Anyone who truly knows me, knows I have an obsession with sweets. Ice cream, cupcakes, cookies – you name it, I LOVE IT! In fact, I make sure to rid my cabinets of anything of the sort so I won’t binge eat an entire carton of Oreos. If I want a dessert, I have to physically make one or go out and get one as a treat. That’s why when my friend challenged me to cut out all added sugars for 10 days I didn’t think it would be that big of a problem because I make a pretty conscious effort to purchase my foods with little to no sugar in them. Here I was thinking, this challenge would be a breeze! I would likely just feel the effects from my morning oatmeal that I add a brown sugar stevia blend to and my skinny vanilla latte from Starbucks. Boy was I wrong!!!! Did you know that literally almost EVERYTHING that tastes good has sugar!? (Note: I am keeping quinoa, oats and sweet potatoes in my diet due to my high activity in the gym – the traditional 10-day diet suggests cutting these out for best blood detoxing results).

Come Sunday night when I normally prep food – I was hand making salsa (which I normally buy), stocking up on almonds (because I couldn’t have almond butter) and mentally preparing myself to drink black coffee.

Monday was the absolutely hardest day. I am a creature of habit with my routine and my food. I normally wake up and have protein pudding and old fashioned oats with coconut oil and a brown sugar blend. Instead of my brown sugar I had to opt for cinnamon. If there is one thing I look forward to every morning it’s my oatmeal. It wasn’t NEARLY as tasty – bah humbug. After training my clients, I always come home and have egg whites and ezekiel bread with almond butter. NOPE… not Monday! Both the bread and almond butter (even as natural as they are) contain sugar. I had to make due with oats again and eggs.

As the day went on… I just kept envisioning all the things I couldn’t have! This is not like me! As 6 meals dwindled down to 1… my sugar cravings were out of whack! I kept thinking to myself… AM I A SUGAR ADDICT!? Is it possible that even as healthy of an eater as I am – as healthy as I preach that I could rely on sugar just as much as when I used to indulge in whatever I wanted!? I couldn’t wait to go to bed that night.

Ok so here we are today. I drank my coffee black. It was fine. I had basically the same meals as yesterday but incorporated one new AMAZING chicken eggplant dish, and flushed my system with a heck of a lot of water. I’m still living, I still want sugar, but it’s not as bad as it was yesterday.

Here are some great alternatives and recipes I managed to find in the two short days that I’ve been sugar free: 

1. Protein powder – check as not all are sugar free
2. Heavy whipping cream – sure there’s fat in this but no sugar and it’s a good alternative to milks and it tastes PHENOMENAL
3. Cinnamon in your coffee or oatmeal for some flavor
4. OILS of all kinds (hazelnut, pumpkin oil, etc) – zero sugar and a great flavor booster
5. Mustard – where would I be without you!?

Recipes: 

Salsa Ground Turkey
Ingredients:
2.25 lbs ground turkey
1 green pepper
4 small tomatoes
3 cloves garlic
1 lime
Dash of pepper
Cilantro
1 jalapeno
2 bunches of green onions

Directions:
In a pan, saute green pepper- add ground turkey when pepper is soft.
In a blender, throw in quartered tomatoes, garlic, juice of fresh lime, ground pepper, bunch of cilantro, jalapeno, green onions and blend.
Mix turkey mixture with salsa – store in glass container in refrigerator and serve throughout the week!

Red Wine Flank Steak
Ingredients:
2 lbs flank steak
Package of baby portabella mushrooms
1 yellow or white onion
1 cup beef broth
1/2 cup of red wine vinegar
Ground Pepper
Garlic Salt

Directions: 
In a crock pot, combine mushrooms, chopped onion, beef broth, vinaigrette, ground pepper and garlic salt to taste. Cut flank steak in slices and put in crockpot. Cook on high for 4 hours. Store in glass container in refrigerator and serve throughout the week!

Garlic Eggplant Chicken
Ingredients
2 lbs chicken
1 medium eggplant
2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
1 container of portabella mushrooms
1 medium onion
1 1/2 lemons
4 garlic cloves
Chicken Stock
Ground Pepper
Sea Salt

Directions: 
Cut chicken into chunks and set aside. Cube eggplant and add to crockpot. Mix remaining ingredients and add to crockpot. Mix chicken and cover with all ingredients in crockpot. Cook on high for 4 hours. Store in glass container in refrigerator and serve throughout the week!