when I eat so many Good ‘n’ Plentys that I have indigestion.

We are currently eating primarily protein and veggies – with a little bit of carbs and fruit and dairy (I am also trying to stay away from food with gluten, so no breads/pastas/etc).**

So the whole quitting-sugar thing has been weighing on me. I didn’t want to do it before the holidays. Then I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t want to give up coffee …. then Danielle blogged about going sugar free and I thought….. “well, obviously I’m just being a baby.”

So for this week – the Clean Eating Challenge – the main goal is to cut out sugar…. and the intention is to keep it up indefinitely.

Refined sugar. …. at least. I really appreciate this list of other names sugar goes by. Less sugar in everything … to prepare myself for buying less fruit this summer (last summer I went through a watermelon every couple weeks and it was heavenly).

Eating well isn’t *super* hard. If you don’t know where to start…..

1. find 1 recipe that sounds good to you.
2. Make a double batch to have leftovers and have that for several days
3. ….. along with eggs/veggies for breakfast and veggies/protein for snacks
4. That gives you a few days to find a second recipe that sounds good to you.
5. Repeat.

I really only COOK 2 or 3 days a week….

My food intake as of last week looked like this:

breakfast: 2 cups coffee with cream and sugar

early lunch: scrambled eggs with cheese and lots of veggies

snack at work: water; more fruit or veggies (an orange, a bell pepper with hummus, broccoli and garlic or similar)

later snack at work: whatever junk food some coworker has brought in (cookies, donuts, etc); water

dinner (at work): leftovers from whatever big meal I made this week (lentil/sausage soup, salad, chili, etc); water

Not a *ton* of sugary junk food, but definitely sweet coffee + something sweet every day (even if it’s just gum on days when there are no goodies at work). And then last Friday night one of Andrew’s clients gave him a freakin’ CAKE!

I can’t win.

So my week has been full of talking myself out of treats at work. Talking myself out of gum. Talking myself into just drinking water.

So far it’s been 4+ days without refined sugar and I haven’t killed anyone yet.

*P.S. I post about food primarily over at Those Crazy Schuberts and I have a ton of recipes to share in the coming months. I’ll post suagr-free updates there as well*

 #SScleaneating challenge plants a seed of inspiration to:

•  give up soda FOR REAL. Right now I only have it if we are out to dinner or at someone’s house for a party or similar. Not often, but still more than *never*. I have given up soda before and it was so long ago I don’t remember anything about it …
• start shopping at Whole Foods for good meats.
• learn to drink coffee w/o sugar. So far *that* has been easier than expected
• quit my day job. Seriously, all my coworkers are a bunch of sugar-laden-enablers.
• start working out and stop being so lazy. Sigh. This breaks my heart, but I’m getting too old to put off starting
• teach myself to really value and appreciate the sugar I DO have by making sure it’s a real treat and not just a store-bought cookie (Andrew and I have a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant and you’d better believe I will be getting dessert)
• try a couple of the recipes from the Dishing Up Nutrition podcast. Like this one for tortillas made from quinoa flour

*please note: I am not a nutritionist (although I think it would be fascinating to study that). I am not a doctor and I am in no way trying to give medical advice. However, I will say that I think everything in this post is common-sense-healthy-eating.

**I’m not saying that food with gluten is bad in-and-of-itself, but personally I’ve noticed I feel sick-symptoms-like-food-poisoning about 18 hours after I eat a carb-heavy meal (like lasagna, sandwiches, etc). Staying away from gluteny-foods just helps me feel better*

want to read more?

• a seed of inspiration: Dishing up Nutrition podcast
• a seed of inspiration: Smash
• a seed of inspiration: moving!!