Diary of A Sugar Addict

January 9th, 2025

Today, I am feeling tired. 

I had a slower start than usual leaving the house around 7:25, opposed to 7, but I still made it to work before 8. I begrudgingly caught up on some work and then headed downtown to a meeting of similar talent professionals.  It is a nice small group and since we have not met since November, I was looking forward to reconvening from 10-12.  One nice part about our meetings here is that we are always sent a menu ahead of time from a local restaurant to choose something off of UberEats.  Of course, the menu we were sent today had King Cakes and all sorts of wonderful desserts.  Staying focused, I choose some gourmet roasted carrot tacos avoiding all the donuts, cookies, cinnamon rolls, amongst other temptations.   I skipped ordering a drink and brought my trusted water bottle instead.  Feeling great about my order, I had forgotten about one thing.

Upon arrival, I was immediately reminded that the hosts are kind enough to put little candy dishes on the table.  The next two hours I would be staring down a bowl of little miniature Hersheys.  If it were a dish of hard candies I would find it easy to resist.  Surprisingly,  I don’t love those plastic-wrapped gems unless they are butterscotch, rootbeer, or some non-fruity flavor.  However, I DO love miniature Hersheys, especially the special dark.  Nestle crunch is not far behind though.  The trick in those meetings is to not be obvious.  You can’t just grab a handful and you definitely can’t leave your wrappers in front of you.  I always find myself discreetly grabbing another little treat at an opportune time.   It’s worse if other people are eating them too.  Then I just feel unapologetic and unashamed.  Let’s all dig in!

Today, my eyes mostly averted them and I found them pretty easy to resist.  Perhaps my body is slowly accepting the fact that I am not going to feed its addiction anymore!  The flip side is despite all of my healthy choices lately, I feel heavy and tired.  I should have been spry and fresh and flexible at yoga but I was lethargic and could feel my legs burn on simple postures.  There was a new instructor today as well and I wanted to say, “I usually am better than this.” lest I be judged.  However, that would be a lie.  I only recently began celebrating the fact that I can touch my toes so it is fair to say that I more closely resemble a stick than a rubber band.

So I started the day tired and am ending tired and I am not quite sure why.  Is this the massive sugar crash that has been building for years and years and since I am slowly detoxing all the processed sugar out, I am now crashing?  Well, at least the sugar temptation was gone today even if the sugar-beer-dad belly remains.

January 8th, 2025

Under revision

January 7th, 2025

Today, I felt great!  Perhaps it is just my optimism, but I am fairly certain that my body is already reaping the benefits of being weaned from sugar.  I had a nice balanced energy all day with no cravings.  I was able to leave work around 4:30, run to the grocery store, and cook a lovely lemon-paprika salmon dish over beans and spinach.  I had to substitute pinto beans for cannellini beans but the dish seemed to harmonize perfectly, despite the switch.

What I have started to notice is that I am enjoying other foods more.  I had a cauliflower Tikka Masala dish with chickpeas over rice for lunch (left over from last night) and I am convinced I was enjoying the distinct flavors of each ingredient in a way that usually eludes me.  I am now realizing that I have probably treated lunch and dinner as obligatory tasks to complete to get to the dessert on the other side.  I should just at least put up the facade that I am eating healthy before I give myself permission to have a handful of cookies and offset, if not destroy, whatever nutritional value I just gained.  And other times, I just don’t care.  I might just skip the charade and go straight for the sugar.

My mom used to make the best raspberry squares ever.  I never liked raspberries growing up.  To be honest, I never ate that much fruit.  But mask all the natural goodness in a sugary square of delight, and you would never know I would hardly touch one off of the vine.  Whole Foods has a box downstairs of fresh raspberry squares and, sadly, they never sell just one, like the cookies.  So if I am compelled by stress, hunger, anxiety, or any other excuse I can give myself, I’ll get the plastic box of giant squares for nostalgia and dig into them.  The problem is each square is about four servings and there are four in a box.  My mom made hers nice and small so we could have three or four and let our childhood metabolism burn through them- but that old psychology kicks in and before I know it, I have had 1000 calories of four raspberry squares.

