Some of you might know that the biggest New Year's Resolution I made this year was to eat absolutely ZERO added or refined sugars or sweeteners. Yeeaaah. I've been having a lot of people ask how things are going, so I'm going to answer some of the most common questions people have.

1. "WHY?!?!?!"
Mostly just to prove to myself that I can. I really don't have a better reason. I just wanted to try it to see if it could be done Also I watched some super spooky documentaries about sugar that got me like:
2. "Well what about fruit? Fruit has sugars."
You're right. It does. But it also has a lot of fibre, and that helps digest the sugar properly. Plus, I need SOMETHING fun to eat or I'm going to go insane. I don't drink fruit juice, because all the fibre is gone so it's pretty much just fruit sugars and water, but I think eating fruit is fine.

3. "So... What DO you eat?"
Basically, my eating hasn't changed that much except that I'm more careful. Lots of things have sugar hidden in them (I'm looking at you mayonnaise!). I can eat vegetables and fruit and meat and dairy and grains. Bread is harder because most of it is processed, but I can do French bread because it doesn't have any sweetener in it. Most recently the meals I eat the most are soup or homemade veggie burgers.

4. "What about restaurants?"
I've eaten out like maybe 4 times since the beginning of the year, and all of those times I've gotten a salad with no dressing because that's pretty much the only thing with no sugar on the menu. It gets pretty old. As for fast food, all I can get is fries, and I'll admit, I've some here and there, but they start tasting kind of gross after awhile. So generally, I avoid restaurants. It's just easier. Then I don't have to ask about the ingredients of EVERY thing on the menu.

5. "Do you pretty much hate life?"
Haha sometimes! It depends on the day. You can get pretty creative and make a lot of things with no sugar, but the one thing you can't really replace is chocolate. There's no good substitute. I miss chocolate, but like, I don't need it anymore. I've been off sugar since just after Christmas so I'm kind of used to it now. It's more annoying to have to ask about every ingredient than anything else.

6. And you're doing this for a WHOLE year?"
Yep! I'm giving myself a couple of breaks. For example, I just booked tickets for my spring vacation to Savannah and Charleston, and I'm still going to eat healthy, but you can bet your bottom dollar I'm going to have a couple treats while I'm there. Also for my birthday I'm getting ice cream as my birthday gift to me. Past that I haven't really thought much of it.

7. How do you feel? Have you noticed any changes?
SO many changes! Here's a short list:
-I feel so much better. Historically, winter is the death of me, but this year there have been little to no depressive episodes. My mood is crazy better and I'm so grateful. That's probably been the biggest change.
-I sleep super well. It doesn't take me long to fall asleep and I stay asleep on average for 7-8 hours.
-I've lost a little bit of weight without even really trying.
-Food has so much more flavour. Fruit tastes sweeter. I can have like half an orange and be done.
-I get full faster.
-I can eat salads and vegetables with no dressing and they don't taste terrible. I know that's a weird one, but seriously. The exception is celery. Celery always tastes bland no matter what you do.
-NO MIGRAINES!!!! You guys, I was getting debilitating migraines every other week. They were so bad that I would get sick to my stomach, get earaches, and have to stay in bed. I haven't had a migraine since December!

So yeah. That's me right now. The Sugar Vigilante. Feel free to ask me any other questions you have!