NO SUGAR- DAY 3

In case you forgot, this is the band Sugar Ray. "Every morning there's a halo hanging from the corner of my girlfriend's four-post bed."

OK. As you know, I've been trying to do two things: Follow the Primal Diet and Lose This Friggin' Weight. Again.

According to the PD, if you consume between 50-100g of carbohydrates a day, you should easily and effortlessly lose weight. So began my month-and-a-half long journey of weighing and measuring everything. Which I did. And I was good about it; just ask Froody.

Well, I didn't really lose any weight. OK- I lost 3 lbs for all that effort. Not the 8-10 that the PD leads you to believe. So, like any other normal, American woman... I got desperate.

Just how desperate????

So desperate that I figured I needed to be eating less than 50g of carbs a day. Like 30-40g. But, I didn't want to eat any less than I'm already eating. (Seriously- measuring out 1/3c of mushrooms or 2 oz of chicken per meal is kinda depressing.)

So desperate that I chose (ugh) to stop. eating. sugar. *groan* And wine. *gasp* And chocolate. *sob*

I KNOW. I KNOW. As a normal, American woman that's unthinkable. Especially since I only used 1 3/4 tsp in my coffee (morning and afternoon). And I would only eat 1 square of extra dark chocolate most nights. And I would only have 4 oz of red wine at night. (Yeah, when you pour wine into a Pyrex measuring cup and then into a wine glass, a lot of the romance goes away.)

But, let me reiterate: I. AM. DESPERATE. And I decided that cutting out those things would accomplish 2 good things: 1) I'd finally be strict PD and 2) I'd be cutting out 14-24g of carbs per day.

So that's what I did on Tuesday. I figured I'd give it a week and then reassess.

Now that it's Day 3 I have to say that so far, everything is pretty OK. I actually like unsweetened iced tea. Unsweetened iced coffee isn't that bad, either. I haven't heard the chocolate sitting in my fridge calling my name, either. But do you want to know the weirdest and strangest thing to happen since I stopped eating sugar?

Those negative voices inside my head have stopped. My self-esteem has climbed and my attitude is pretty positive. I know, I know...this sounds crazy. But I did come across an article that says there has been some research that suggests link between sugar and depression and anxiety. Obviously, there are all sorts of variables at work here, but I felt so good yesterday that it made me wonder. Some of you don't know this, but depression (and addiction) seem to run in my family. What if my body is just hyper-sensitive to sugar? Or, with my decreased carb-intake, the relatively high percentage of sugar was messin' me up?

Anyway, I'll continue to monitor myself. If there really is a link between sugar and feeling "happy", it may make giving up these things a bit easier to do.