Since I have not had sugar in nine days, I am noticing my temptation to be so ridiculous is slowly fading away and my taste buds are starting to sing for other flavors…which brings me back to the salmon dish. I swear it was one of the best I have made.  However, I don’t ever recall pinto beans and spinach underlaying baked salmon something to get excited about.  So perhaps my taste buds are adjusting to and appreciating more the other flavors of the world.  After savoring the flavors of my dish, I headed to play tennis feeling great about myself.  No temptations today….almost.

Coming home from tennis, I walked into the house to see a lone nicely wrapped in plastic chocolate chip cookie.  At first, I walked by thinking myself impervious to its powers.  Sadly mistaken, I turned around and headed to the pantry where I could indulge in something that wouldn’t technically ruin my streak but could feed my gluttonous side.  Good old salty tortilla chips.  What can I say, I am a work in progress.

January 6th, 2025

I headed back to work today after a nice long break.  I feel rested and refreshed and relatively caught up.  However, my sugar-free challenge is about to be put to the real test.  First, I am fortunate enough that my office is located above Whole Foods.  Yes, Whole Foods has offices above it-  well, at least, this Whole Foods.  And, yes, it is a wonderful perk and privilege if one has the self-control and discipline I am clearly lacking.  Initially, I fell into the trap of just running downstairs to get a slice of pizza (or two) for lunch with a bag of chips and, for a while, washed it down with my beloved Virgil’s Root Beer.  And whenever I need a little stretch break, it is all too easy to run downstairs and get the delicious $2.49 fresh from the bakery sea salt caramel and toffee chunk cookie….There goes my mouth again, salivating at the thought of it.  But that’s not even the biggest challenge!

I sit toward the back office in the last row of cubicles with the “staff kitchen area” so to speak located behind me.  Between myself and the back kitchen wall is a nice long brown table which sometimes is used for laying out and assembling stacks of packets fresh off of the copy machine.  However, it is mostly just a place for food.  Leftovers from a breakfast meeting- some nice scones and muffins- Add them to the table.  Extra leftovers from a retreat- Stack those chips and salsa and cookies on the table.  Made a nice cake last night that you just wanted to taste but not actually eat it- Lay it on the table to share with your fellow employees.  Feeling generous and picking up some nice warm glazed donuts on the way to work- Put them on the table.  And there I sit, able to swivel my chair and grab a little extra avoiding the shame of having to pass by everyone in this office.  Finally,  let’s not forget about the holiday season that just transpired either.  Every type of sugary dessert and treat imaginable. We even held a bake-off this year where every department had to make and bring their favorite dessert…  Gorgeous key lime pie, carrot cake, pecan pie, homemade cupcakes-  All on the table right behind me and, yes, I fully indulged in it all. 

Today, as well as being the first day back, marked the kick-off of Mardi Gras season in New Orleans-  which also means King Cakes.  People here are quite passionate about their King Cakes and everybody has a favorite.  There’s cream cheese-filled (my personal favorite), apple-filled, praline, and cinnamon to name a few, and the bakery that produces it is serious business to the New Orleanian.  Each King Cake has a little plastic baby stuffed inside it.  (Read more about the tradition here.)  Whoever gets the slice with the baby has to buy the King Cake for the following week, which means there will be eight weeks of King Cakes right behind me while I try to abstain from all sugar!  And likely whenever I go to a school for a meeting- there will be more King Cake.  The good news is that I don’t love them as much as I crave a good cookie- but without a good strategy, I know eventually I will break my sugar fast and grab a slice.  That’s what did me in last year.

Around 3:30, my sweet tooth decided to test me and I needed to take a stretch break. Rather than continue to salivate at what was behind me,  I walked downstairs and headed straight for the fruit, found a nice looking and crisp Gala apple causing me to leave Whole Foods $1.18 poorer, which is the least amount I have ever spent there.  I sort of thought they should just give me the apple for free.  “Sir, are you just getting one apple instead of a King Cake- no need to check out for that!  Our treat.”  I am pretty sure Jeff Bezos can afford it and we might have a healthier America- or at least a healthier me. 

