Sugar-free update; so far, not too bad.

Counting today, I have nine days left to go in Sugar-Free February.

So far, it hasn't been as bad as I feared, although there have been some setbacks.

First, I tried so, so, so, so, so, so hard to resist the cupcakes I made for Clair's birthday. But in the end, I decided to take one bite to see if the cake part was moist (it was!) and that one bite sent me down the evil sugar spiral. I devoured the entire cupcake.

And then, the next day was President's Day, so Lester and I had the day off. After spending a few hours getting some work done in my office, I went on an afternoon date with my husband! We went to a movie ("American Hustle" -- very good acting!) and then grabbed a late lunch of tacos and margaritas.

Four or five long, satisfying sips into my margarita, I realized: OH SNAP! Margaritas have SUGAR! And lots of it! I might or might not have cursed a good bit and then I promptly gave the rest to Lester, but dang! The damage was done. I got home and had a massive sugar crash. I had to lie down for 20 minutes until it passed.

The sneaky sugar-laden culprit!

The fact that it only took a few sips of a syrupy-sweet margarita to send me crashing is actually somewhat good news. It usually takes way more sugar and carbs than that, because of my high tolerance for sweet things, earned over many, many years of indulging my sweet tooth.
So I think it means that that amount of sugar was a real shock to my system, giving me room to assume that I've done a pretty good job ridding my body of the toxin in the first place!

I wish I could say I could physically feel the difference from all this careful attention to my added-sugar consumption, but I still have children waking me up at night (Clair's been sick; Cary had a bad dream) so I'm still tired in the morning. I don't think I've lost a pound (my friend Jeanne says she GAINED 2 lbs. since starting this challenge. What the hail?) and I still have to actively fight the urge for something sweet afer I eat meals.

But fight I do, and aside from those two transgressions, I have not given in! Not a Valentine's Day chocolate was consumed, or even a post-lunch Hershey's Kiss. So I might not physically feel different, yet, but I do feel emotionally better about myself. I feel like I'm starting, ever-so-slowly, to take control of my sugar habit, my body and my health. And that makes me feel like a winner!

Sugar pressure!

I just started the effort to rid my diet of added sugars (for at least the month of February) and I was careful not to begin until I'd surrounded myself with a support system -- friends and co-workers who are doing this right along with me and are there to offer encouragement, advice, good reading material or a swift kick in the butt.

So imagine how blindsided I was to feel sugar pressure coming from an unexpected group of tiny little plan-thwarters: My kids!

Yesterday at dinner, I asked the boys what was their favorite part of their school snack (I do this sometimes to assess what items to skip or what to buy more of). After sorta answering my question, Dean grins and says, "Juice!"

"Silly!" I said, "You know you don't get juice." (We send a thermos of water for them for snack.)

To which Cary says, "Mommy, all the kids at school have juice. Except us. We only have water."

"All the kids?" I asked.

And Dean says, "Yes. All of them. Except us."

You hear the daggers entering my heart, right? "Except us..."

Here's how I heard that: "Except us poor, left-out, weirdo kids whose parents clearly hate them and only send them to school with water -- FROM THE TAP!"

I would be less than truthful if I said I didn't feel a little twinge. I always thought I would feel good about our healthful food choices, especially since we have resolved not to be sooo completely crazy about every little thing they put in their bodies. We're not crazy health nuts; we're moderates! Heck, we even introduced them to Five Guys a couple weekends ago! (Mmmmm. Five Guys...)

My poor boys want juice and we make them drink the liquid of life instead! We're horrible!

And for a super-quick second, I honestly thought, "I don't want them to be outcasts. Maybe I can give them juice boxes twice a week or on Fridays or something."

But then I thought about Sugar Free February, and how much incredible effort it takes for me to get through every day without eating something sweet or not great for me. And I thought about the lifetime of unhealthful choices I've made that have contributed to this addiction I have -- because that's what it is, an addiction. I have a sweet tooth, no doubt, and that's genetic. But I have fed and stroked and catered to that sweet tooth so much, I've become a slave to it.

My sweet tooth is my master and it is literally killing me. My yearly hemoglobin A1C reports tell me so in big bold numbers. Each report calls me pre-diabetic and says, "Do something differently or you will. die." (In so many words...)

I want to break the yoke that sugar has around my neck. Why would I ever start the process of putting that same yoke around my children's?

