Like Sugar for Coffee, but Not

As I transition from personal training to equipping friends with tools to prepare food more healthfully and quickly at home, I have seen a huge change in my own habits.

Making our own bread at home, it is now made exclusively with honey.  Honey!  No sugar.  

Could it be that that is one reason I savor each piece of bread and feel better, fuller?

It's taken a couple months to let this sink in.  Like any organic chicken with its head still intact, I look at trends upside down and sideways.  I'm never on the front end of them.  I thought I was with grinding my own wheat (check out Wendy's Fresh Mills), but my friend in Colorado corrected me that everyone on and west of the Rockies already has a food mill: it's this side that's behind the curve.

I had no trouble with sugar in bread - but changing to honey was a no-brainer.  Who doesn't love a good honey loaf?

Still, I could tell sugar was the next villain when movie makers assaulted it with their good vs. evil dramatization in the January released film "Fed Up." See the trailer here.

I get a little annoyed when films say that companies "trying to make money" is a bad thing. It's like, as they collect your $9.50 entry ticket, they say out of the other sides of their mouths that corporations are bad. So this cynicism means I usually watch them once they are at Redbox.  I also sometimes need to prove I'm not easily herded with the sheep simply because the Hollywood shepherds use awesome cinematography and music... or maybe I am, so I instinctively protect myself.

For example, the month after I watched the movie Food, Inc., I couldn't function in polite society because our habits involved a lot of chicken, and beef. A mild depression ensued.  Watch the movie Fresh sometime immediately after that one if you want to come away encouraged.

Here is my husband's answer to health: planting our own food.  Here we are picking our blueberries!

So, this sugar thing was my last dietary-sheep standing.  Applause, please: like your own personal, virtual avatar, I made a big change this week.  I think you will benefit from hearing about it.  You now know me, how long I have resisted.  You know how strong I am.

Now listen.

I had my first four cups of coffee on Thursday with honey instead of sugar.  

Let that sink in.  Without mood swings, without highs and lows.  Yeah, that's how it sunk in for me, too. Everyone in my household benefitted.  I couldn't believe it.

But, I had never tried it in more than one cup before.  I had never liked the taste and decided it wasn't worth it.  This week, I finally tried it in a second cup of coffee.  I figured I lived, so I tried it in the third.  And now it's gone, that sugar in each cup.

It's definitely an acquired taste, but may I encourage you: so was coffee! You can do it.  You can!

I actually feel different: smoother.

And, unbelievably, less bitter.

Exercise Under the Radar

Last night, my husband texted he would be late coming home from work AND that his mom was making dinner for everyone.  That meant - - - STEALTH TIME!  I gained an hour where previously there was none.

You know, it takes 23 minutes for us to get out the door.  Shoes (oh the shoes!), water, sweaters, stroller, scooter, and bike - - wow.  But every time I get discouraged about that (it's just NOT EFFICIENT!) I have to exhale, LOUDLY, and start to breathe normally again. 

It IS worth it.

Stealth exercise lesson number one: every minute counts.

Last night my kids and I exercised for 18 minutes and 42 seconds.  This is the net total, not including stops and starts, because my watch is cool like that - autopausing when I have to retie a child's shoelace, or when we have stopped all together at the curb to look both ways.  Brilliant, this Garmin device.  More importantly, we all got some fresh air, relearned some survival tips, and for some moments were alone with our sense of freedom.

Unfortunately, there are some habits that are better-established than this one.  This is what I seek to overturn, flip-flop if you will.  Since I've become a mom of aware children, I've found it somehow acceptable to sneak ice cream when the girls aren't watching.  I usually don't think of it as a bad thing.  A treat is just that - a treat.  In fact I used to grab some and share.

But when it turns into a habit...

I suppose I knew it had become a habit, which is why I had to hide it.  I did not want to give my kids ice cream more than once a day (actually, my viewpoint on that is much more Puritan than I am letting on: not more than once a week!  But I really don't want to turn you off too fast, so I keep that initially to myself).  So because I didn't want to feed it to them, I didn't want to show that I was eating it. 

But the real point is, this mom should not feed herself something regularly that might interfere with her energy.

Boom!

What increases energy?  Stealth exercise, not stealth eating. 

What if, instead of sneaking a treat when no one is looking, I could do some push ups when no one is looking?

The flipped mindset working.  Yesterday, on my way into my bedroom, I did about 10 seconds of holds from my pull-up bar, three times (3x10s).  And if my baby boy was watching, I actually tried to pull up.  For some reason, that action puts him in stitches!

And when I lost some motivation making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (really?), I decided to do some wall sits.  Because ANYTHING is better than wall sits!  I did two sets of 20 seconds (2x20s).  And I couldn't WAIT to get back to those sticky knives.  "Lunch, coming RIGHT up!!!  Yay!!!"  I even threw in some CUT UP apples for the girls.  They loved that.  To dip in yet more sticky peanut butter...

I'm also going stealth on my own body.  Fooling it gradually so it doesn't know what's happening (I've never been a big fan of shock).  So, from 2.5 spoons of sugar in each cup of coffee to 2, and now down to 1.5 today!  Yippee! 

I just want to make my very wise, very slender grandmother proud: she always told me, "My mom always said, 'Learn to take your coffee without cream and sugar.  So that you can have more.'"  She could just have well have said, "So that you have more, without a muffin consequence."  Haha!  YES, Maw Maw!  I strive for that, indeed. 

I cut out milk/cream last year.  I also, in effect, only went "out" for coffee a couple of times (to avoid purchasing a sugared coffee drink, my favorite, irresistible one being the mocha).  Now I am cutting down the number of cups, so that in effect the number of spoons of sugar goes down... while also cutting down the number of spoons of sugar per cup.  And I have gotten to the point where if I feel I need another cup, I make decaf (pumpkin spice, from Phoenix Community Coffee, PLUG, to support a pal who's adopting two kids from India.  Very cool! http://thehartfamily.greatcoffeegreatcause.com/ ).

Like I said, I am not one for shock.  The suggestion of detoxing, or cleansing, blah blah, freaks the heck out of me.  I have read many different articles from my personal trainer organization (American Council on Exercise) and you can truly find studies representing both sides of the argument.  The downside I can't get over is the danger of many essential nutrients being washed away.  So instead, I enjoy my method.

Stealth.