Sugar free

Today is the last day of my sugar free month! 30 days ago Matilda got a terrible rash on her face. As it was the Easter weekend, I thought it was a result of the ridiculous amount of chocolate I was eating. So I put the challenge out to myself and Trent to go the whole of April without sugar. The rules were:

1. No food with sugar eg. Biscuits, chocolate, soft drink, milo, etc
2. No take away eg. KFC, McDonalds, etc (Thai and Indian were still allowed)
3. Fruit sugar was allowed
4. No alcohol

I have managed to survive the month but it hasn't been easy. One of my challenges was cutting out all the snacks during the day. Mainly biscuits. I am not a big lunch eater, mostly because bread just doesn't really do it for me - never has.  I have quickly learnt that eating a decent lunch cuts out the need for all the little snacks (which more often than not, are bad foods). I can do fresh bread rolls so that has been my solution. I have also eaten a lot more nuts - almonds, walnuts. As well as lots of fruit, which I was eating a lot of towards the end of my pregnancy.

The biggest challenge I had, and am still struggling with now, is the after dinner sweet thing. I used to have a cold milk milo every night and that just finished me off for the day. I am yet to find anything to give me that same satisfaction at night, and I am going to have to be very careful not to get back into the habit of having one every night. But I am certainly going to indulge tomorrow night!!!

Perhaps the best thing to have come out of the sugar free month, is the realisation about how much sugary food Poppy eats. I have always thought she ate reasonably well. We have always been very aware of not allowing too many lollies and chocolate, juice is a no-no and she has never been interested in soft drink. But now I can see that it's all the morning and afternoon tea foods that were sneaking in - biscuits, muffins, cupcakes. It's amazing that as a result of me not eating those things, she also hasn't been having them. Partly because its too hard for me to watch her eat it and not have any myself! But also because she is not seeing me eating it and therefore isn't asking for it herself. Instead she's seeing me eat fruit, so that is what she is having too. Unfortunately, she still isn't interested in nuts!

So my obvious next challenge is to try and keep it up. I'm not going to be as strict with the totally no sugar, but it has definitely shown me that that there are much better choices out there and the sweet, naughty stuff can be saved and enjoyed on special occasions!

And for the record, the rash on Matilda's face wasn't from the chocolate, it was just a hormone rash! Could almost say the sugar free month was for nothing...........but I won't!