Starting Monday I wanted to re-visit an old experiment of mine that asks for no refined sugars for a week. Last time I was stoic, as I was freaking out about a knee injury and really wanted to heal via diet and exercise rather than via medications and flimsy justifications. So is my version, anyway. The result was that I went 30 days remembering to eat fish oil every day and not eating refined sugars. All in all, I lived to tell the tale, my knee was fine, and so ended my dramatic panic.

I like the idea of avoiding sugar for a couple of reasons, but my main idea here for the next week is that when restricting the overall amount of how much I eat, I see myself replacing nutritious foods for delicious foods, and then not eating further to fortify myself because I have run out of calories. So the idea is to take out the empty and see what happens to my macronutrients. Hopefully they increase, I eat enough iron for once, and I get my full day's ration of protein.

I have an entire novel that I should write about artificial sweetners, and artificial foods, and how I eat them in reality even though the version of me that is in my head is that I am a sustainable, nuts-and-berries type of gal. Not so. But maybe no sugar could be a gateway to realizing the ratio of packaged foods: not packaged foods, even when they are "good"--ie manufactured by ethical companies, nutritious, wrapper printed with soy ink, etc. I'd love the gateway and the wake up call.

Anyway---off into my week of no refined sugar!