Sugar Free and ready for Lent

So, last week I jumped the gun a little bit on starting Lent. My husband and I thought that Fat Tuesday was last Tuesday. He decided that he was going to fast Ice Cream and I was going to fast chocolate. We celebrated what we THOUGHT was Fat Tuesday by indulging in Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream until our tummies hurt. It wasn't until the next day that we found out we were a week early. I felt very silly and guilty for eating so much ice cream but at the same time it felt nice to indulge for just one night!

You may be wondering what Lent is, well, Lent is a time of observance in the Christian religion that lasts 40 days and leads up to Easter. The 40 days represent the time that Jesus spent in the desert enduring temptation from Satan. These days Christians observe Lent by giving up or fasting a vice in their lives and they replace it with a practice that will bring them closer to God. You can read more about Lent here.

So, I have decided to fast chocolate, but I also decided around the same time that I wanted to give up ALL sugar for two weeks. For a carb lover with a huge sweet tooth this is a difficult challenge. I am essentially doing phase 1 of the South Beach Diet. There are a couple of different reasons why I came to this decision, but I wanted to do a little experiment to see how I would feel after cutting down sugar and carbs from my daily food intake. Today was the first day and I am not going to lie it is tough. I am having a hard time restraining myself from grabbing a handful of cheddar bunny crackers or a couple of chocolate dipped Jelly Bellys. It makes me very nervous that I will not be eating any kind of bread for 2 whole weeks but, even though I am sitting here with my tummy telling me it needs more food, there are people out in the world who are starving and who spend each and every day not sure of where there food will come from. This is a great time for me to truly appreciate how fortunate I am and how crazy it is that it would be DIFFICULT for me to give up sugar and to only give it up for two weeks. I can definitely attest to the fact that the Western diet is out of control. Do not worry, I highly intend on adding sugar and carbs back into my normal diet, but I am hoping that it will be on a more restrained level than before. I will definitely keep you posted on how it is going. I did want to leave you with a few pictures.

The week before my fast I ate this:

Mine was the Phish Food. I AM a Phish fan and it was little chocolate fish in chocolate ice cream. So good!!

 

Don't worry, I shared this wonderful dessert with two friends

Tonight I ate This:

Notice that most of my plate was green stuff.