That's why I won't succumb to the sugar pressure -- for myself or for them. An occasional treat is OK, like I said, we're not fanatical about it. But daily juice just gets their taste buds in the habit for something sweet with all meals. If I indulge that sweet tooth, juice becomes soda becomes Big Gulps becomes must.have.chocolate.cake. (Mmmm. Chocolate cake.)

As long as I'm in charge of what goes in their snack bags, they will drink water.  And so will I.

So much to say about my girls' weekend! And also: PONYBOY!!

You guys! I have SOOO much to say about my girls' weekend, but I really have to process it all first. Like, for real. It was amazing and I want to get it down right.

So I need to post when I'm not at work, because I have so little time to post in between calls and projects and email and meetings.

I promise I will post about it though, because it is good stuff. Good stuff that we all need!

BUT... you need to know two things.

One is that today I started a no-added-sugar challenge. I'm calling it Sugar-Free February and it's from now until the end of the month. By now, most of you know me pretty well, so you know how hard a no-sugar-challenge is going to be for me. Just today I had to throw away my cinnamon raisin bread and drink my coffee without French Vanilla creamer. (The horror!!) And I have likely overdosed on pistachios. If you have tips for getting through this insanity I've started, please pass them along. And I'll be sure to post updates periodically so you know that I have not jumped off the roof of my house in search of a chocolate lava cake.

The second thing you NEED to know is (I'm hyperventilating as I get ready to type this):
I MET PONYBOY CURTIS IN THE NEW ORLEANS AIRPORT!!

That is ME, standing with PONYBOY!! OH. EM. GEE!!!

I have a call in 7 minutes so I don't have time to type out how much I loved The Outsiders - every single one of those Greasers!!! -- and C. Thomas Howell in particular, or how completely NUTS I went (on the inside) to meet him. So I will just re-post a comment I made on my Facebook post about it, when someone asked me to detail how this historic and chance meeting happened.

Here's how it went down: I was standing behind him in line at a snack kiosk and I was like, "I know him. Have we dated?? Who is he?" So I said to him, "I feel like I know you. Are you from Baltimore?" And he smiles, kindly, and says, "No, but I'm an actor, maybe that's it?" So I go, "Hmm. What might I have seen you in?" (Meanwhile, I'm thinking ... if this is Ponyboy, I'm going to scream. I am going to scream right here in this airport.) So he says (I'm paraphrasing), "I played somebody or another in Criminal Minds and I also worked on a show called Southland." So then I'm a little bummed, right? Because I didn't watch those shows, so that's not why I know him. So, good journalist that I am, I ask the follow-up question: "And what's your name?" So he says, "C. Thomas Howell." And I said: "OHMYGOD!!!! You were in The OUTSIDERS!!!!!" (People were staring at me at this point.) And then he says, "Yes! I played..." And I cut him off and yelled (seriously, I hollered) "PONYBOY CURTIS!!!" And he looked a little bit flattered and also a little bit scared, because I was like, yelling. So then I started fanning myself and stammering like an idiot and I told him how The Outsiders was like my favorite movie and how much I loved him and his character and then I stopped mid-sentence and said, "YOU. LOOK. AMAZING!" And he was very nice about me gushing all over him. But the people behind us in line were a little annoyed, especially when I pulled out my phone and said, "Can I take your picture? Please! I have to post this on Facebook!" And he said, "Of course! Let's both be in the picture!" And he even stooped down a little bit to make it easier for me to get the photo because I am really short and a bad selfie taker to boot. And people behind us were harrumphing and whatnot and I was paying them absolutely no attention whatsoever because PONYBOY!! And then he said thank you and smiled at me and said "Nice meeting you" and walked away and I was so flustered I left all my change at the counter and the little woman yelled after me, "Mees! Mees! You forgot you change!" And I was like, OMG. My life. Is. Complete. The end.

My Facebook post has attracted lots of  SHUT-UP! FERREAL?! OMG! I'm SO JEALOUS! And also some baffling comments like, "Who?"

And I have now decided to divide my friends into two camps: 1) People who know and respect the awesomeness that is The Outsiders and 2) People who are wack.

I hope to keep all of you in the good camp. But if I have to cull my list of friends, so be it.

Because nothing gold can stay, y'all. Nothing gold can stay.

PONYBOY!!!