No added sugars Restart!

Ok yall I've finally prepared myself and our kitchen for a full no added sugar diet change!  There are two things I’ve changed since originally wanting to do this.  The first is that I can’t technically call this a “detox”.  Because I’m still using sugar at home.  I have organic raw sugar that I will be using for baking bread and such, and of course honey and maple syrup.  So because I’m not abstaining from sugar completely I wouldn’t call this a detox.  I am avoiding all added sugars in products we buy from the store.  This may sound silly since I am still using sugar at home, but the difference is that I am in control in how much is added, and can control how much of it we are all consuming each day. If I continue to buy the products with added sugars AND add sugars in stuff I make at home, it’s too much!  Second is that I don’t want this to be for a short time period and classified as a “diet”.  I would rather this be a “diet CHANGE”.  There’s really no need to buy a bunch of products that have unnecessary ingredients! Sugar is a major addiction for me so I really wanted to move away from having so much of it. 

So with that being said, here we go again! I’ve figured out the majority of what to do in finding and preparing meals without the added sugars and surprisingly its not as difficult as it seemed at first!  Once you figure out the products that don’t have added sugars, and what you are willing and able to make yourself it’s totally do-able. 

A few things I found the most difficult to avoid:

Lunch meat, peanut butter, bread, tortillas, and cereal!

The solution: 

Lunch meat:  I found that there were two options for sugar free lunch meat.  One is Boars head from the deli counter.  However it’s extremely expensive per pound.  The second was surprisingly Hilshire farms!  The Smoked Turkey kind from the lunch meat section at the grocery store.  Now I know it’s not the highest choice for people wanting to eat organic, grass fed, free range meats, but there is no added sugars! And that’s the focus right now. 

Peanut Butter: This one has a solution, but not one I’m a fan of!  They do make Peanut butter that is just nuts and salt.  It’s just not my favorite.  I definitely prefer sugar added to my peanut butter! This is the brand I have purchased:

 

Bread and Tortillas are next to impossible to find at the store without added sugars.  I have found that Food For Life Ezekiel breads contain no sugar and made with sprouted grains which are very healthy for you! I have found them in the frozen section at Publix and at the commissary.

 

The cinnamon Raisin bread is my favorite for toast at breakfast.  The other sprouted breads are good, but the kids aren’t huge fans of it because it’s not quite as soft as other breads we have purchased.  I still really love Rudi’s brand breads.  But they have the added “evaporated cane juice” which is sugar.  The Ezekiel tortillas are ok, just again, not quite as soft and tend to tear when rolling them up.  So I have decided to start making our own bread again, and found a recipe to make home made tortillas that I will attempt today!! We love tortillas for wraps at lunch, and we eat tacos at least once a week.  So I’m hoping it’s a success and easy to keep on hand at all times! I used to bake our own bread a lot, but never quite got the hang of slicing it just right for sandwiches.  Then life gets in the way and because I forgot to bake the bread it was easier to just buy a loaf at the store. 

Cereal:  This is an extremely difficult one!  I did find that Food for life also makes Ezekiel cereal that I just bought yesterday to try, but it’s $5 a box and not a big box either! For myself and my hubby, we have been eating some home made granola I made a while back with my home made yogurt for breakfast and it’s super yummy! However the kids prefer a cereal.  And I cannot find any that has no added sugar that they would like! For the time being, We just won’t be buying cereal. We can eat eggs, pancakes and oatmeal for breakfast. There are organic brands of cereal that we like, and have added organic sugars and fruit sweeteners that I would feel comfortable with them having, but again, the goal right now is to not buy or eat products with added sugars. 

I plan to really focus on this and pay attention to the products we buy for the month of June.  This will hopefully change my habits in shopping and awareness in how we feel when sugar is cut way back from our diets.  We will still be going out to eat and enjoying ourselves!!  So when we go out which is typically about once a week, I will not be overly concerned about added sugars because I’m obviously making the conscious decision to eat food someone else prepared. 