January 5th, 2025

I have just completed day 7 of being sugar-free and I have to say today was a good day.  I ate more fruit, had fewer temptations for sugary items, and was quite productive.  The best part of my day was playing two hours of tennis.  After declining several Sundays last year, mostly due to my foot, I participated in “rock ‘n roll” tennis at City Park with 11 other tennis junkies this afternoon.  It’s a miniature doubles round-robin tournament just for fun where you rotate partners and shift courts depending on whether you win or lose.  The temperature was so perfect out today, that we could forgive the gusting winds preceding an impending large cold front that will keep us off the courts.  Anyway, after the tennis, we congregated on the porch of the club enjoying the last of the warm breeze, socialized, and enjoyed some cold beers – inspiring me to write about- well- beer.

First, I truly love beer.  I can probably count on one hand the beers that I don’t like and I have tried hundreds of them.  I already hear people saying, “You know, beer is sugar.  Are you giving up alcohol too?”  The answer to this is no.  

According the website, brewdog.com–

“Outside the realm of alcopops, sugar is rarely added to alcoholic drinks, including beer. However, it does play a part in the fermentation process. That’s when yeast converts the sugars released in malting into alcohol. Because the sugar is converted, it theoretically means that beers have very low sugar.

Interestingly, light beers are often those with higher sugar, and low alcohol beers can also be quite sugary, as the sugar produced in the malting process is hardly converted by the yeast. However, in regular beers, the amount of sugar is typically less than 2 grams per litre, or less than 1 gram per pint. There are 20 grams of sugar in a Mars Bar, and 10 grams in a can of Coca Cola Original (but none in Diet Coke, which sweetens with Aspartame and Acesulfame K).“

And I am not trying to have a scientific debate about how my body processes carbohydrates.  The bottom line is that different substances have different effects on different people and, for me, beer simply does not have the same addictive quality as sugar.  

First, I tend to only drink socially or maybe reward myself with a nice cold one after an extensive day of yard work or a completed project.  It is never a drink I choose under depression or stress.  While I could drink with the best of them in my college days, my desire to do that type of heavy drinking has declined right along with my metabolic rate which allowed me to process all that alcohol in the first place.  Nowadays, water is the larger temptation of the two.  College days trained me well, I guess, to “see off” a bottle of water in a few seconds.   My wife doesn’t drink so I might not pull out some beers until I have a guest who does drink.  I don’t feel the need to cap my night off with a drink like I feel the constant urge to have dessert- a little something sweet after dinner (or any meal for that matter).  So I could easily buy a six-pack and have it hang around the house for a few weeks.  Meanwhile, a box of cookies doesn’t stand a chance of surviving that long.  The phrase “stale cookies” is the ultimate oxymoron in our cupboard.  

So today, I capped off some great tennis in lovely weather with a nice cold one.  Yep, just one.  That was enough.  Fortunately for me, I was able to experience a whole new beer- Classic City Lager.    Cheers to that!

January 4th, 2025

I don’t know if it is the lack of sugar in my system but I am definitely feeling great today.  Ashley and I took a 5.5 mile walk through the Woodlands Conservancy yesterday and then I was able to play some light tennis in the evening.  It is clear that am the least fit I have been in my life.  I had a year of chronic plantar fasciitis and tarsal tunnel in my left foot which culminated in surgery in November.  Needless to say, this was the least active I have been in my life.  At points, taking the dog for a walk was a painful struggle.  Anyway, I slowly trying to get my body back together and in shape so yesterday was a step in the right direction.  

Post walk, Ashley and I went to one of our favorite restaurants, Barracuda.  It is a trendy gourmet taco spot with outdoor seating only and yesterday we couldn’t have asked for better weather.  We partly chose it because they have no sugar anywhere on the menu.  No dessert.  No cookies.  Good clean eating without the temptations.  Of course, later in the evening my dessert craving did kick in but rather than grabbing more food like I did the previous night, I grabbed a bottle of water and chugged it down, which surprisingly did the trick.

