Monday, February 26, 2007

Sugar inventory

I just made myself a cup of cocoa with unsweetened cocoa powder, Splenda and the last little bite of Dagoba 87% cacao Eclipse bar. At first I was very proud of myself that the Dagoba bar lasted me a whole month. Then I started to add up that I had also had 3 fruit-juice sweetened cookies in the last month, which didn't sound like the diet of someone who had "gone off sugar."

But then I compared last month's intake with what used to be a typical month of sugar gorging. I'd say my sugar intake for the last 30 days would have looked something like this:

40-50 tablespoons of refined sugar added to tea and decaf coffee
25-40 sodas or sugary fruit drinks
8-12 donuts & pastries (there were at least 2 donut-eating opportunities at work in the last month & Hubby and I surely would have had some at least one weekend)
2 slices of banana bread (a staff meeting)
2 pieces of Starbucks coffee cake (maybe low-fat, maybe not, but definitely high-sugar)
1/2-3/4 "big party bag" of M&M's (which I would have eaten on top of popcorn & washed down with some of the above sodas!)
6 chocolate chip cookies or chocolate chip muffins
12 pieces of candy from the many candy bowls at work
20 slices of white toast with butter (sometimes with jam)
Probably a couple servings of grape jelly on a PB&J
5 servings of white pasta
3 giant servings of white rice & flour tortillas (Chipotle burritos)
And finally for the last nail in the coffin, Hubby bought some French vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup and Spanish peanuts this weekend. I definitely would have joined him! Instead I had unsweeted yogurt with unsweetened frozen (thawed) strawberries with Splenda.


Wow. I never wrote it all down before. These are all guesses, but they're pretty close (give or take a pound) to the amount of sugar I'd eat & drink in a typical month. Just the thought of it all makes me sick to my stomach. I'm back to feeling pretty good about my Dagoba and air cookies!

2 comments:

Val D. Phillips said...

Wow! Good for you! That is so hard! I'm really proud of you. And it is amazing to see it all written down. Mark and I went back on the South Beach diet two weeks ago (no sugar, no white flour, and for the first two weeks no fruit). This morning, at the beginning of Phase II, he thought he could have some fruit juice and so slurped down a glass of some cocktail something or other. Only after he started to feel really creepy did he realize the second ingredient was corn syrup! We've definitely indulged a few times, and will continue to do so, but I feel so much better now I kinda don't want to.

Oh, and our new friend--probably not real healthy, but real good--is Dreyers' No Sugar Added Slow Churned ice cream. Not strictly South Beach, but gets us through the tough times!

So sorry about the links to your websites being FUBAR. I just fixed them (finally updated my blog!). Thanks also for your great comments about the donation question. I really appreciated the thoughtfulness of your reply.

Hope to see you very soon!

Val D. Phillips said...

Wow! Good for you! That is so hard! I'm really proud of you. And it is amazing to see it all written down. Mark and I went back on the South Beach diet two weeks ago (no sugar, no white flour, and for the first two weeks no fruit). This morning, at the beginning of Phase II, he thought he could have some fruit juice and so slurped down a glass of some cocktail something or other. Only after he started to feel really creepy did he realize the second ingredient was corn syrup! We've definitely indulged a few times, and will continue to do so, but I feel so much better now I kinda don't want to.

Oh, and our new friend--probably not real healthy, but real good--is Dreyers' No Sugar Added Slow Churned ice cream. Not strictly South Beach, but gets us through the tough times!

So sorry about the links to your websites being FUBAR. I just fixed them (finally updated my blog!). Thanks also for your great comments about the donation question. I really appreciated the thoughtfulness of your reply.

Hope to see you very soon!