A few weeks ago I decided (for some crazy reason) to show solidarity to my brother by giving up caffeine. He was giving up a daily mocha fix and I felt I would give up my multiple cans of Diet Coke per day. This decision was incredibly hard. I spent a lot of time taking Advil and wondering why I was doing this. This wasn’t helped by my friends who constantly posted messages to me about the benefits of coffee, how coffee was good for you, and that a little caffeine really wasn’t that bad.

I’ve been doing web design work since 1995, and one of the things I like best about it is how much it changes fairly regularly. When I started, writing HTML required that I know vi and be able to edit the files directly on the Unix server. Then I started storing files on my local hard drive, editing there in a text editor (Homesite was my poison), and then uploading them to my web server.

I have to say i’m very impressed with myself. On July 1, 2012, I started on an 8-week program of attempting to eat not only no sugar, but also nothing sweet at all (i.e. no Diet Coke, no fruit, no stevia, etc.). The first few weeks were tough. There were points where I thought that I would chew my arm off in the hopes that my blood was sweet. I would get frustrated at the drop of a hat, and don’t get me started on the headaches and general grumpiness.

Week three started last Sunday on my quest to purge my system of sugar. This week, the goal is to eat no more than 10-20 grams of sugar per day (1 tsp = approximately 5 grams), or between 3-6% by weight. In some ways this is pretty easy, as I’ve already removed the crazy sweet things from my house. In fact, when I get a craving most of the time I can’t really do anything about it because we don’t have any sweets available.

Sugar sucks. I gave up eating anything sweet three weeks ago, or was it two weeks ago? I guess two, but it seems like forever. I keep hoping that there will be a point where I won’t feel these intense cravings for sugar or something sweet. In fact, I can say with some honesty that the cravings are not as bad today as they were on July 1st. But saying that is like saying that my bathtub isn’t as wet as the ocean because there isn’t as much water there.

So my newest life plan is to try out quitting sugar (and basically anything sweet) for the next few weeks. I started on Sunday, July 1st, which must have been a week ago now, right? I have discovered a few things in the short period I’ve been off sugar: I am, sadly, addicted to caffeine. Mark was telling me that and I was sure he was wrong, but man, today without Diet Coke, my head was aching and my temper was short.

The hard part of changing my lifestyle is that while it’s going great, it’s easy to keep doing and not get frustrated. But when it’s not, it’s not. I’ve now had two weeks in a row of either no weight loss or weight gain, and my measurements have gone back up. And this is after I started going to CrossFit twice a week to try to get more fit. I know, I know, if I’m weight training I’m going to grow muscle and that weighs more than fat.

[caption id=“attachment_289” align=“aligncenter” width=“400” caption=“My First Sushi - Carrot Sushi”][/caption] For those who scoff at the idea of carrot sushi, well, I have nothing to say to you. I didn’t have any daikon or other more traditional veggie-sushi veggies. Maybe next week will bring more “real” sushi foods into the house. But really, carrot sushi was yummy. I debated trying celery sushi too. What about tomato sushi?

I’ve decided to compile a list of all the things that I’d like to change in my life (or do or improve, etc.). This is kinda like a master goals list. The point is that I can’t achieve my goals if I don’t know what they are. So here goes in no particular order: Eat less junk food - ultimately I want to get it down to 1 day a week or even just a few hours on that one day Bake my own bread Eat NO feedlot or factory meat.

So, I’ve watched the vegetarian sushi video a couple times, I’ve bought my sushi rice and sushi vinegar (wasabi and soy sauce are already staples in my home) oh and the nori. Now I have to do two things: finish my work for the day stop being a wimp/chicken and start my attempt at making sushi! Oh and we got a new 7-cup food processor (or “food robot” in my translation of the French) today.

So my two goals for the next week or so are to make: vegetarian sushi cheese I’ve been told before that making cheese isn’t terribly hard. Of course finding rennet could be challenging… but one step at a time. There is a beer and wine making supply company in Kirkland that also sells cheese making supplies. And I want to make some bread. I think I need to get my Laurel’s Kitchen bread book out again.

So, I read my previous blog post to Mark, and his first response was “Good luck!” And of course, I got a bit frustrated because that’s the sarcastic (for those playing along at home, yes, he was being sarcastic) response I dread when I talk about trying to be greener and eat more healthy. But after we talked for a while, we came up with an initial game plan: Salads for dinner – Three years ago we implemented the plan of having a pitcher of water on the table for dinner every night.

I am reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver right now. And at the same time, I have been regularly reading The Zero Waste Home (a blog). What’s interesting to me is that I started both of these reading projects by reading some reviews and comments about them. And the comments I read went along the lines of “this is impossible!”, “what you’re asking me/us to do is not possible except for crazy zealots,” and “I don’t believe that your kids are all that thrilled by this plan for (zero waste or growing all your own food) as you imply they are.

Jaryth liked licking the icing. I also learned that marshmallows must be eaten on a stick (courtesy s’mores we had last summer). He yelled “stick! Stick!” over and over until Mark gave him a toothpick.

So, I’ve started cooking again. I figure it’s not good karma for me to let Mark do all the cooking forever. ☺ But in order to facilitate this, I’ve started looking at online recipes. And I have two questions: Why does Cooks.com get listed so often when their recipes are all the same? I did a search for something the other day, and was excited to see that there were like 20 recipes listed on Cooks.

[caption id=“attachment_178” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Buttery Sticks - Margarine is for losers!”][/caption] Yummy! It’s sad when marketing has decided that “margarine” isn’t yummy sounding enough. Psst: Nucoa people… Buttery sticks makes it sound like I’m about to use twigs that have been basted. And, personally, I’m not a huge fan of twigs.

I know, I don’t need any more sweets in my life. But Pepperidge Farms hit the jackpot with me with their Chocolate Goldfish Grahams. Jaryth doesn’t like them, but that’s okay, I do. :-)[caption id=“attachment_139” align=“aligncenter” width=“99” caption=“Yum!”][/caption]

I saw this advertisement today, and it made me laugh. King county decided that all restaurants must put calories on their menus so people have a better idea of what they are ordering. A year or so later they decided to see if this had changed how people order. It did. Now they make their kids eat more healthily while ordering the double-big-mac-large-fries-chocolate-shake for themselves. I’m taking my first step to be a better role model - I’ve made a dentist appointment (and haven’t cancelled it yet).