Oh, the temptation!

I hosted my writing group's monthly meeting last night. As always, it was a delight to talk about words and craft with the smart individuals who make up the group.  And I am so grateful for their attention and help last night with the short story I'm currently working on.  Pre-meeting, I'd thought my biggest writing group challenge this month would be getting a portion of the story together enough to merit submitting.  Then writing group member Liz showed up at my door with four of these babies from the Macrina Bakery:

Photo from Yelp member Share W.

Photo from Yelp member Veronica J.

Oh, how I love cupcakes, and in my home.  And these were truly beautiful (and huge) cupcakes from which I had to abstain--the torture!  Upon seeing them, I rudely blurted out something like, "Oh no!  Not cupcakes!  It's no sugar January!"  Poor Liz, of course, had no idea about that--she just wanted to share these beautiful, yummy cupcakes with the group.  Luckily, the rest of the group was not on a sugar fast and happily partook in cupcake revelry. 
 

I must say that it IS easier to resist the cupcake when one has a publicly-announced Sugar Fast going on.  On a normal day, I might think, "I really shouldn't eat that gorgeous sugar bomb," but you can bet your bottom dollar I would still eat that gorgeous sugar bomb.  But by publicly proclaiming, "I shall not eat sugar," I have a hard line that I cannot (knowingly) cross without feeling ashamed and like a failure.  Or lying, which is one thing I'm not ashamed to say I fail at every time; if you're looking for the world's worst liar, she's right here.

Because I am crappy at concealing anything, here's a list of my sugar indiscretions this past week.

• A friend made me a vodka tonic Sunday night with sugar-free tonic water.  It was great.  That's partially because while the tonic was free of sugar, it wasn't free of agave syrup.  In my defense, I didn't look at the bottle until after drinking said vodka tonic.   
• I went out to breakfast on Friday morning and ate bacon.  On reflection later in the day, I realized bacon is almost always cured in sugar or maple syrup or something.  Oops.
• After this bacon realization on Friday, I knowingly partook in bacon while brunching at a friend's on MLK Jr. Day.  Uhhhh, oops?

At least I didn't eat bacon candy.  EWWW.

That's all I can think of!  The good news?  I'm more than half way through my month of consuming less sugar.  The bad news?  It takes more than eighteen days for sugar cravings to vanish.  I'm not sure this will ever get "easy."  But I can deal with that.  I think.

Oh, before I forget, the SLEEP report!  Remember, I wanted to add something to my months to balance out taking something away, and this month, that added thing is sleep.  I'm happy to report that I've been getting an average of 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep a night, in comparison to my typical average of 7 to 7.25 hours.  And yes, I'm loving it.