Dessert-less December: 1/3 Check In!

We are 1/3 of the way through December, the hardest month to go sugar-free! Just like I recommended to all of you, I chose 6 days that I knew I'd be tempted to consume sugar and left one extra sugar day for any spontaneous celebrations that might come up. For every other day, I've remained diligently sugar-free. On my Sugar-Free Advent Calendar, the strips of purple paper are slipped in to each date that I have gone without sugar. The green slips are placed on any days I'm planning ahead to celebrate and consume sugar.

To keep myself on track, here are some tricks I used:

1. I allowed for my exception sugar (85% or higher dark chocolate). Though I didn't eat much of it, a small square every day or two, really helped me feel like I wasn't missing out. 
2. I reminded myself any time that I saw store bought cookies, cakes, pies, or treats (which, unfortunately are around quite often at the office during the holiday season) that homemade holiday treats were so much more worth it! This worked in my favor when, four days in, I was really craving sugar. I was able to look ahead to my pre-planned celebration day on the 5th when I knew that I'd have homemade treats that were much better than any store bought sugary treats I might get to satisfy my mid-afternoon sugar cravings. Waiting until my celebration day was really worth it as I was more able to appreciate the sugar I consumed because I knew everything that went in to it. 
3. I brought to work my own tea bags, almond milk, and even a larger mug. Often times in the winter months, I'm tempted to go out and buy myself a nice warm cup of almond milk hot cocoa from the cafe across the street from where I work. Instead of doing that (in an effort to both avoid sugar AND save money), I made my own large cups of tea to drink daily.
4. I brought my own lunch daily as well as small healthy snacks to tide me over in the late afternoons when I often crave sugar.
5. I did use a celebration day and did not make myself feel guilty for doing so. Because I'd planned ahead for the day, I did not feel like I was going off track. 

See some of the hand decorated holiday cookies my friends and I decorated during my holiday party on my celebration day (I don't generally follow the traditional holiday colors or holiday shapes):

My key takeaways from the first 1/3 of my Dessert-less December are:

1. My skin is slowly beginning to become more clear. I've found that the more sugar I consume, the less clear my skin becomes. This is partially in reference to general acne, but also in reference to my psoriasis. 
2. Though the first few days were hard, I've generally become pretty okay with removing sugar. Reading more about Fructose and the effects it has on our body has made me feel more and more like I'm making the right decision in reducing my intake of sugar.
3. Post-celebration day I was certainly feeling the difference. In past months, I'd cut out sugar and had a similar reaction the days after I'd eat sugar again. This time I felt a strong sense of fatigue and a dull ache in many of my joints that had been less apparent during the sugar-free days leading up to the celebration. Though I generally do have sore joints (due to my psoriatic arthritis), I hadn't had a flare up in a few weeks. 

All in all, I think that the endeavor to minimize my sugar intake has really proven to be the right decision and I hope that I can keep it up for the upcoming 2/3 of the month and ideally in to future months! Over the coming week, I have 3 pre-scheduled celebration days, though I'd like to minimize how many I actually use because three in one week seems a bit much. Ideally, I would cut out one or two of them so that sugar-free days are more spread out. However, I will not let myself feel guilty if I do use them to celebrate, as I've already planned ahead for the celebrations. I hope that you're doing just as well on your Dessert-less December! Let me know if I can help you more in your process of cutting out fructose!