So I’ll be sharing what we do and buy during this process!  I’ll also try and share our menu plans for each week so you can see the different meals you can still eat and enjoy! 

Jessi

Mothers day 2014

It’s just another day around here.  A day of laundry to be done, a family to be fed, and children to be cared for.  No gifts planned for mom, no elaborate plans to celebrate.  Daddy has one more final for school tomorrow so he is off studying and I’m home with the kids getting ready for the week ahead.  In the days leading up to mother’s day there were ideas given for possible gifts, but not heavily pushed because I’m all too aware of our budget! 

I was awoken this morning out of a deep sleep by my hubby saying “happy mother’s day” and then a gentle reminder we needed to get ready for church so we could actually make the early service.  “I’ll get the kids ready!” he tells me. Awesome. Except it was already 8:20 and I needed to rush and get ready for church at 9:30.  A little grumpy because I hate being rushed (even though I’m constantly rushing every where I go!) and knowing I won’t have time to actually blow dry and style my hair, I get ready for the day.  As we pull up to church at 9:33 I quickly realize early service actually starts at 9:00!  We haven’t missed the sermon, just the worship. Nice. But what would normally be cause for frustration and the blaming of who made us late, we are just happy to be there!

After church we spend about 45 minutes driving around town trying to decide on various places to eat.  It’s when we drive around that we love to dream about life and make decisions about future plans.  The sun starts to pop through the clouds after a couple gloomy days and we laugh and talk during our leisurely Sunday drive. 

Now we’re home and Daddy has gone to study and I’m left with my thoughts about what to get done for the day.  I realized that I have not once felt forgotten, or overlooked on this mother’s day.  I do not feel like I’m owed anything, or that more of a fuss should have been made.  Instead I feel so richly blessed that I am made to feel special EVERY DAY.  Knowing that my kids love me so much they want to be near me every second of the day. (Some days that’s not so enjoyable lol)  I hear the words “mommy I love you” from Caden, and recently “Mommy” from Mikalyn.  The fact that I get her biggest smiles when I enter a room, and the sloppiest open mouth baby kisses make me feel overwhelmingly special.  My husband shows appreciation for what I do on a daily basis, and knows just when I need a break! 

I have a mother who has shown me what it means to be an awesome mom even though she worked full time.  She has taught me to also be very independent and a hard worker.  Becoming a mother has deepened my appreciation for her and what she did to raise me! I married into a family with a beautiful, giving woman as their mother and I could not be more lucky to have such a perfect mother in law.

I am also surrounded by many women that are such wonderful examples of what it means to be a loving mother. They encourage, inspire, understand and do not judge. Fellowship with like minded mamas is vital in this season of our lives!  

God knew my calling way before I did.  He blesses me, encourages me, comforts me and gives me patience when I need it most.  I could not be more thankful that I feel so loved and appreciated on a daily basis by everyone in my life.  My kids, my friends, my family, my Lord and Savior.  My only prayer is that I am just as encouraging, and supportive to them too.  Thankful for these days that teach, shape, mold and bless me beyond measure.  With hard work comes reward.  This is a very important task to be a mom, and the daily reward is enough.  So while I am not showered with gifts today, I’ve been given the attitude of gratitude!  Thank you Lord for this mindset, and not one of needing things, and actions to feel appreciated. For not placing my thoughts on what I’m getting today, but what I already have.  You are more than enough Lord.  I love You!

Jessi

Tipsy Tuesday: The Numbers app

Hello, Hello!  Today I wanted to share with y’all an awesome app that I use on a daily basis to help keep track of our budget!  And guess what? If you own an iphone, it’s FREE! because it’s already installed on your phone. (*UPDATE: I've been informed this app is only installed on newer Iphone 5 versions. A friend has the 4S and does not have this app already installed. It is available in the app store for $10. Trust me though, it's totally worth it!) If you don’t have an iphone, I am sure there are similar apps out there, but I apologize I don’t know what they are. Share with us here in the comments if you do! I’ve tried several ways to track our daily spending.  First to check our account daily.  But not all transactions show up right away.  I also have a spreadsheet on my computer that I track our total budget and bills on.  But I don’t keep track of each and every daily transaction on that spreadsheet because it just gets messy and annoying to keep up with when I don’t sit down to my computer every day.  With smart phones these days, who really needs to sit down to a computer very often? 



