Day 17 Without Sugar + Food Appreciation Week

Well here I am with only four more days to go on my goal of quitting sugar for 3 weeks. I am super happy that I have gotten this far, especially lately when I have felt the urge to turn to comfort foods and binge a few different times. Mostly when I have been bored and restless and feeling like I can't relax - even on the weekends. I think I have felt like I should be achieving something and doing something productive. Now I realise that weekdays are the time for doing things like that and weekends are for relaxing. 

My skin is flaring up at the moment, with a few painful bumps on my face. I really hope that is just the detox happening and that it will abate in a few days. It’s not fun.

After a couple of days of restlessness and feeling the need to keep eating food compulsively I have decided to declare the rest of this week Food Appreciation Week.

This will be drawing from ideas learned from “If not dieting, then what?” by Dr Rick Kausman, “French Women Don’t Get Fat,” by Mireille Guillano, and a new concept I just read about called Hara Hachi Bu, which roughly translates to “Eat until your belly is 80% full.” Did you know there is a Japanese proverb that says that “Eight parts of a full stomach sustain the man; the other two sustain the doctor"? That is classic, I love that!

So, Food Appreciation Week will involve:

-          Trying to eat slowly and savour food

-          Appreciating the smell, texture, subtle complexities and rich flavours

-          Paying careful attention to fullness signals whilst eating

-          Writing down what I feel from all my senses as I eat different foods

-          Not eating while reading/watching TV/distracted

-          We’ll see what else I come up with as the week goes by

Also, I have decided another goal for this year is to try a new recipe each week, mostly from Danielle Walker's "Against All Grain" - because there are so many in there I want to try it simply overwhelms me!