Sugar, oh Honey, Honey...

Last month I payed closer attention to what I eat at lunchtime and how I feel after. It looks like sugary deserts cause my energy level and mood to crash like an X-wing on Dagobah. Most of the time I skip the fun sugar-rush part :-(

I'm pretty good at buying fewer processed foods at the grocery store, so my kitchen is already a bit less sugary. I usually don't bother with honey in my tea. Most of the sweet stuff I eat at home is the stuff I bake/freeze myself.

This season I also rediscovered apples, which I hadn't picked up in a while because they tend to go bad on me. Actually, they'd go bad while I was nomming other snacks, so with fewer sugary distractions its easier to remember I have them in the fridge. Also, super cheap in the autumn.


There is a social-trend building up to replace white sugar and HFCS with "healthy" alternatives, but I fall into the "sugar is sugar" camp. Sweetscam.com has info on a variety of sweeteners that are not necessarily as healthy as other sources believe. It is also tricky to replace processed sugar with substitutes in baking and frozen deserts because it adds a structural component. So why not just eat LESS of it?


Lunchtime is where I mess up. At work and far from home, if I don't remember to carry homemade snacks to work I will be tempted by the Crumbs of Starbucks up the block. Also, real world sad, need cupcake.

Now I keep a stash of dark chocolate in my desk for dessert. It has a stronger flavor than pastries and is easier to ration out. Chocolate used to be my go-to for a shock out of my sugar crashes, but then I ended up overcaffienating myself. (I cut all other forms of caffiene out of my diet almost six years ago, restructuring my dietary habits is not a new thing for me.)

When I go out for lunch, I stick to water instead of soda. I still drink de-caff sodas at bars, but late-night is when I can afford to crash. And I've been hanging out in bars a lot less since I began my latest social experiment.


Things seem to be working out thus far. No sudden sugar crashes during my afternoon. I still have sugar cravings, but I don't feel as exhausted as I would during a regular sugar crash. Yay, I'm awake!

Friday Links!

Things I found on teh interwebs recently:

Succeed Socialy dot Com : Free social skills advice for adults. What a great idea :-D I like a lot of these articles.

30 Sleeps : Open source personal development. "I’m a 31-year-old, Vancouver-based adventure capitalist on a mission to help others grow." Thanks, dude :-). I really like the Social Skydiving series :-)

Welcome! To the Menaissance Festival! Yikes. I don't watch Mad Men, I'm starting to think that show would frustrate me somethin' awful.

Marriage, kids, adulthood, but why? Interesting look at the changing values of family life and independence in American culture. However, it also smacks of middle-to-upper class privilege.

Where the Smart People At? Calculating the "smartest" concentration of people in the U.S., by measuring college degree holders per square mile in several cities.

How to keep someone with you forever. This article disturbs me on many levels. In that "Awesome, I'll never fall for that ever again," way.

How to a roast chicken, fast! Because roasting chicken is f'ing easy. I got my 90 minute recipe from The Pink of Perfection, and I usually use the long cooking time to make other dishes. Or stare blankly at Facebook.

The Pink of Perfection, a thrifty girl's guide to the good life. Perfectly awesome in every way.

20 things I wish I'd known at 20. I don't think anybody's ever photographed me almost-topless, does that mean I come out ahead?

Tuna Overload

My preferred cooking style is to have a food-prep marathon for a few hours every weekend. I make a ton of stuff that can be packaged into lunch boxes ahead of time. Leftovers from that can be nibbled on whenever I'm at home. Usually it's a meatloaf or roast chicken, but now that the weather is warmer I'm leaning towards things that don't require so much heat.

Packing lunches ahead of time saves me money and time. Mostly I lose the time wandering around the Village looking for somewhere to eat, because I have trouble making decisions when I'm hungry :-/ These days my brain tends to star shutting down on its own before I even start feeling hungry. The people at Cosi's know my first name and my usual order, so that's probably where most of my income has been going this month.


This week's lunch: Tuna salad (with mayo, celery, a little bacon, and spices), celery and carrot sticks, a suggested serving size of triscuts, 1 oz of dark chocolate.

Yikes, that was a lot of tuna. But I had a full package of celery to use up, so why not make five cans worth? I sometimes wonder how much variation factors into a person's diet. There's plenty left over in the fridge to pack more lunches, or have on toast for dinner.


The blog has finally become "What I had for lunch." I'm not sure if this is good or bad. It's a lot harder to misinterpret lunches than lifestyles.