Well, I'm 3 days into my no-sweet scheme, and I'm going strong. Days 1 and 2? No problem. Easy peasy. I went to my SIL's for dinner on New Years and she brought me these home-made Junior Mints to try and I felt guilty turning it down, but it wasn't a temptation otherwise.
I've realized something though (and maybe it speaks of a more violent side to my nature...)
When I turned down the homemade Junior Mints, it was like I was karate-chopping them, with a loud "Hi-YAH!" and I felt all kinds of strong and powerful.
Today though? Today was a hard day. I'd compare it to me lying on the floor in the fetal position while the Fruit and Nut bar in the cupboard was kicking the pants off me. Really, it was owning me.
Then I started thinking that maybe there were desserts that I could have that aren't unhealthy. Because there has to be SOMETHING that will suffice in those weak moments, right? I mean, something other than yogurt parfaits, because I already had one for breakfast, and I get sick of them fast if I eat them too often.
So next thing I knew I was on allrecipes.com looking up muffin recipes, which led to me looking for a sugar-free banana bread recipe. Except most of those are sweetened with splenda instead of sugar. Finally I found a recipe, made it, and was kind of proud of myself for it, so I bragged to Matt. He was puzzled at how you can have a sugar-free banana bread, and so he asked what it gets substituted with. I said nothing, the bananas are pretty sweet on their own, right?
Wrong!
Apparently the 2 cups of flour, water, oil, and some spices don't really make up for the lack of sugar. Who knew?
Now I'm trying to decide if I want to drop the matter entirely, or find a way to make things without using a lot of sugar. My thinking is that it'd be a good lifestyle-changing skill to have, to make foods in a healthier way than I'm used to (because, hello, white sugar is completely empty calories...) but at the same time I think that if I'm just making yummy food a different way, am I really addressing my own tendency to overeat on the sweets? Because 1/2 a loaf of healthy banana bread is still 1/2 a loaf of banana bread.
I think, for now at least, I'm not going to try to remake it. It was fun to stick it to the Fruit and Nut bar by trying to make an alternative, and while the bread was cooking the temptation to eat junk went away, but I need to get this down a little more, and focus more on healthy snacks, rather than healthier alternatives to the same junk.
But out of curiousity, what CAN I use in place of sugar? I've heard of people using honey, or there's this stuff that you use a tablespoon of it but I don't know what it's called. I know there's splenda but I'm not a huge fan of the aftertaste. Anyone have any ideas?
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