Enter the Numbers app.  This app gives you a bunch of different templates already pre-made for you to just plug in your numbers and go.  Or if you want, create your own!  There are meal plan tables, budget templates, charts, baby feeding charts, pretty much anything you want.  All on your phone y’all.  Seriously, how much easier could it get?  Once I realized what this app even was I was hooked.  Now I simply enter in each transaction immediately after I make a purchase, ( or a little while later because I have two small kids and my brain is in 50 places at once ), and my budget is updated immediately.  I know where I’m at and that I probably should not splurge on Chick-fil-a for lunch today so we can enjoy a meal out as a family this weekend! With food and gas so expensive these days, you simply HAVE to track your daily purchases or you’ll be over budget every time. 

What’s even cooler is that I can update this sheet, and share the link with my hubby so he knows where we are at and why! He can also enter his own transactions and save them too.  I don’t know how many times he would call and ask me where we were at with the budget and I couldn’t give him an answer right away because I had to go sit down, check the account to make sure all the bills were coming out, that all our purchases we’ve made recently had actually posted, and subtract what was pending to come out, THEN tell him how much we had left.  It was the root of many arguments that’s for sure.  Because I don't bring home the bacon, I do my part to help with the finances.  So I track our spending and make sure the bills get paid on time!  Military life allows little time for them to stay on top of bills and such.  With deployments, training out of town, etc. I so wish I had this app from the start!

I’ve been using this app for 6 months now and trust me when I say it WORKS and it will save you tons of time! And money. And arguments about budget if you actually use it. haha! Communication is key in marriage right? What better way to communicate about your spending than this.
(*NOTE: I’m aware this is now wednesday, but last night when I hit save I failed to also hit publish! )

 

Jessi

Sugar detox: Be prepared

Did y’all have a great weekend? We did, and it was probably because I put the sugar detox on hold. haha! I HAD to.  There was nothing I could eat in my house, besides the produce, that did not have added sugars.  Even if it was organic, there was added sugars.  So I wanted to share today some thoughts on this sugar detox and what will be happening going forward!

First of all, I started this thing on a whim thinking “ I really don’t want to eat all this candy anymore.”  I thought it wouldn’t be that difficult because we bought lots of healthy foods during the week and don’t eat desserts (Other than my candy stashes) But I knew I could easily replace those sweet cravings with some of my favorite fruit and nut snacks.  As I started paying closer attention to the ingredients of the everyday products we buy, I was shocked to see the sneaky things that contain sugar! For example, My lunch meat. What?! Granted, I know buying some lunch meat is not the healthiest because it’s not fresh from the deli, cut in front of you, preservative free stuff. But why in the world is there sugar in there?  Also, this isn’t exactly sneaky, because it was right there on the ingredients list, but I read that list 5 different times every morning before I poured our organic cereal in my bowl.  And the only sweet thing I saw on the list was Honey.  Cool, right? That’s what I was allowing myself to have anyway, honey and maple syrup when I needed to sweeten something like coffee or oatmeal for example.  Then then I read it again and SUDDENLY I see the word SUGAR.  Where did that come from?! I’m convinced my brain has been programmed to overlook the word sugar, or tricky words that also mean sugar.  Sucralose, Syrup, dextrose, evaporated can juice, etc.  I’ve never thought so much about how much sugar we are eating in a day, I just didn’t care.  But now that I want to take a break from it, it’s like a curtain has been lifted and I can see the truth and it’s really nasty!

Next, I’m giving myself some, no, A LOT of grace because I have not been able to go a single day without having added sugars.  Not because I craved it, but because it’s literally in everything. 

