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