Week 13

Well, my roommates brother lives in a dorm and he had so much extra money in his student dining account that he bought a ton of snacks. So there is a huge box of crackers, chips, candy, cookies just sitting in front of the tv. So obviously, I was tempted and I had a bag of cookies and some gummies. It wasn't a huge disappointment in my goals, but I did surrender to the deliciousness of sugar yesterday.

Week 12

This week I bought skinny cow ice cream sandwiches and have been eating it everyday mostly because it was there. So I think if its at reach, ofcourse I will choose it over other things. I also started seeing this guy recently, and he has inspired me to eat healthier and exercise more because he's really into health and fitness. I had a fun size bag of m&ms and i offered some to him and he grabbed it out of my hand it threw it away and yelled simple sugars are bad, i thought that was funny. I'm always busy with work and school and i skip workouts because i get stressed, but he tells me that he never misses workouts because its only an hour and a half of his time spent on himself and he will feel better after he does it. So he has been very encouraging

Week 11

This week I splurged a little bit. Before I left for vegas my friends and I got froyo at yogurtland, which is 10 times better than 21 choices but its further away. I didn't get that much yogurt and I got healthy toppings too. Vegas was a lot of fun, I didn't eat too many sweets there but I had a lot of lattes from starbucks and a lot of sugary drinks. I also went to get drinks at the Lab at USC and they messed up our order so they gave us a free plate of fries and dessert, and it was delicious. My friends and I also bought a turtle ice cream cake to surprise my friend at 12am for her birthday. That was the worst because it was so late at night, and i had seconds. It was so good though. I don't feel that bad about it though because its ok if I eat sweets every once in a while. Usually its on special occasions. All in all, yeah I had some sweets, but it wasn't as much as I used to eat and they were all special occasions I guess.

Week 10: Statistics

I guess eating too man sweets could contribute to obesity. Here are the statistics:

• 58 Million Overweight; 40 Million Obese; 3 Million morbidly Obese
• Eight out of 10 over 25's Overweight
• 78% of American's not meeting basic activity level recommendations
• 25% completely Sedentary
• 76% increase in Type II diabetes in adults 30-40 yrs old since 199

This week I really haven't eaten many sweets. I've been really stressed with exams, homework, papers so I haven't had a lot of time to go treat myself to sweets and I'm going to vegas this weekend too so I've been cutting down. I feel like I've been drinking more chai tea lattes, I think that has been my replacement.

Week 9

Week 9 means I'm down to 1 or 0 sweets a week, and instead I'm supposed to substitute with fruits. I think its safe to say that I met this goal. I really think the less I ate sweets, the less I craved it, and just reminding myself this mentality has really worked out for me. Especially because I had spring break in vegas to look forward to for the past months, I had to cut down on my diet and increase exercise so I could look and feel good. This guy also asked me back in February to go to his formal with him in Vegas which is happening next week. I bought a pretttttty tight dress a while back so I've been trying to tone up for that too for the past month. It really helped that I had events to look forward to and deadlines because it gave me motivation to stick to my goals. And now I rarely eat sweets. I do eat a lot of fruit, I also found that I really like organic strawberry jam on toast and that satisfies my sweet tooth.

Week 8: Challenging Situation

I haven't really been craving sweets lately which is interesting. After last week, I cut out a lot of junk and after a while I guess I get used to not having it and I don't crave it. But this week was my friend's birthday, my roommate bought girl scout cookies, and my other roommate came back from Canada with maple cream cookies. I was faced with many challenging situations this week, mainly because of temptation in a social setting. My roommates offered me cookies, and they were special cookies too, so I couldn't pass on them. On my friend's birthday, she wanted to get 21 choices with a bunch of friends. First, the day before and second, the day of her birthday. I couldn't pass it up because it was her birthday, and I didn't want to just sit there without yogurt while everyone else ate yogurt together on her birthday. We also went to saddle ranch, and at the end they bring out HUGE things of cotton candy, and I just had to eat it, and i ate a lot of it because it was in front of me and it was really cool looking. So basically, its tough in social situations and its hard to pass up on temptation especially when its a special occasion I don't want to miss out on.

