Sugar Fasting

I haven't had any refined sugar for the past 2 weeks! I'm refraining all the way until my birthday, March 20th, the first day of spring. I am eating natural sugars like fruit and honey as well as things that are made with natural sugars, like some breads and tortillas, but that's it. Not even Dorritos or WheatThins count because even though they aren't sweet, they are made with (cue evil background music) high fructose corn syrup.

I successfully completed this same challenge last year and liked it so much that I decided to do it again. I really love living like this. I feel more energized, less sluggish in the afternoons and evenings, and less moody. It also simplifies a lot of decision-making. Should I order dessert? Nope! Should I get those Peanut M&M's out of the vending machine? Nope! Should I have one of those donuts that are getting passed around the class? Nope! It's such a relief.

A friend of mine is going without sugar for an entire year and is blogging about it every day here. I'm not quite that ambitious, but when I tell friends about how good I feel right now, they've asked, "Why stop in March?" The answer is corn bread, pancakes, brownies, sour gummy worms, gooey chocolate chip cookies, and pumpkin bread. I can't really imagine life without them permanently.

Yet when I studied up on sugar, I learned that it is actually the root of all evil. It's addictive, it causes obesity, diabetes and cancer. One author even compared it to crack: both are refined white powders.

Last year, I commemorated the end of my fast with a red velvet cake birthday cake (see delicious picture above) that I bought for myself at my favorite Harlem bakery. This year I plan on celebrating by learning how to make my own red velvet cake.

I am confident that I can conquer these months of extremism again, but my next challenge is a bit more daunting: moderation.

P.S. I'm making an exception on Inauguration Day to eat the Obama chocolates that my friend Amy gave me for Christmas. Surely this day calls for all sorts of exceptions!

Newsflash: you don't have to be normal to get married

I stumbled across this quote yesterday in my class readings:
The key to a happy marriage isn't having a 'normal' personality but finding someone with whom you mesh. - John Gottman, 1999.
Being normal is not required! Two crazies can be perfectly happy together as long as their psychoses are complementary. I find this humorous and yet strangely comforting.

It finally happened

My car ran out of gas last night.

This may not be a surprising revelation because I have been known to run my gas tank low. In the '89 Oldsmobile that I drove in high school (Clarence was his name), I knew that I was in trouble when I would make a right turn and the engine would stall. I think that the gas was "swooshing away" from the engine on right turns because it wouldn't stall on left turns.

When I was driving my brother from San Diego up to BYU last August, we (I ?) let the gas get so low that in order to preserve our precious fuel, we turned off the AC and rolled down the windows in the middle of the Nevada desert. Driving with my body sticking to the seat wasn't motivation enough to change this bad habit.

I always thought that running out of gas in a critical moment would be an adventure - a crazy life experience to tell my kids about some day. When it finally happened, it was undramatic. My friend Kurt and I went and saw Slumdog Millionaire in a cool old theater in Capitol Hill, and when we got back in my car, it wouldn't start. I was parked and it wouldn't start. Boring, right? The slight hill my car was parked on made me think that the gas would be "swooshing in," but it was not so.

To make it even more convenient, there was a gas station only two blocks away that sold lovely gas containers like the one featured in this picture. We walked the two blocks back to my car, filled up, and were off. It was all too easy. When I finally filled all the way up, I recorded my statistics as 15.3 gallons (a new record!) and 413 miles.

Now that I have an emergency gas can in my trunk, I can run my gas tank low all the time. Yet that would make running out of gas a terribly convenient inconvenience, so really, what's the point?

I've been published...

...on someone else's blog! http://theapronstage.com/ Some women I know joined together to create a blog called The Apron Stage. Each have a specific day of the week on which they post (there are 4 of them) and on Fridays they have a guest blogger. Last Friday, it was me! The post is the Peanut Butter Tears one that I posted here, so it's not new reading, but I definitely suggest that you check out their blog - they are talented and insightful writers.