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!

Making Mistakes & Living Our Best Anti-Inflammatory Life

Here at Delicious Arthritis, I try to help myself and others live our best anti-inflammatory life. Arthritis is hard. Autoimmune illnesses are hard. Cutting things out of our diet is also really hard. Even when I know that I might be better off fully cutting out sugar 7 our of 7 days of the week or fully cutting out inflammatory food all the time, that doesn't mean it always happens. Life happens sometimes too. Sometimes I eat more sugar than I intended and I have a flare up. Sometimes I don't get enough sleep and my joints feel worse. When those times happen though, it is important that I (and you) find a way to forgive myself  (ourselves). I didn't mean to eat something that made me have a flare up. I didn't intend to "fall off the wagon." Life happens sometimes and we just have to do the best we can.

I have a mentor, Mel, who often says: "Food is NEVER a moral issue." I am here right now to tell you that sometimes you'll slip up. Sometimes you'll eat that added sugar. Sometimes you'll eat a nightshade plant. Sometimes you'll drink more alcohol than your prescriptions recommend. That does not mean that you're a bad person. That doesn't mean that you're going to do it over and over again and that all your hard work was for nothing. It only means that you slipped up. You are human. On that same note: you are not superior or noble or a good person just because you follow all of your food rules. That isn't how food works. Food is just food; it is delicious, healthy, nourishing, and sometimes even decadent, but at the end of the day it is just the fuel that makes you run. We want the best fuel for our body but sometimes we don't give ourselves premium fuel, sometimes we just give ourselves the fuel that is available. That is okay.

Mr. Rogers once said:

"Some days, doing 'the best we can' may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn't perfect (on any front) and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else." 

So, when you're having a hard time living your most anti-inflammatory life, forgive yourself. You're doing the best you can. Your do over starts now: Not later today, not tomorrow, your do over starts now. 

Here are five fabulous anti-inflammatory things to give yourself a fresh start today:

1. Make this Anti-inflammatory Chai Latte to drink with your breakfast!
2. Or this Anti-inflammatory Smoothie!
3. Or bring along one of my Delicious Arthritis: Hazelnut Chocolate Date Bars for a midday snack!
4. Or make Ginger Garlic Baked Salmon for dinner!
5. Or simply drink more water throughout your day!

You can do this. I believe in you.