Nathan & Fiona, Kaisa & Everett – Family Blog

So far, I’m doing great with this goal, and it’s been really fun to try different sugar alternatives and snacks. It has given shopping a whole new twist as I scan the ingredients of every box to see what might be inside!

On Monday I went to Walmart and discovered a new drink mix that tastes wonderful and doesn’t contain sugar or aspartame. It’s called Aqua Fusion and it comes in Cranberry (which I love!), Raspberry, Strawberry, Orange, and Lemon flavors. They actually taste just like Crystal Light! And the price is comparable to their On the Go packets. I wish they made this in those 2 quart 6-packs that Crystal Light has, though. We recently purchased a Reverse Osmosis water system and it’s so convenient to fill my water bottles with that and pour a packet in before I go to work out or when I need a sweet pick-me-up.

Another snack I have enjoyed is Mariani Dried Apricots (No Sugar Added) from Costco. A big bas was about $7.50, and let me tell you…these things are delicious! “Dried” is not really the right term, because these are so moist and delicious! I could eat them all day! I also enjoy sugar-free fruity yogurt for breakfast, lunch, or a snack. However, I found out that Yoplait Light is sweetened with Aspartame, so go with the generic Kroger brand at Smith’s. They use Splenda (sucralose).

Finally, I made myself some sugar-free oatmeal cookies yesterday! They are actually quite good! I used brown sugar and Altern (generic Splenda). Altern doesn’t melt like sugar does, so the cookies turned out a little dry and didn’t spread out like regular ones do, but the flavor was almost the same. Here are some pictures:

Above you can see the sweetener I used, along with the cookies before and after baking. The first batch turned out smaller and taller because I didn’t realize they wouldn’t melt and spread. I used a glass to flatten the following batches, and that made the shape more cookie-like.

Above you can see Anya (the girl I babysit) and Kaisa enjoying the cookies!

I’ve been attending a dance aerobics class at the Orem Fitness Center.  I absolutely love this class!  It’s such a great workout, and the instructor, Nina, is fabulous.  She recently challenged her students to go without sugar for the month of March, specifically because Easter is in March this year and we all tend to consume WAY too much sugar around Easter!

So…despite my initial doubts in my ability to do this…I am going to cut out refined white sugar (this includes sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, etc.) from my diet. Nina promised a flatter stomach, we’ll see.  I think the hardest thing for me will be the chocolate.  Nina said we can have one serving of dark chocolate each week, since it has health benefits.  I will be looking forward to that!

I’ve been alerted, recently, to the dangers of Aspartame (an artificial sweetener) and so I am looking for things sweetened with Splenda or Sucralose.  If you know of any products that actually taste good and use those sweeteners, let me know!  I am specifically looking for a good drink (like Crystal Light, which has Aspartame).  I recently bought Breyer’s Sugar Free Double Churn Vanilla Ice Cream sweetened with Splenda and was quite pleased! I also tried a sugar-free dessert at the Olive Garden last week that tasted amazing, so it is possible to eat a sugar-free diet and not compromise taste.  Another great snack for those quitting sugar is dried fruit.  So yummy!

Here’s an update as of day 3: I realized this morning that all the cold cereal in the house has sugar in it.  Bummer!  I will need to go to the store and get some sugar free cereal.  This morning I had pancakes with bananas and blueberry juice (drained from a can of blueberries) on top.  It was actually quite delicious!

Last night we went to the Roberts to play games.  They always have tons of treats, and it was very difficult for me not to eat any Oreos!  I was so proud of myself when we left and I hadn’t consumed one!  I haven’t noticed any changes in the way I look or feel yet, but I probably still need to cleanse my system of any sugar still remaining (I had a bunch of chocolate chip cookies the last night of February!!)

Wish me luck!