Oh the sugar shame of it all

Last weekend I had my biggest fall off the sugarfree bandwagon in over 3 months. My (adorable) nephew's birthday cake (of which I was in charge of making) was my undoing. 

Getting the cake right took 3 attempts. My first attempt didn't even require willpower. All the mixture made it to the tin. Any leftovers were scraped clean into the bin (oh I do tell I lie... I had two little munchkins at my side who licked their fair share from the beaters). But for me: no spoon licking, no taste testing, nothing. 

When cake numero uno failed however my emotions rose and my willpower dropped. By the time I'd dragged two kids to the supermarket to get yet another 3 boxes of cake mix, another thing (what is the noun for...) of butter and another half a dozen eggs, I was in no state to be strong. Cake number 2 found me having a taste test and another and another and just a little bit more.

THEN, by the time cake 3 came out (and successfully turned out of the tin) I was onto the icing. Pure icing sugar, mixed with butter, vegetable shortening and green colouring. I was slurping up slops and inhaling icing. It was messy. It was ugly. It was undignified.

But I paid for it and I paid big time. Later that night I was bloated and uncomfortably hot. I was on the verge of vomiting. 

I had a sugar hangover.

It was even more sickening to calculate that what I'd taken in over the prior 24 hours was a drop in the ocean compared to my life before #IQS (I quit sugar). In the past, that indulgence would have been forgotten as soon as I'd left home for the party. Pre IQS me would have continued the day with a glass or three of soft drink, sauce on my BBQ meat, a few man-sized handfuls of M&Ms, a snack size milky way and probably more than one slice of birthday cake (all of these things were on offer, but thankfully I avoided: apparently my willpower switch wasn't completely defunct).

Despite being very physically uncomfortable after my sugary binge, it was somewhat comforting to know that I have changed the make up of my body in someway. I've shifted the boundaries. I have cleansed my system. Rather than being complacent, my body now rejects sugar overloads.

Happy Birthday Max !

Seriously, more sugar?!

Trying to quit sugar as a mum of young children is like trying to convince an alcoholic to give up the grog while standing in a pub. Or a gambler at a race track. A kleptomaniac in an unmanned department store. 

As a mum of two young children at home, I feel more exposed to temptation than ever before.

I know I should be trying to quit the sugar from my kids' diet too, but in all honesty I don't know how wholeheartedly I support that idea (don't give kids fruit...?!?) and to be honest, it would be just way too hard. I'm opting for leading by example.

 With a pat myself on the back kind of attitude, I've reflected over some of the sticky (excuse the pun) situations I have been in over the past 3 weeks:

• Breakfast time - although I am slowly and subtly progressing the kids onto Weetbix (continuously considered by experts as one of the best breakfast cereals going around), I still put a tad (about 1/8 tsp) on their Weetbix for them. More often than not, they don't finish their whole serving. I have to consciously tell myself not to lick their spoon, or finish their leftovers.
• The kids eat a lot of fruit - fresh and dried. When making their morning tea or lunch, it's a challenge to not just pop a sultana or two in my mouth. (Sultana's hey? - I know I live on the edge - but fair dinkum, you give up on all sweetness and all of a sudden a container of sultanas will smell as sweet as a lolly shop).
• I often whip whip the kids up a smoothie for afternoon tea - I make them up with any sort of fruit, berries, milk and flavoured yoghurt. I haven't even licked the drips from the yoghurt container. (I just tried them on my new version - milk, coconut oil and cacao. They were not impressed. I was in heaven.)
• Then the social side of mothering is an occupational hazard when trying to quit sugar: as mentioned in my last post at my mum's group last week my fellow mum served up a plate of brownies and biscuits. I did not yield. Go me.
• I've got a loose play date scheduled with my sister in law and my delightful little niece. She wants me to meet me the chic little Cake Bakeshop.  That'll be fab. Talk about putting my willpower to the test! (Lucky our girls playing together is all the sweetness I need!)
• Today I took the kids to a music class. It's run by volunteers at a little church and after all the singing and dancing they provide us with morning tea. On offer for the parents today was chocolate biscuits and little cakes with jam and whipped cream. (I'm actually not even sure if they were little cakes - I didn't make eye contact with those little suckers long enough to decipher exactly what they were, but I could tell they certainly were not sugar free!)
• Ditto at the music class - they provide tea, coffee and milo. I just can't grasp the idea of a black tea no without sugar so I unashamedly took my peppermint tea bag and asked them to make it up for me.
• Sauce! Kids being kids have sauce on a lot of meals. Often whatever they have left over I pick at. A big dollop of sauce puts the kibosh on that plan!  (If I don't lose weight cutting out the sugar, I'm bound to lose weight as a result of less picking at their meals).

The idea that I can avoid temptation under such constant sugary conditions really is a positive thing. 

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger after all!