Week 19: Three Strikes

This week I've decided to try and up my healthy eating habits. I'm trying to see if I can limit my intake of sweets to the weekend alone. While discussing my strategy with my niece Emily, we came up with the three strikes policy. Basically here are the rules of our game:

-No sugary foods Monday- Friday. (Fruits, and yogurts don't count)
-If you slip and eat a sweet goody, then you get a strike.
-If you get 3 strikes, then you have to give up being able to eat sweets on either the following Saturday or Sunday.

Want to play with me?

I'm trying to conquer my sugar addiction because sugar really isn't good for you.

Sugar raises insulin levels which inhibits growth hormones and promotes fat storage (especially around your mid-section). Sugar also suppresses your immune system.

Here are a couple of links about sugar that I found interesting:
Ask Dr Sears
Sugar Addiction
Healing Daily

Healing Daily:
"It was only in the 1970's that researchers found out that vitamin C was needed by white blood cells so that they could phagocytize viruses and bacteria. White blood cells require a 50 times higher concentration inside the cell as outside so they have to accumulate vitamin C...

We know that glucose (sugar) and vitamin C have similar chemical structures, so what happens when the sugar levels go up? They compete for one another upon entering the cells. And the thing that mediates the entry of glucose into the cells is the same thing that mediates the entry of vitamin C into the cells. If there is more glucose around, there is going to be less vitamin C allowed into the cell. It doesn't take much: a blood sugar value of 120 reduces the phagocytic index by 75%. So when you eat sugar, think of your immune system slowing down to a crawl."