I need to better prepare myself for this task.  My kitchen needs to be re-stocked with no sugar added foods.  And no, not that sugar free stuff. That’s even worse! Real, no sugar added foods! And guess what that is in a nutshell?  Nothing processed. Real foods. Fresh foods. Anything packaged is most likely going to contain sugars.  I could not, in good conscience, just go buy new foods and not eat what we had on hand.  It’s not in the budget folks.  So realistically I need to just replace foods as we need them with stuff that doesn’t contain added sugar, or make it myself! As I find these foods, I’ll share them with you!  My kitchen is not far from being rid of the extra sugar stuff.  It’s the bread, lunch meat, & yogurt mainly.  Tomorrow is a grocery shopping day that I’m dreading more than usual because I have a feeling it will result in me having to hit up a couple different stores to find the stuff I want.  Don’t you hate having to shop at more than one grocery store?! 

Wish me luck! And thanks for continuing to follow along! Come back tomorrow for Tipsy Tuesday where I share fun, interesting, random tips I’ve learned!

 

Jessi

Sugar Detox: Day 3

I so wish I could say I made it all day without any processed sugar. But I can’t. It’s so darn tricky! It’s in Everything!!!  I was doing great until about 3:00 this afternoon, I was starving so I grabbed an Activia Greek yogurt from the fridge.  As I was eating it, it dawned on me to check the ingredients because it was sweet, but I was so hoping it was just the fruit mixed in it…. Yeah right.  It has added sugar AND fructose.  Not high fructose corn syrup, but still fructose.  GEEZ.  I was actually curious because I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything having just fructose in the ingredients list.  So I looked up what exactly fructose is.  I know it’s sugar, but I would assume it would fall in the “sugar” part of the ingredients, not listed as a separate ingredient. 

 

There’s crystalline fructose, and high fructose corn syrup.  I’m assuming the fructose on the label is the crystalline form which is 100% pure fructose.  High fructose corn syrup is actually a balance of glucose and fructose.  Fructose itself is not bad for you when it’s occurring naturally in your food.  But because it’s ADDED to the yogurt, or any other foods you might eat, you run the risk of consuming too much of it.  And that’s the whole point here right? To avoid any ADDED sugars.  In the case of this yogurt, even though it was so tasty, it had not only added sugar, but MORE sugar on top of it in the form of fructose.  Cool.

The next thing I noticed that had sugar today was our organic bread! I buy Rudi’s organic bread from the commissary and we all love it.  I was making my husband a sandwich this morning and happened to read the label and it had organic evaporated cane juice.  Now obviously that’s the sweetener.  But now I wondered, is this an ok sweetener, or another added, processed sugar I am trying to avoid?  Enter Google.  I found a great article here that explained perfectly that it is indeed another processed sugar.  However it is on the healthier side of things.  It contains some nutrients that regular white sugar is completely devoid of! I didn’t have a sandwich for lunch, but leftover homemade chicken enchilada soup from last night! YUM!

I also discovered evaporated cane juice in my Kind bars. If you don’t know what those are, they are very yummy, healthy snack bars.

SO, what’s a girl to do?! How serious am I going to be with this no added sugar thing? I can’t even have a sandwich or non GMO snack bar because of evaporated cane juice?! Yall I never intended for this to get so technical and scientific lol! It’s amazing what you learn when you start really paying attention.  I guess I could just bake us some bread using honey and tell my husband he has free reign on the yogurt and snack bars! Oy vey. 

Cravings have not been there at all for candy yet. And I wonder if it’s because I’m still getting sugar in these sneaky foods!  I have been very hungry though and I am sure that’s my own fault for not adding more protein to my meals yet. No I have not been avoiding eating foods, when I’m hungry I grab something to eat! Obviously I ate a yogurt and Kind bar as my snacks and they turned out to have sugar! ARGH!  I do crave some sweet tea though.  Eating all my meals with just water isn’t my favorite.

Hopefully tomorrow will have more success!

Jessi