I had a good friend, Suni, who was on the crew team with me in college.  He was slightly overweight and decided to do a water diet.  What’s that you ask?  His strategy was simple.  Before every meal, he would drink down an entire glass or two of water.  By preemptively filling his stomach before eating, he would consume less food and, particularly, less junk food.  The strategy worked brilliantly and soon he was as fit and healthy looking as anyone else on the team.  So right now, I am thinking drinking lots of water is going to be key to surviving the no sugar year.

I am relatively fortunate that I don’t consume a lot of soda.  The simple reason for that is we just don’t buy it.  That battle is won at the grocery store because I can assure you if there were soda in the house, it would call my name until I succumbed to the temptation.  Sprite is my absolute favorite and I know drinking one would set off a chain reaction of sugar-filled consumption.  I rationalize deep down that it is a healthier soda choice because it is clear.  My Secret Santa gave me a miniature six-pack right before the holidays.  Like an idiot, I put it on my desk with plans to bring it home that afternoon.  There it was staring me in the face all day until I finally caved and decided to have one…why not- it was the holidays and this was my gift.  Well that turned into a second 30 minutes later and I decided to put the remaining in the work fridge, too embarrassed to bring home half a pack of Sprite.  The next morning, I grabbed another.  Sprite for breakfast- could I have any less self-control?

Next in line would be root beer.  Back in early 2020, Saja and I went on a quest to find the best root beet.   We were pretty much snobs about the whole thing and tried to only limit our selection to brands with cane sugar.  Anytime we would see a new brand, we would go for it.  My dad loved root beer too.  Root beer seemed like that special drink that you only got on a trip or used it make an ice cream float- a nice clean scoop of vanilla with the root beer foaming all around it.  So root beer has all sorts of nostalgia and I am always tempted to grab one, especially if it is one I have not tried.  Here is the order.  From left to right is worst to best with Virgil’s coming out on top.

January 3rd, 2025

I had a hard time sleeping last night and ended up waking up later than usual (8:15) after watching mindless television in the middle of the night.  I have been fortunate that sleep has never really been a challenge for me.  Typically I am a 10 pm or 11 pm to 6 am sleeper and wake up with lots of energy.  I can’t really say that I am a morning person because I can be just as alive at night- but when I lay my head down, I am able to fall asleep with regular ease.

I am also not a coffee drinker.  I have never developed the taste buds for it nor made much of an effort to try.  I guess I have always seen it as another vice or dependency and never wanted to be on those people who couldn’t function in the morning without their first few cups of joe.  So instead, I developed a much worse dependency on sugar.  I am my routine of cereal in the morning as a child didn’t help me.  Apple Jacks, Honey Nut Cheerios- (deceiving you into thinking you are making a healthy choice), Sugar Smacks, and Corn Pops- God, I love those so much and I notice my mouth watering as I type this.  We would also have the plan Cheerios onto which I would douse spoonfuls of sugar.  I would end by drinking the flavorful milk right out of the bowl.  Fortunately, I have not continued this breakfast as an adult- but let’s be honest, I have been known to take some of Aya’s cereal when it is in the pantry.  My wonderful wife rarely buys that type of stuff so that helps.

Anyway, after I wrote yesterday evening, Saja made a banana cake.  She needed eggs for the frangipane topping and I took her to the store just before 9:00.  I tried to hang out in the fruits and vegetables areas grabbing a few more oranges, bananas, and green apples as a back-up when my sugar craving hits me hard, as it inevitably will.  Walking to the check-out though, I notice just how much sugar there is everywhere!  You can’t walk into and out of the store without passing heaps of sweets including homemade cakes pushed to the front and those soft sugar cookies with the audacious seasonal appropriate coloring that all tastes the same.  Right by the check-out I see the all candy bars and little treats.   I have been known to always grab something.  Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are probably at the top of the list, but a good Heath Bar, Peanut M and Ms, and a Snickers have found themselves to be regulars too.  If I am trying to be cognizant about my addiction, I will often grab chips as if they are healthier because they are not laced with sugar goes my flawed thinking.  Yesterday, willpower worn down, I managed to ignore all of the temptations and escape the store with just eggs and fruit.

