Sugar Challenge Update

 I finally completed the sugar challenge. I will be doing more in the future and tweaking other restrictions I want to add to it such as carbs and etc

 What I learned in that short time.

• Meal Prepping is extremely important to prevent making bad food choices.

• Having ONLY healthy meals/snacks in your home is very important for those random midnight cravings. My only options where apples + cucumbers so I wasnt worried about reaching for something "bad" when I had an episode*.

• Read labels! Once I started looking out for sugar and paying attention to the grams, it became evident why I workout so hard but cant seem to loose any weight. 

• I randomly found this palm oil at a store.I thought the packaging and labels (USDA, ORGANIC, SUPERFOOD, NON-GMO) where interesting given that palm oil usually gets a bad rep as an unhealthy oil.

• It seems like something is always being substituted to compensate for taking out something else. I was becoming paranoid. With some low fat products, yes, its low in fat but high in sugar to compensate for taste. Especially if you're not going for the "plain" options but want additional flavoring. I had to switch out some of my diary product including some brands of almond milk. I now use the unsweetened coconut blend. 

• I had taken a sabbatical from the app "Lose It" but I am not only using it again but plan on buying the premium subscription. $40.00 a year is not a bad investment if you are serious about your health. The app has also been greatly improved over the years. Not only can you look up nutrition labels from every food imaginable but they have now added an exercise component to it. It collaborates with other health apps in the market such as Bp monitors, weight measures, Nike, MampMyRun etc. That way it gives you a complete break down of how much calories you're eating in a day and how much you are burning through your workouts.

As with most things, starting is the biggest issue. But once you get going, it becomes easy to maintain a routine. In the past I had all sorts of ridiculous excuses why I was still reaching out for white rice, white bread, white pasta and etc. In reality, I had no excuse! Taste is not even an issue. You can make equally delicious meals with whole wheat food. Restaurants now give you the options. The world wide web is full of millions of healthy recipes for whatever food items you have. It came down to sheer laziness and not enough information on the science behind nutrition.

This is an ongoing journey. I will make mistakes, learn form them and keep pushing on. The biggest difference I see now is the deliberate awareness I have for everything i eat. I think about my meals. I think about what nutritional value they will provide for my body. Or how they can potentially be harmful to me. In the past by dinner time, I couldn't even recall what I had for breakfast. Because I didn't care. Now, I can remember exactly what I ate at least 2-3 days down the line