Hello my friends. 😉
As you all know, my “100 Days Without Sugar Challenge” ended last Friday. I loved the challenge so much and learned SOOOO much from it.
Since my challenge ended on Friday, I spent the rest of the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) relaxing a bit and enjoying all the sugary things I’d avoided for 3+ months. I was so excited to enjoy a fun “treat filled” weekend and eat some of my favorite treats once again.
Sadly, it wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be!
My Saturday started off with a big bowl of Cocoa Pebbles and a few pieces of Halloween candy.
I got a HUGE stomachache after that and just felt SO SICK the rest of the day.
Go figure.
However, I was SO SAD to be sick because my favorite treats (that I was SOOO looking forward to) just didn’t sound very good anymore. It kind of put a huge kibosh on my sugary weekend. 🙁
It also confirmed to me that sugar really is poison to our bodies (sad, but true.)
On Saturday night, I went to a concert at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City with my family. It was called the “Jackie Evancho and friends” concert and was put on by the Muzart World Foundation.
We went with two of our kids, my parents, sister, bro-in-law and two of their kids. My daughter sat right in front of us next to my dad and her cousin.
It was the Weirdest. Concert. Ever.
It was fun to be there and most of the music was wonderful, but the concert itself was PSYCHO!
It was for a good cause (to promote the arts in schools), so I don’t want to bash it too much, but MAN it was pretty scary.
Jackie Evancho was amazing (I love her so much!) and there was an absolutely darling local girl who sang named Lexi Walker and she was FREAKING amazing! I could have listened to her sing all night long.
Check out this You Tube video of her singing the National Anthem. Pretty crazy.
But, other than those two cute girls (Jackie and Lexi), the rest of the concert was really sad. It was really, really long (3 hours!), there were a bunch of technical difficulties and it felt more like an infomercial or telethon than a concert.
We had a fun night anyway.
After the concert, I decided we needed to stop by Smart Cookie to grab some cookies since I hadn’t eaten very many treats!
I didn’t take a picture of our cookies, but here’s a pic I found on the Smart Cookie website…
We bought some sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies and they were so good…but I felt so sick again after eating them.
Dang.
Yes, I’ve decided that sugar is pretty much like heroin. Even though it makes me so SICK and want to barf…I keep shoveling it in cause it tastes so good going down!
Soooo sad and a little bit scary too!
I went to bed that night feeling terrible. I’m sure my body was thinking, “What in THEE heck are you doing to me Mel??”
I didn’t have too many treats on Sunday. I had a few pieces of Halloween candy and then I made Chocolate Chip cookies that night.
You guys know how much I love Chocolate Chip cookies right? Yes, I was so excited to be able to make them AND eat them too! I enjoyed a little bit of the cookie dough and then had two cookies.
Yes, I’m wearing another one of my “cute Sunday night outfits”, lol!
Anyway, two cookies was more than enough. I wasn’t even slightly tempted to eat another one after that.
They still sound pretty gross to me. So weird.
Yes, my sugarful weekend was a little bit lame.
Needless to say, I was SOOOO excited to get back to healthy eating yesterday. When I woke up, I still felt pretty blah from my crazy weekend.
I decided to skip breakfast, and I never skip breakfast!
I met my good friend, Melodi for lunch yesterday. Melodi and I have been friends since birth and I love her so much!
We went to a wonderful place called Couscous (a Mediterranean Grill) and it was fantastic!! We sat right by the window, with the sun shining in, so this was the best pic we could get.
I ordered the Quinoa and Teriyaki Vegetables with Chicken and it was phenomenal!
Melodi ordered the Pesto Chicken with Zucchini noodles and it was wonderful too (I tried a bite!)
Couscous was a wonderful place to eat! I can’t wait to go back again with Kev.
I had so much fun chatting and catching up with my sweet friend, Melodi. We couldn’t remember the last time we had seen each other (it’s probably been at least 2 years!) We decided we need to get together more often.
Anyway, just for kicks, I scrounged up some pics from our younger days…
Here’s a pic from my 9th birthday party….
So fun! I cherish all of these friends and still keep in touch with most of them!