The completed banana bread with frangipane topping looks beautiful and is staring me in the face as I write this.  I am finding it easy to say no to it right now.  We’ll see how the rest of the day goes!

January 2, 2025

I am coming to the end of day 4 sugar-free! Yeah, congratulations to me.  I know the day counting thing works because, in the past, when I have stopped counting is usually when I break.  Anyway, I woke up this morning with a lot of energy and not very hungry, which I thought was a good sign.  I only had my banana mid-morning and wasn’t craving much of anything.  But in reflecting, I start most days that way and then my willpower eventually breaks down.  And this is exactly what I am fighting right now!

I spent the afternoon painting the outside of the house-  I swear this is the last home that I live in that I will paint- but I think I said that last time too.  Anyway, nobody wanted dinner so I decided to do some salad, steak, and potatoes.  This is a hearty meal by any standards so why am I craving dessert?  I always crave dessert.  I have the obsessive desire to cap any meal off with something sweet but this rings especially true after dinner- when the day is done and my willpower is gone. 

I traditionally find myself rummaging the pantry for anything that’s sweet, but not fruit.  My wife and stepdaughter usually have some semi-sweet chocolate chips on hand for baking.  They use it to make a little snack of sorts with raisins, shredded coconut,  nuts, and melted chocolate amongst other things.  Yep, sorry to share- another thing I like to grab if I see nothing else-  just a few chocolate chips will satisfy me and maybe no one will notice.  Sadly, in moments of desperation, I have been know to have a spoonful of brown sugar.  

Tonight, I have planned ahead and have some green apples (always green) and fresh peanut butter.  The peanut butter I love the most has no sugar-  It’s the kind you make yourself at the grocery store and put in a little plastic cup.  This snack is a true saving grace for me.  It is the perfect healthy snack, although tonight, it is seemingly unnecessary after the meal I just ate.  We’ll see if my cravings can decrease over time, but today I just shoved more food in my face without sugar- not exactly the level of self-discipline I am seeking.

Jan 1, 2025

  Well, I almost blew it this morning.  I woke up on New Year’s Day in good spirits.  After coming home yesterday from a family road trip, I decided to finish cleaning up the kitchen from last night- which I was too tired to do- and make a little breakfast.  Yesterday, my mother-in-law made some pancakes which I was able to avoid by digging into the scrambled eggs with cheese and grits- sans sugar of course.  I know pancakes and waffles, while devoid of excessive sugar, are enough to trigger me into wanting more.  Then there’s the syrup or my personal favorite, confectionary sugar sprinkled on top of melted butter.  So good!  Today, I would just stick with making an omelet large enough to share, some turkey bacon, and some oatmeal for the family when they arise. 

  I grabbed my usual banana. (I am not stopping natural sugars- only processed!)  I love a good banana in the morning.  It really is the perfect food and I like mine without any brown and preferably no green but would take a little green before the brown.  Slight underripe suits my taste buds better than slightly overripe.  This usually does the trick of satisfying my appetite enough that I don’t do anything too stupid with my diet first thing in the morning.

  However, as I am going in and out of the refrigerator, I noticed a small container with cookie dough.  My stepdaughter made snickerdoodles last week and left extra dough to bake one or two cookies at a time as a nice treat.  This is a great way to make the cookies last longer and ensure they are not gobbled up in one day, particularly by me.  Yet, I was slowly breaking off little bits of the cookie dough, just small enough for me to convince myself that maybe the other people in the house won’t notice it is disappearing.  I know they know though but maybe I will only be slightly ridiculous opposed to ridiculous.  It’s only social etiquette really that keeps me from eating all the cookie dough.  And I don’t care that it is raw- I love it!

  This morning, the container with the last bit of dough is staring me in the face and instinctively reach for it to break off that little piece, yes at 8 am on New Year’s Day.  I paused, not because I just made a commitment to no sugar, but that it was rather a small piece, enough for only one cookie.  It would be rude or maybe just too obvious.  Then I also realized that stealing that little piece of dough would also break my new pact with myself.  So that’s the truth- a little bit of shame and manners maybe kept my sugar free streak alive.   We’ll see how the rest of the day goes!