How to Get off Sugar

Eat more veggies!!

Believe me, I do know how hard it is to get off sugar and stay off sugar. I've fallen off the wagon many a time in the last few months. The trick is to climb right back on the wagon.  As time goes on, and you wean yourself off the sugar, the taste buds do change and sugary stuff becomes less appealing. The artificial stuff, I mean. I think we all have an in-born affinity for sweet things and often times it can be satisfied eating a piece of fruit. I have eaten food sweetened with white sugar recently, and probably will again, but it doesn't taste as good to me and actually I don't feel so hot when I do eat it. (like the chocolate covered acai berries that were hidden away and untouched since Christmas)

So how do you slog it out until you get to that point? Eat more vegetables, especially the green stuff. Here's a few ideas I've done to "eat yer greens."

Make green smoothies. They are nature's fast food. I can whip up a green smoothie in less than 2-3 minutes. As you begin to eat them, start with more fruit and less greens. Spinach is the mildest. As time goes on, you can add more veggies and less fruit. My favorite smoothie now consists of celery, cucumber, spinach, 1/2 apple, lemon, lime, ginger, chia seeds and some protein powder. Sometimes I add a truvia packet, but lots of times I forget. Yum, I actually crave this (crazy huh) Google green smoothies and you can find tons of recipes and ideas.

Make veggie omelets for breakfast. A little more time consuming, but very satisfying. Have a large salad for lunch. I love a salad with a Mexican flair with greens, veggies like green pepper and avocado, added with cilantro and some beans.  I even crunch up some tortilla chips for a topping.  Make stir frys for dinner. My family still at home is not as converted, so I still make a regular meal but add in a big salad or stir fried or steamed veggies, also roasting veggies is a delish way to add them to a meal. I also often make a BIG pot of vegetable soup. I use chicken broth as a base (I didn't say I was vegan or vegetarian) and throw in whatever veggies I have in the fridg. The base is always a mixture of celery, carrots and onions. I wouldn't recommend broccoli, but I have used cabbage, mushrooms, potatoes and whatever else strikes my fancy. Sometimes I will throw in a 1/4 cup of barley or brown rice to the mix. You can eat off that for days.

Grow a garden! My grandkids are picking and eating the raw peas that are coming off right now. (I do not like raw peas-but hey-if they love it-I encourage it) You have never tasted anything better than a salad with romaine lettuce, freshly picked. Or the cilantro! Amazing flavor. And don't even get me started on a tomato, still warm from the garden. I love going out and pulling an onion that is going into our dinner in just a few minutes.

So I hope this helps anyone who is interested eating healthier.  Keep the veggies available in the fridg. Eat them often so they don't end up as wilted messes in the bottom of the crisper. