My name is Leslie and I am addicted to sweets. Not just one particular type of sweet, all of them. Whether it be chocolate, caramel, sugar, fruity or cakey I like them all equally. I do not discriminate when it comes to curbing my sweet tooth. This has been my downfall since day 1. It is honestly a miracle that throughout the course of my lifestyle evolution I did not hurt anyone or rob a gas station of its Snickers supply. Any method that has been introduced to me in regards to curbing my insatiable need for sugar has failed miserably. If there is something sweet sitting in my cupboard I can't get it out of my head until I just give in and eat the whole thing. Then at least it is gone and I no longer have to look at it or worry about it.
Recently I have become interested in the green smoothie phenomenon that so many of my peers are a fan of. Normally when I see someone enjoying one of these liquid, bright green concoctions I can not help but think how gross they look. But then I began doing some research and at the advice of a friend read a book called, "Green for Life". In this book the author explains in detail her struggle with health and the different "diets" she had attempted. Until discovering that no matter what diet she tried she was never ingesting enough leafy greens. One of the things that she discusses is how the more fruits, vegetables and greens she ate the more she craved these things. She went as far to say that her cravings of other less nutritious food subsided completely. There are a million more reasons that we all need to eat our fruits and vegetables and a million reasons why putting them into a smoothie form makes sense but I will spare you that and let you read the book yourself. I was interested in curbing my sweet tooth once and for all.
The smoothie experiment began with a simple breakfast smoothie that consisted of 1 scoop of powdered greens(I was unsure if my blender would liquefy greens), 1/2 of a banana, greek yogurt(protein) and some strawberries. I began drinking this every day as breakfast a little over a month ago. I will say that is was pretty tasty, kept me full and took way less time to make and clean up than my previous breakfast did.
The next week I decided that I wanted to eliminate the majority of processed carbs that I was eating in general and replace those carbs with more fruits and vegetables. So I began doing a second red smoothie each day. This smoothie consisted of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, Greek yogurt and sometimes a tomato. In addition I began snacking only on carrots, cucumbers, cherries and strawberries throughout the day. (keep in my mind I am not living off of only fruits and veggies, this is just my main carb source) Whenever I got the need to snack or eat something sweet I went for the produce instead. Amazingly enough I began to lose my sweet tooth!
This whole experiment began a little over a month ago and so far it is a success. I feel good, I am enjoying my produce, my grocery bill is significantly smaller and I have not eaten any chocolate, candy or anything related to that in two to three weeks. My smoothies have also graduated to using real greens like Kale and Spinach and less of the fruit to sweeten and they are tasty.
Maybe a smoothie is not something that you are interested in and you love your pop tarts(trust me I understand). But really look at how many foods that you eat each day come out of a box and a wrapper. We as humans were not meant to be eating food out of plastic. We were made to be living off of the Earth and eating fruits, vegetable and meat. Part of the reason in my opinion that people today have so much trouble keeping weight off is because the food we eat is hardly food anymore. There are so many additives in everything even if it claims to be "natural" and those additives can be a trigger for cravings and over eating.
I am not saying you have to live the organic life, be a vegetarian, vegan or any other alternative. I am just saying that it would not hurt for all of us to take a minute, look at what we are eating everyday and even make one small change in the direction of "real food" to see if it makes a difference in how you feel everyday.
I will not say that I am forever reformed of my sweets addiction but right now I am on the path to recovery and I feel much better over eating on some strawberries than I do on M&M's.
*Please remember that even if eating a diet that consists of mostly healthy fruits and vegetable you should still be eating your recommended amount of fat, carbs and protein each day :)
