Day 3 of Lent

It’s the start of Day 3 of Lent. I’m a recovering Catholic . . . in my previous life I was an E and C Catholic. I do, however, still observe Lent, more for my own personal reasons than for any specific religious belief. This year, I decided once again to give up sugar. In past years, I’ve given up what I call “frivelous” sugar . . . cake, ice cream, pop, etc. Anything that is obviously sugar-filled and completely unnecessary. This year, I’m attempting to take it a little further by avoiding anything that has sugar/high fructose corn syrup as one of the first 3 ingredients. Since Monday, I’ve lost 3 pounds!!! So it must be working . . . that along with an increase in the number of trips to the gym

It hasn’t been that difficult so far to avoid things with sugar . . . my biggest vice was drinking too much sugar. Following is a list of some of the things I have to avoid . . . many were obvious, but some surprised me a bit:

• Pop - Duh! I’ll have an occasional diet something-or-other, but not often. The aspartame is poison and gives me a headache! But sometimes I just need something other than water, milk, and tea.
• Candy - Duh again.
• Ice Cream - sure I could get the sugar free stuff, but YUCK! It tastes all chemically. Is it Bryers that is all natural and may have sugar not so high on the list, under cream, milk, etc.? I’ll have to check that one out. Ice cream is hands down the one sweet I would have every day if I could do it with no ill effects.
• Bread. I’ve been on an egg, turkey, english muffin sandwich kick lately. I had to change to Orowheat whole wheat english muffins because they replace the sugar with honey as the 3rd ingredient. Ya ya ya, still not great, but it fits the criteria so I’ll go with it!
• Whole wheat bread . . . yup, sugar is the 2nd ingredient. I’ve switched to 7 grain. Tastes the same and sugar is way down there.
• Cheerios, Rice Krispies, and any other cereal they say might be a bit “better” for you than the others. I didn’t eat these often anyway . . . but I guess there will be more oatmeal in my future!
• Condiments such as many salad dressings, ketchup, BBQ sauce, etc. They have so much sugar in them it’s not even funny! I love a good salad with a little dressing on it. I usually dip my fork in the dressing then into the salad, so really, not much dressing at all. I’ll have to search for a dressing that fits the criteria.
• Most potato chips. Baked Lays have moved sugar down to the 4th ingredient, so I’m good to go with those
• Pancake batter, even the light and fluffy stuff. While sugar is 2nd in almost all premade batters, it moves down to 3rd in the light and fluffy. Still too high, so I have to make homemade batter, where sugar comes in 4th or 5th.
• Peanut Butter, even the lighter stuff has sugar way up high on the list. This is no surprise. I switched to Adams All Natural peanut butter a couple of years ago. It’s AWESOME! Way better than the other “all natural” PBs out there.
• Jelly of course has a ton of sugar in it as well. I’ve switched to Just Fruit spread. Yummola!
• Chicken Wings at BW3. THIS will be tough for me! I love love love them, but they are so so so bad for me! That was my “last meal” on Fat Tuesday - medium chicken wings and Coke
• Many store-bought flour tortillas have quite a bit of sugar in them. This should be easy to remedy with a replacement, though.
• G2 - the reduced calorie blah blah blah sport drink still has high fructose corn syrup as the 2nd ingredient. I was a little bummed, but not surprised, by this.

So there you have it . . . a bit of the list of things I’m avoiding for Lent. I’m finding new things every day that I can’t eat, and wonderful new yummy things that I can! My favorite new snack? Frozen red grapes with sugar-free jello-powder on them. Not much aspartame in one packet, and you use one small packet for a bunch of grapes. The kids LOVE LOVE LOVE this snack as well! Just pour the jello-o powder in a large Ziploc bag, dump the washed grapes in the bag, zip it up, shake, and freeze. Voila! Yummo snack

We’re going up boarding this weekend . . . could be a bit more of a challenge avoiding all of this sugar while I’m not at home and am eating out more! Wish me luck!