I needed to face facts; I have all the symptoms of the sugar-holic. I’m sure you can tell this by looking at my previous posts.  It’s the usual self-talk, I convince myself I’m on vacation, or I have been good and deserve a little sumpin’-sumpin’.   I could be off sugar for several days, even up to two weeks, and feel great, but if I caved in and ate dessert or some sugary treat, I would get a sugar buzz like I was a junkie on cocaine and crave sugar for days.  I might only have had rice wine vinegar (loaded with sugar) or even store-bought mint sauce and I would be off to the sugar-races!   And that includes flour, that stuff in all its unhealthy forms, including pasta, even couscous, that turns to glucose in the body. Well, that had to end.

Don’t get me wrong.  Our bodies need glucose, especially our brains, to function properly. But these bodies of ours need it in natural forms it can recognize, not the highly processed stuff that causes inflammation and leads to diseases of all sorts.

I’m doing 30 days no flour or sugar, and likely no dairy, unless some creeps into a salad dressing. (I’ll take care of that potential problem by making my own salad dressings.)  If I have yogurt it will have to be a coconut yogurt. I will be reporting how the days went after-the-fact, and I’ll be honest, so please be gentle in your thoughts if I blew it.  Here goes:

BREAKFAST:  Miso Soup with bone broth added.  I want to be primarily plant-based, but I have tried just carbs in the morning, like healthy green smoothies, and they don’t sustain me.  Plus I have tacked on a few pounds that I’m sure will leave as the sugar and processed flour goes away.  I need some protein in the morning to keep me going until lunch, so I will probably do eggs or chicken or turkey in the morning after today.

LUNCH:  3 oz. walnut pate’, sauerkraut, red cabbage, 1 tsp. 1000 island dressing.  I know. It sounds like the craziest combination ever, but  I find I miss intensely savory foods when I clean up my eating habits.  Notice I don’t say diet.  This has to be a life plan for living the rest of my days.  I can’t afford to add sugar and flour, get bloated, feel lousy, and pack on the pounds anymore. I’ll have to add the recipe for walnut pate’ soon. Sauerkraut is wonderful for adding probiotics to the microbiome. The shredded red cabbage is outstanding for fiber. The 1000 Island dressing was a naughty treat. There was just about half a teaspoon left over in a tiny plastic cup from a take-home salad, so I thought I’d give myself a pass and use it on my first transition day. It helped the crazy concoction taste like those old Reuben sandwiches I used to love.  Corned beef doesn’t even sound good to me anymore. Just thinking of what they do to corn the beef makes it an extremely unappetizing food choice now.  That tells me I’m going in the right direction.

DINNER:  Plain chicken breast with some broth I used for cooking, salad (spring greens, or red cabbage, grape tomatoes, celery, cucumber, broccoli, and a store-bought green goddess dressing with avocado oil and no sugar.  No vegetable or canola oil here!

All-in-all, I was pleased with my choices for my first day.  I think I was under my calorie count, but this is not about counting calories. It is about feeling full on healthy foods and staying away from the bad stuff.  So far, so good. And I was down a pound too.  That’s further confirmation that removing the nasties will help me on all levels, fat and metabolism included!