My stated second step was to stop snacking. I am working on it, but our life isn’t scheduled any more so it is hard to tell whether is is lunch or a snack. We need to keep regular hours. Everything I read on the subject says we need regular predictable sleep and it needs to start way before 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning when we usually go to bed. And you need to have regular eating times, not breakfast if I feel like it, lunch whenever I get hungry, supper when I think about it and when Luke is ready to come in from the shop.
Problem is neither one of have ever been early sleepers, and, though Luke would like for me to make regularly scheduled meals, I am so tired of cooking and planning meals and thinking about what to make that I cannot stand it. I go crazy when I have to think about what to have for meals and cook all the time. Seriously, I can’t do it anymore. When I am hungry I can think about what we should have for supper and if I am hungry I am motivated to cook it, but to do it all the time…AAUUGHHHH!!!!
So, the snacking thing is going to have to be a longer project.
What I have been doing is the usual second step, avoiding wheat. No bread, no bagels, no spaghetti etc. I had my last pizza, my farewell to bread. (I read that the Papa John’s Pizza here had closed. Recently I found out it isn’t closed! When I learned that, the pizza cravings began.)
I watched a video the other day in which the guy said that when people stop eating sugar, they often start eating more pasta and bread because highly processed wheat does the same thing as sugar once it gets into your body.
Now, I have not completely given up sugar and wheat. I have given up anything that is “mostly” sugar or wheat. For example I am on a slaw kick. The slaw recipe I use has both sugar and wheat. The recipe is simple, for a head of cabbage, 1/2 – 3/4 cup red wine vinegar, 1 T sugar, 2 T oil, seasoning packet from 1 package of Top Ramen noodles, crushed Top Ramen noodles, 1 cup slivered or sliced almonds. It is my modification of a recipe that calls for more sugar and more noodles. I love the stuff and I think 1 T of sugar and 1 package of noodles with a whole head of cabbage is acceptable. If I go all the way to no sugar and no wheat, of course, the slaw will have to go. I can like it well enough without the sugar, but without the noodles, it is too blah.
I could use sugar substitutes, of course. I have, but I haven’t this time around. I would rather do without sugar than use most sugar substitutes because of the taste, the aftertaste, and, for some of them, my body’s reaction. It seems to me that if my body reacts badly to sugar alcohols, for example, it is trying to tell me something. I know everyone says they are fine, but are they really?
I see all these recipes for desserts that taste just like the real thing but are low carb because they use artificial sweeteners, and I think, why? I want to train my my palate to not crave so much sweetness. Wouldn’t it be better to come up with a “dessert” that is less sweet? When I do not have sugar for a long time, I become very sensitive to sweetness. A honeycrisp apple goes from being pleasantly sweet to decadently sweet. Why not come up with a dessert based on, say, chocolate and cream cheese that has a little sugar in it, but is more like a 70% or 85% cocoa chocolate bar and less like a traditional cheesecake?