Refined Sugar and Me week 24 — Pizza Peril, Nutrition Labels, and Real Food Snacks

Welcome to week 24 of our ongoing series about refined sugar & me in 2017. This week I am still holding steady at a total of 16 pounds down from when I first started avoiding most added sugars and processed foods at the end of December 2016.

Yesterday I was actually 17 pounds down and feeling pretty fine about that, but then Mr. 10 had a friend spend the night and MashupDad ordered pizza and garlic bread for dinner! There’s an alternative interpretation of “real food meets real life” for you — I can resist dessert pretty easily now, but pizza is another story. Too much salty cheese and empty carbs = Bet you tomorrow it’ll be back down to 17.

But beyond the numbers on the scale, let’s focus on the positives this week: Before the great Pizza Incident of 2017, I was doing quite well this past week. My pants are all loose (and a couple pairs of capris that fit great last summer are kind of embarrassingly falling down in the back), my digestion is better, and my skin is clearer than it has been in a long time. Oh, and I also ate salad (OK, salty feta-filled salad, but…) and grapes with my pizza, so there’s that. 😉

Again, all worth keeping on keeping on, even if I never lose another pound. What surprising pluses have you guys found from cutting back on processed foods and refined sugar?

This week’s reading material

This week’s light reading suggestion is “You Won’t Believe How Much Processed Food Americans Eat” from Time magazine. Among other gems:

Nearly 90% of the average source of added sugars, in fact, came from processed foods. Overall, processed foods contained eight times more sugar than less processed foods such as breads, cheese and canned foods, and five times more sugar than unprocessed or minimally processed choices such as meats, fresh fruits or vegetables, grains and milk.

Monteiro’s study may also explain why attempts to reduce the amount of calories people eat by offering diet or low calorie options of the same processed foods doesn’t work. “They are still unhealthy because they don’t provide the nutrients of real foods,” he says.

I’m really interested to see what will happen when they start including “added sugar” on nutrition labels next summer, and you can see more information and explanation of what will be different on the new labels on the FDA site.

Before the whole pizza thing…

What I’m snacking on this week: Baby carrots & hummus, lettuce leaves right off of my perpetual salad colander when I’m out in the back yard, strawberries (Driscoll’s were $1.99 at Target last week, + survey coupons!), grapes (super cheap at ALDI), homemade sunflower seed butter…

And this gets me thinking that maybe next week we’ll talk about how to afford real food snacks; what do you think?

So, that’s me this week…

This year is all about slowly figuring out my own pitfalls, it seems like, and mine may or may not be the same as yours. How are you doing on your own healthier eating plan so far — and what have you found that helps you stay on track?

Earlier installments in this series

Dip your toe in with a few highlights:

• Week One: The Experiment Begins
• Week Three: By Any Other Name (+ a printable list of common names for sugar on ingredient lists)
• Week Seven: Fraught with Freebies
• Week Eight: The Clean Plate Club
• Week 23: Unprofitable Comparisons

And you can catch up on the whole Refined Sugar and Me series here.