Week 7: links

This week really changed for me because of last weeks class. After taking the assessments, taking our weight, waist, hip, and chest measurements, it was a "cue to action" that I needed to overhaul on what I was doing. The past couple of weeks I have been very stressed and frustrated, especially in my dance group. I felt very disrespected and frustrated because a couple other dancers would use my style, which is fine, but then they would take many parts of my choreography I did in my piece last semester, and put it in their own numbers. The directors have been asking me to choreograph the closing number for the show, and its been a lot of pressure to come up with amazing choreography to meet everyone's expectations, in addition to the fact that my style has been used over and over again already. So I just went into the dance room, and I just choreographed a ton of angry choreography which is still my style but different, and i am actually really proud of myself for many reasons.
1. I did not give up
2. I did not take my frustrations out on getting yogurt and venting with my friends
3. I got my frustration out with dance
4. I came up with new choreography that I am proud of
5. My choreography is different

I can't wait until I cast this piece because the I can say, here you go, because you're not going to be original or creative enough as a choreographer so I did it for you so you can steal it and call it your own next semester.

Good news is that I haven't had yogurt in over a week! even when circus animal cookie was one of the flavors at 21 choices. Still, I check the website every single day to see what the flavors are:

http://21choices.com/store.php?st=usc
samoa cookies sounds delicious!

I always read the magazine, Shape. Its always motivating to read about health, nutrition and fitness, and it reminds me to be healthy. I check out the website every now and then:

http://www.shape.com/channel/public/ad

Week 6

This week was very bad on my sweets habit. It was my birthday weekend, it was valentine's day, and I was also sick. A lot of things going on. I went to melting pot for dinner on friday and it was absolutely delicious. We just had to get the white chocolate fondue at the end with the cheesecake, marshmallows, brownies etc. Saturday morning I had to work all of that off so I went hiking with my friends. But after, we went to lunch at souplantation, and that was AMAZING. I filled up on salad though bc that was what I've been craving after the melting pot shenanigans from the night before. I was so full I couldn't even finish my frozen yogurt, yay! Later that day, I had my birthday dinner at Yardhouse. By then, I could not really eat anymore. But I got gourmet cupcakes which were so cute! valentine's day I got candy and cookies and all the things I love but hate. It was a special weekend so I got a break with the sweets i guess. Still, after eating all that sugar it wasn't really worth it because i felt like shit after each time.

Week 5: 3 Barriers

This week I've been craving a lot of chocolate and I gave in...a few times. It was pretty bad. It's also difficult because I'm sick, so I can't work out and that usually keeps me healthy and away from sugary snacks. But I've been eating really healthy and I bought dried mango to eat instead of sweets.

Here are my 3 barriers preventing me from quitting my sugar cravings:
1. My friends LOVE dessert especially yogurt, and I love my friends and therefore I love yogurt as well. It's a social thing, where we get yogurt together to catch up, or we get yogurt after dance. I think the fact that I am consistent in getting sweets every week, my body gets used to it and expects it and craves it.

2. I have cravings because its delicious. I have found that I really enjoy sweets when I am stressed because its like a little break and its soothing. Part is because whenever I get together with friends, we usually have some urgent thing we have to gossip about and its usually about stress in our lives.

3. It's all will-power that I have very little of. That is what I am trying to work on

Week 4

Sometimes I just crave sweets but it hasn't been a problem lately because I just get busy and I don't really have the time to indulge. I've been trying to retrain myself to think about the negative things that sweets will do to my body. But on Thursday, I had auditions for a dance company. I used to dance in the USC's dance company and a lot of my friends from that company were at the auditions I went to on Thursday. I caught up with most of them while we were stretching, but we all decided to go to 21 choices after the auditions were over. It sounded like a well deserved treat because we just had auditions and I wanted to catch up with all my old friends. One of my favorite flavors is animal circus cookie. And when 21 choices does not have it as the flavor of the day, they will make it from scratch. I guess the girl helping me was very generous, because I watched her put 3 HUGE chunks of cookie dough, tons of circus animal cookies, and spoonfuls of sprinkles. She topped it off with more cookies and sprinkles. It was a lot more toppings and the portion size was larger than usual. Rather than yogurt with toppings, it was more so cookie dough, cookies, and sprinkles with yogurt as a topping. I got really excited because my frozen yogurt looked like a lot of fun and super special because the girl put so much extra treats into it. But after chatting with friends I ended up finishing all of it, and I felt like serious crap after wards, to the point I felt sick. That experience kind of scarred me for a while and now I can really visualize what terrible things sugar can do to my body and how it can make me feel. I think I see sweets as relaxation break, like my little time of fun and I think that's what I need to change.