I’m in the middle row wearing the short sleeved white t-shirt (it had a unicorn on it and I loved it so much!) My friend, Melodi is on the front row in the purple. Oh, and my two sisters are in this picture too. My older sister is on the back row in the middle (looking thrilled to be there!) and my little sis is in the cute Annie (red and white) dress (looking thrilled to be there too!)
Here are a couple pics from our college days too!
Here we are getting ready to head to church. We’re also with our good friend Ali, who I love so much too!
Here’s one more fun pic from college. Pretty typical…
I have wonderful friends and I’m so grateful!
Anyway, it felt so good to get some good, nutritious food in me yesterday! I also went to my Boot Camp class last night and it was wonderful. I still felt a little bit under the weather from this lame cold I’ve had, but I did okay.
Before I went to the gym last night, I put some brown rice in the rice cooker and put some chicken in the fridge to marinate in my favorite chicken marinade.
When I got home from the gym, I cooked up the chicken and stir fried up some veggies and pineapple. It tasted so good, fresh, clean and REAL to me. I loved it!
The kids are not HUGE fans of this meal. They’ll eat the chicken and a few of the veggies, but they don’t love it. Soooo, I pulled out some canned pears and cut up some slices of cheese too. They were all happy ’bout that.
Well, I intended to tell you guys all about the things I learned from my “100 Days Without Sugar Challenge”, but this post is already long enough! Man.
Sooooo, I will do a post tomorrow all about my results, what I learned and how I survived my challenge.
I hope you all enjoy some healthy, real and clean food today and have a fabulous day!
I love all the blast from the past photos of you!! So fun! I can’t believe sugar makes you so sick now after giving it up It must truly be really bad for us!
Funny thing is that those “blast from the past” pics don’t seem like too long ago. It’s crazy how time flies! I know, I’m so sad that sugar is so bad for us. Why does it have to taste so darn good??
Funny how once you train your body not to have a certain substance then you get to the point that your body no longer likes it!!
Cute pictures.
And, that little girl singing was incredible!
I know….I guess I should be happy that my body has decided it doesn’t like sugar anymore. I wish it could convince my brain though! I LOVE that little girl and her voice so much! I’m sure she has a bright future. 😉
Those pictures are amazing! I love throwbacks. I feel you on the sugar. I have the biggest sweet tooth but I definitely feel the effects. Have you tried replacing sugar in recipes with some of the less refined stuff? I like high grade maple syrup and coconut palm sugar. Too much of these definitely affects me too but in small doses it’s a nice replacement 🙂
I need to try maple syrup and coconut palm sugar! My cousin recommended sucanat, but I haven’t tried it yet. I have a bunch of healthy treat recipes that I want to experiment with. I’m hoping to find some favorite recipes that let me have my cake and eat it to…without getting sick!
I’m not too surprised that you were feeling so yucky after trying to eat sugar again – I think your body was so happy to be free of it that when you ate it again – it was like damn you!! haha That stir-fry looks awesome to me — yummo!
Well said…I love it! The stirfry was definitely just what the doctor ordered. Loved it. 😉
I guess your body is in a way rejecting the sugar. It seems the challenge was really worth it, because not you can’t over do it. Your body jut won’t allow it. What cute pictures from your past school days. I love the face masks. Lol. I have a very similar picture with my sister, except our masks were green mud sea weed masks.
I really loved the challenge because I learned so much AND it kind of did reset my body. I still crave the sugar though, darn it. 🙁 I loved my college days. We had so much fun!
Love retro pictures. 🙂
You are so funny!”Heroin!” I have to agree though…since I no longer consumer junk food, processed cookies with all that butter and white refined sugar, I honestly cannot handle it or EVEN desire it. For real, I WILL NOT eat store bought sweets. I make everything homemade and NEVER feel sick. It’s amazing how much garbage they put in that stuff. I once went to a Farmer’s Market and was tempted to buy a cookie there without thinking of all the butter and sugar that was in it…I only got halfway through the cookie and felt so sick and just threw it away. Butter is really bad. I know you liked your cocoa crisp cereal but there is so much sugar in that, your poor body just can’t handle it. You can still enjoy sweets, just make your own…and avoid all the processed crap, it really is totally different. Really cute pics too!
I know…I definitely prefer homemade treats over store bought goodies any day! I also love that you can control everything that goes into them. 😉 I still enjoy the occasional store bought treat, but they are definitely few and far between!