Tis the Season

The visiting teachers crossed me off the list early this month, and I officially received my first batch of Christmas Goodies. I know it's foreshadowing a deluge of sugar and fat coming my way. If sweets are your threat to eating healthy, I'm trying to come up with some options rather than snarfing them down:

• Re-package sweets and give them to another friend not on the same block, at work, etc.
• Toss them in the trash immediately without any guilt
• Give everyone in the house one goodie off the plate, then freeze the rest until you can come to your senses
• Throw in the towel and give yourself a reason to make a lifestyle change on January 1

As training for what is to come, try to watch all five minutes of this video without getting up salivating and/or eating some kind of junk. Good luck!

Cupcake Pops & Bites: Part 2 from bakerella on Vimeo.

Mom, Can I Have a Cookie?

A few years ago, I lived next door to the Super-Mormons. With two kids in close age with my daughter, they would rotate between "our house" and "their house". Dad was Elders Quorum President finishing school with three kids under 5, homeschooled by mom. The first time they came over to play, they stopped dead in their tracks when they saw we had a television, and then flatly proclaimed that they don't have T.V. because it invites the devil.

I couldn't help stating with a big smile and wild eyebrows "Well, the prophet is on T.V. every General Conference, so you can choose some good stuff too!" *wink*. It was kindof cute and innocent and disturbing all at the same time.

Apart from being deprived the inane joys of television, these kids also lacked the joys of sugar. On one particularly intense play-session, I invited the kids to refuel with some milk and graham crackers. It was the day I forever changed their lives, or their taste buds.

From that day on, they couldn't step foot in my house without seeking me out to politely ask me if they could have a brown cracker. The little darlings didn't even have a name for them.

"I'll get you kids a snack after playing for a while, alright?" and then I would send them off to play with my daughter. Ten minutes later, my daughter would appear alone and ask for a graham cracker.

"I'll get you all some later, just go play right now alright?" and she would run off, unphased.

Ten minutes later: "Mom, just give us a cracker". She was more annoyed at being interrupted with her pretend sessions. Although she didn't have the words for it yet, I could tell what she was feeling at the constant interruptions from her sugar-deprived buddies: Get over the brown crackers already!

And so I'm left wondering, as a mom, a Fat Mormon Mom, what is the best sugar policy for my kids?

For myself, I grew up in a house that always had chocolate chip cookies. I'm sure I snarfed them down at some point, but I remember that eventually I stopped eating them. They were available, so what? I had better things to do.

My husband was the oldest of seven kids. Their mom locked powdered sugar up in a cabinet, because her kids would literally spoon powdered sugar, brown sugar, or table sugar straight into their mouths if she didn't.

Consequently, he would constantly appear hungry-eyed whenever he played with his next door neighbor, the one who always had popsicles in the freezer. He couldn't say hi without asking for a popsicle. He would check out the new toys, play around, but in the back of his head he knew there was an entire bag of popsicles for the taking, and he couldn't leave without getting one.

Now I'm not saying that either of these policies work for everyone. My mom always made cookies, and I was busy running, jumping, skipping, and twirling to notice. But now I'm the mom, and if I make cookies for my kids, I usually end up behaving like the jittery sugar-starved neighbors I used to laugh at. Okay, yes I have things to do, laundry to fold, but that cookie keeps smiling at me.

So what's your policy?

In overhauling our nutrition to be more healthy, should we fear the cravings of our kids?

Will the constant deprivation of sweets make them food freaks when they finally leave the house and go to college?

What do you think?

Dude, you're insane

So -- after a semi-normal weekend of eating junk, and feeling the ill-effects that junk food causes to your mind and energy levels, my wife and I decided to cut sugar out of our diets completely. No foods with sugar as one of the primary ingredients (ranked 7th or higher in the list of ingredients) and no artificial sugars, which we all know is far more unhealthy for us than natural sugar. The exceptions to this new crazy idea were that we could have a few natural sugars, such as lactose in milk, and fructose, in natural fruits, and finally - honey. Yes, that would be our saving grace when in desperation.

The next question was how long we'd try the diet. We wanted this to be a change in lifestyle, not just a 30-day challenge. We decided on one year. This is where the title of this post comes in. When family and friends heard this news, they said something to that effect.

It has been over 3 months now. Our post-meal cravings for sugar were very strong for a few weeks, but have gotten less and less noticeable. We both feel a significant physical and mental change. Now the challenge is enduring another 9 months! We did make Thanksgiving and Christmas Day our only free days -- I haven't been this excited for Christmas since I was 7!