Still Not Easy

Now that I'm done with my third week of trying to reduce my sugar intake, I have noticed a difference in what I'm eating. I crave oranges instead of Snickers bars, and I am seriously in love with my blender and the smoothies it makes. I still have a bad habit of just eating things that are on the break table at work, just because they're there. I need to get me some better willpower when it comes to sweets.

I also have a pretty intense love of baking, which is not helpful to cutting out sugar. I made these Snickerdoodle Bars for Chris, because he loves snickerdoodles, and took some in to work. I ended up eating quite a few of them. And with 2 cups of brown sugar in them, they aren't exactly they healthiest. But they were soooo good.

I have been eating a lot of fruit, but not as many veggies as I would like. I found this recipe on Pinterest for spinach ice cubes, which sound and look super gross, but are actually super handy. Basically, I took a bag of spinach and some water and blended them together:

I found the easiest way to do this for my blender was to add a little spinach, then some water, and then more spinach, and a little more water. I originally just added all the spinach to the blender with a little water and tried to blend it, and ended up having to take some out and blend it better.
Then, pour the mixture into two ice cube trays:

They look so appetizing.

 And freeze! Chris now considers these ice cube trays "forever unclean", but I loved it! I added these to my smoothies instead of the regular ice cubes, and they barely changed the flavor at all. Even Chris didn't notice a big change. And by blending them beforehand, there weren't any awkward errant leaves floating around my smoothie.

Smoothie with spinach: Not really a difference

I also tried adding cucumber to the smoothies, but that flavor really overpowered the fruit. It didn't taste bad, just a lot like cucumber. I've switched from vanilla yogurt to a mix of plain and greek yogurt with some honey added for sweetness. I drink one of these pretty much every day after I work out, and I really do feel kind of amazing afterward. Which is probably because of the workout and not the smoothie, but that's ok.

My goal for the next couple weeks is to not eat any of the treats left out at work. I've been bringing an orange in with my lunch every day, and hopefully I can just stick to that instead of grabbing for the chocolate covered pretzels that are on the table (sweet AND salty? Irresistible). I think if I can stick to that, my sugar intake will be way better and become more manageable. Wish me luck!