Put up your dukes! Sugar smackdown.

 

The wedding is over. My sister and her new hubby are in St. Lucia on their honeymoon.
There are two little reminder left of the weekend: leftover cookies and crazy sugar cravings. Yikes.
I am all about balance. Sure, I had a few gin and tonics the other night as well as my share of treats from the cookie table. The good old wedding cookie table. A Western PA tradition. For as long as anyone here can remember, wedding receptions in Pittsburgh have featured cookie tables, laden with dozens of homemade old-fashioned offerings like lady locks, pizzelles and buckeyes. For weeks ahead — sometimes months — mothers and aunts and grandmas and in-laws hunker down in the kitchen baking and freezing. Then, on the big day, hungry guests ravage the buffet, piling plates high and packing more in takeout containers so they can have them for breakfast the next day.
Sugar, we have a love hate relationship. Once I am on the sugar roller coaster it is so hard to get off. We took cookies home and they have been calling my name. White sugar is as addicting as crack. I have a few bites and all I want is more and more and more.

So, what to do?  Guilt doesn’t help me. Deprivation just leads me to want more and more.
For me, it is all about crowding out the cookies. If I make something healthy that satisfies my sweet tooth, I don’t care as much about the cookies. I am able to walk around the house and the cookies are not calling me from the kitchen.
I started this week off with smoothies loaded with greens and fruit. Super sweet and satisfying.

Blackberry, Kale and Blueberry Smoothie
Ingredients:
2 leaves of kale
1/2 frozen banana
handful of blueberries
handful of blackberries
about a 1/4 cup of water
1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed
Directions:
Blend the crap out of everything and drink up!
Got it? You too can kick sugar’s ass.

How do you deal with lingering sugar cravings?