Week 3: An Inspirational Person

I noticed the more I eat sweets, the more I crave it and the more I have it around in my apartment, the more likely I will eat sweets also. It is like an ongoing cycle, so I decided to get rid of all the candy and ice-cream in my apartment and that really helped. I remember freshman year, this girl that lived on my floor was trying to lose weight and she was telling me about this book she was reading. It wasn't a diet or exercise book, it was a book about sugar and sweets and how unhealthy it was for your body because it was so addictive. Sugar was her biggest weakness besides cigarettes, and she would tell me how she was training herself to rethink sugar as an addiction as if it were smoking cigarettes. It helped her cut down on sweets, lose weight, and get healthier. It inspires me to retrain my thinking each time I eat sugar. Also, I was reading Shape magazine, and I was reading tips that other readers had sent in. One reader said as motivation to help her cut down on sweets, she would visualize the terrible things that sugar would do to her body and how it would make her feel. This helped her pass on dessert. I thought that was a good idea, so I started to retrain my thinking as well and so far it has worked and I haven't eaten sweets for the past few days. Sometimes I like to treat myself to naked juice. Its so expensive, so i don't buy it as much. Instead of eating something sugary, I would have some naked juice and i would feel like I was splurging on something amazing. It is a good, but expensive, substitute. And every time my friends go out to yogurt, I've gotten used to not buying any froyo. I noticed this week was different in my sweets habit because it rained less. When it rains, its a lot harder for me to go workout because I have to bike in the rain to the gym on campus. Usually, I go to the gym just about everyday, and after working out, I don't crave sweets as much for some reason. I even bought a blender so I could make smoothies instead of buying expensive naked juice or eating some sugary dessert. It was a good week, mostly because it rained less.

Week 2: My Motivation For Change

This week I made changes by letting my friends know that I am doing this project and that the hardest part about giving up sweets is that I always get yogurt with all of them. They were very supportive and they would suggest doing something else when we all wanted to get yogurt. Yesterday I went to 21 choices with my friends and I bought Kombucha for $4.50 instead, which is more expensive than yogurt, but it is not a sweet. Also, I was very conscientious about how often I ate sweets. Sometimes, a friend would offer me chocolate but I thought about this project and I would say no. But sometimes I would give in. I bought frozen yogurt from the grocery store because I thought eating yogurt at home would be less expensive than eating with my friends. But that was not a good idea. I want to give up sweets because I know that sweets are bad, unhealthy and I am addicted. It makes me feel and look like crap. I also want to change this habit with my friends and surround our time to gossip around something healthy rather than eating yogurt together. We always talk about doing healthy things together so we won't be that group of fat girls that do fat girl things.

Week 1: Goal and Plan of Action

I have a huge sweet tooth. Sometimes I eat so many sweets it interferes with regular meals, and sometimes it becomes a meal. I especially love frozen yogurt. It is difficult because 21 choices and yogurtland is very close to where I live. On a regular day, my friends will ask me to go get fro yo and I can't resist because it's always fun to spend some time with friends and have a treat. I dance everyday too, so after a long rehearsal we usually all end up getting yogurt because we are all exhausted and famished. I know all this sugar is bad for me and I always end up crashing from all this sugar. So my goal is to dump my cravings for sweets. After the 16 weeks, I hope to end my cravings for sugar and limit myself to 1 sweet/week. Currently, I probably eat 2-3 servings of froyo everyday. My plan of action is to slowly decrease my sweets intake by
1. Replacing sweets with healthier options such as fruit or juice
2. Go to froyo with my friends but not order anything
3. Have small goals every 4 weeks

Week 1-4: Limit myself to one serving of sweets a day
Week 5-8: Limit myself to one serving of sweets 5x/week or less
Week 8-12: Limit myself to one serving of sweets 3x/week or less
Week 12-16: Limit myself to one serving of sweets to non or 1x/week