Based on last year, I know I won’t keep up with checking in each month. However, January is usually pretty easy. Let’s go straight to the chart.

My no eating sugar looks pretty successful so far. The first week’s failures were all because I didn’t realize that bacon contained sugar. So I didn’t eat much sugar on those days, but it was some. So they got changed to frowns after I read the package ingredients on Friday. Aside from that, there were only three days where I had sugar. The 20th was worst and I was a bit upset with myself on the 21st for not staying in better control. The 28th was a party for Ted’s birthday and I had a piece of cake. Happily, it was a small piece and I didn’t eat any of the other sugar that was around.

Since a lot of foods have added sugar, what am I actually eating? Each day, for breakfast, I scramble one egg in butter, put it in a tortilla with some mozzarella cheese and eat that with a handful of blueberries. I have maybe 4 oz of orange juice mixed with water to drink. On the weekends, I may make some coffee which I drink with just milk. I’m not crazy about the coffee, but I’m usually cold, so I like the warm drink. For lunch, I’ve mixed things up more. A lot of days, I’d take noodles with mozzarella cheese on them for lunch. Lately, I’ve been just taking a tortilla and putting cheese in that. If I make some chicken, I’ve taken that too. I like the tortilla the best because there’s no plasticware that I need to bring home to wash. I usually just take it in a freezer bag. And then I also take a bag of raisins and blueberries as well. I also have a container of macadamia nuts in my office. I’ve learned that around 9 – 9:30, I’m usually eating some nuts and blueberries. For dinner, I’ve been trying to get more protein, so I’ve been making meat. I bought chicken breasts, pork chops and some steaks. I clearly don’t know how to cook a steak because they always seem really tough to me. Breading and frying the chicken and pork work out the best. The key? Paprika. Found that I like that a lot. I’ve also had some salad with a vinegrette, but I have to say I don’t really enjoy that at all. I’ve been enjoying the pork chop the best and I’ll probably be buying some more of those. My favorite thing to eat lately are triscuits with mozzarella cheese and raisins.

The good news is that I’m sure I’ve saved more than I paid for the Costco membership with what I’ve bought there. I eat about 5 lbs of mozzarella cheese every few weeks. I can finish a big container of blueberries in just over a week. Raisins last longer, but I buy lots of those as well. A container of macadamia nuts lasts about as long as the blueberries. All of that, I get at Costco. Other stuff, I get from Mariano’s. And an added benefit for so carefully preparing my lunches and dinner is that I hardly use any cash. Not buying any meals, so I’m not spending $5-$10 per day.

I’m very happy with how things are working out. And I don’t know why, but avoiding sugar has been easier than I thought. I’ve been reading some blogs about what sugar withdrawal feels like. The only really bad day that I had was one where I was just really depressed. It was weird in that I could tell something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. A day or two later, I realized that in the past on a day like that, I probably would have eaten a candy bar or something and have felt better. But without that rush of sugar, the depression lasted for basically 24 hours. I can laugh about it now, but I was just really numb on that day and didn’t care about anything. Now I’m sort of curious if something like that will happen again. Interestingly, the day after that my weight went down 2 lbs after holding steady for about two weeks. Don’t know if those things are related or not. Anyway, I’m happy with the month overall. I lost 3.5 lbs which I think is a good start to the year.