Back on Sugar

I blogged before about how I gave up sugar for the month of March.  It didn't really have anything to do with Lent, I just felt like it would be a good experiment to see how I felt and how I looked if I stopped eating sugar.  It was hard.  I mean, REALLY hard.  I did it though and I'm so glad I did.  First, I proved to myself that I CAN do it and second, it was really eye-opening.  I wish I could say that I gave up sugar and felt amazing and lost 10 pounds.  This was not the case.  I gave up sugar, but I still ate a lot of other crap.  The time I felt the best was toward the end of the month when I started eating better AND wasn't eating sugar.
So, I'm back to eating sugar and feeling guilty about it.  I've found that when I "couldn't" eat sugar, I didn't eat stuff that I didn't really WANT to eat.  For example, the other day
I found an opened packet of fruit snacks in bag of easter candy.  When I "couldn't" eat candy I would have thrown it it, but since I can, I ate the fruit snack.  Gross.  First, eating an opened packet of ANYTHING that has been touched by my kids is probably not a good idea and second. fruit snack?  Really?  They were sweet so I ate them.  Ugg.  I need to find a balance.  This is the trick.  Here's the thing, sugar is in EVERYTHING.  I realized this when I was trying to avoid it.  Quick lunch with the kids?  Peanut butter and jelly, sugar.  Quick breakfast, pre-packaged cereal- sugar (even raisin bran!).  Salad dressings, yogurts, juice smoothies, it was everywhere!  It really made me read labels, which I think, is always a good thing.  It also made me look at how much sugar I give my kids.  Those "healthy" organic yogurts?  Second ingredient is sugar.  Of course this made me feel even more guilty that even though I was abstaining, I was still giving it to my kids.  On a few occasions I passed on the sugary snack that I would have eaten to one of the kids.  Bad parenting.  "Here kids, this is really bad for you.  I'm not going to eat it, but you sure can!"  Cutting out sugar isn't going to fly at this house if I do it like I did in March, but cutting down on sugar is definitely coming.
 **IMPORTANT DISTINCTION "sugar free" is NOT what I'm talking about.  Sugar free, as it's advertised on food simply means that there's a food like substance added to said food to make it sweet.  Take the sugar instead.  What I found, is that anything with a package is likely to have something undesirable in it.  I started baking more over spring break and I think I'm going to try to continue making snacks instead of buying them.  A loaf of banana bread is way healthier than anything I buy in a bag--plus it works like a great air freshener to make the house smell good!  I baked some "prison loaf" as Stacy called it, because apparently my "Oatmeal on the Go" Bars looks like what they feed prisoners.  It was a Weelicious recipe and I really loved it--so did Vince and Olivia. It was sweet from the dried fruits and full of whole grains from the oatmeal.  Fast and easy to cut a piece and take it with me to the Y when I exercise to get a healthy snack to keep me going.  This is what I need to work on-keeping healthy, homemade snacks available to me and the kids to keep us from searching out junk.  Also, stop buying junk.  Summer is coming and I know I'm going to be tempted to grab junk to take to the pool and for fast lunches, but I need to remember what's really important-saving a few minutes or making sure my kids eat well.  They're my #1 priority.  Sometimes they get mad at me for making them exercise, brush and floss, shower well (water running over your body does NOT COUNT!) and eat healthy.  I always tell them it's my "Mom-Job".  With the title of "Mom" comes the responsibility of making kids do horrible things, like get to bed on time, eat well and stay healthy.  Just like Aunt Mae told Spider-Man "With great power, comes great responsibility."  Being a mom is just like being a superhero.  Minus the revenue from marketing, but with the added bonus of kid-hugs.