Happy Monday! I can't believe tomorrow is already March 1st! February flew by, which means.....spring *must be* on it's way???? But who knows around here. Anyways, I am going to set out some guidelines for the challenge, if you choose to participate. Some of it will be up to your own discretion, though.
Rule # 1: Absolutely NO SUGAR. And by this, I mean white table sugar. The stuff you bake with, or eat in candy, or in your vanilla latte, etc. Now, you will have to do a bit of sleuthing because sugar is in everything. BBQ sauce, salad dressing, PASTA sauce (why, why, why????), salsa, etc. You MUST read labels. So, the easiest way to stay away from added sugar hiding in things is to buy whole foods and make things yourself. The discretionary part here, is if you are going to get technical and ask about honey, agave, stevia, etc. This I will leave up to you. The challenge part here is to not ADD any sweetners to anything for the month, to break yourself away from *NEEDING* sugar, or something sweet. Of course, fruit is ok, and the recipe I posted for the cookies several weeks back would be ok, because they are sweetened with fruit, but MY goal here, and I hope for you, too, is that we will wean ourselves from *NEEDING* something sweet.
Rule # 2: Absolutely NO WHITE FLOUR. Also, a tricky one.....I, personally, will be avoiding anything with flour AT ALL. (including whole wheat flour) I am supposed to be staying away from gluten anyways, but have fallen off the gluten-free wagon lately. (sigh) :) So, this I will leave up to you, too. Basically, if you feel like you have a problem/addiction with anything "carb~y" (pasta, crackers, bread, cereal (which will most likely have lots of sugar in it too), pretzles, etc.) you should stay away from it for the month. And let me tell you, from personal experience, it is MUCH easier to cut it completely out, than to try and moderate.
So, I hope this clarifies and makes sense. I welcome any questions you might have. You can e-mail me @ slapoint@bendbroadband.com, call or text me @ 541-848-2916, or just leave a comment if you have any more questions. I hope you are all looking forward to challenging yourself, and doing something GREAT for your body! Your body will love you for it!!!
Throughout this whole challenge, I will be posting lots of information about sugar and flour and how they really do affect your health and well-being. PLEASE PLEASE let me know if you have questions, concerns, etc.
Also, I ran across this really great article( http://livewell360.com/2011/02/take-a-vaca-from-venting-about-problems/) today on taking a vacation from re-hashing our problems to people whenever we are in a conversation. It does seem like we always go towards the negative, when chatting with others, so this article challenges us to not say or think anything negative for a week. (or forever) Check it out! It goes right along with our other challenge, since we are challenging ourselves! Have a great day!
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