Birthday Temptations

Yesterday we had my younger sister's birthday party.  She is officially 15 and learning to drive (Yea!)  However, you know what birthday party's bring.  That's right, cake.  On Saturday, Matt realized we didn't have anything sugary in the house so he asked me to pick something up at the store for him.  Obviously he is not sharing in my no desserts or candy challenge.  He usually eats about two desserts a day, and goes mountain biking once a week, doesn't gain a pound and somehow manages to have extremely muscular legs and very healthy blood work.  Some things just aren't fair.  He tells me that I should be grateful since he is taking care of my portion of dessert for me so that way I don't have to eat it. 

Anyway, this is what I brought home, since he said no to everything else that was for sale at the store.

Chocolate Torte- yes he already ate some by the time I am getting around to writing this post.  Hey! It's been two days.

So now I have a Raspberry Torte in the refrigerator and I am heading off to a birthday party.  Fortunately it is my sister and my family is already well informed of my 30 day challenge (which has somehow turned into 7 weeks instead of 4).  We had a great evening.  Mom and I practiced the new Pampered Chef recipe for the Rockcrok: Cheesy Shells with Sausage for her Pampered Chef show she is having for me in a few weeks.  We are going to make it like the recipe says for the show but for today, we did put low-fat cream cheese in it but we left the cheese out so you could sprinkle it on top, that way you get a little less cheese and can control how much you put in your individual dish.  It's a great way to take a higher fat recipe and cut out a fair amount of the points: keep the cheese or the sauce on the side. 

I was able to eat one small serving and a serving of the roasted vegetables my older sister, Julia brought down.  I wasn't full but I wasn't hungry for the rest of the day either.  It was much less than I thought I needed to eat and I was just fine!  Just another testament to how my body no longer needs the same amount of food I was giving it before, but my brain still thinks it does.  I will have to see what I can find about re-training your brain.

Chase loves red velvet cake so this was our birthday cake (red velvet cupcakes).  Surprisingly, she didn't want any of the leftover cupcakes so guess who got to take home the extras!  Fortunately Julia took two of them to take to work (almost everyone in my immediate family has joined me in my quest to eat healthier.  Now most of them already ate healthy, but I think I just reignited the fire and their determination to continue eating healthy, so most of them don't want left over cake hanging around.)  So with no one else wanting left over cake, Matt claimed the extras, so I now have this sitting on my counter.

I just have to tell myself that it's not as good as it looks- like those misleading cakes in Korea- they looked oh so good, but tasted terrible like the Koreans left out all the sugar!

In addition to all of that, my older sister Julia also bought a Halloween gift for the girls.  She knows someone who makes their own candy, which is pretty cool, and I am all about supporting home business and small business.  Of course it just has to be something I am trying to avoid.  So I just tell myself that these are not for me, they are for the kids.  Now I just have to regulate their consumption of sugar.  What I don't want to do is push sugar on everyone else in an attempt to rid myself of the stuff.  But this is super cute, they are like chocolate suckers.

Repeat: not for me, not for me, not for me

So now my house has gone from being sugar free- to sugar overload!  And Halloween hasn't even arrived yet!  At least I have a plan for the Halloween candy.  First I am going to throw out all the junk candy, you know what I'm talking about- the hard candy that Lily can't eat, and of course those nasty candy sticks that look and taste like chalk.  I will keep all the decent candy and use that as Lily's potty candy and recommence potty training.  We took a break when she decided she didn't want to use the toilet anymore and was wetting herself three times a day.  So at least I will have a plan for that, and since it will be Lily's potty candy that means that the parents (Matt included) need to stay out of it.  Otherwise we won't have anything to bribe her to use the potty with. (I'm sure you've all been there if you have kids in potty training!)

So lets hope my self control is up to the challenge.  It is much easier now to resist these temptations now than it was 5 weeks ago. 

One and a half more weeks left in my Sugar-Free Challenge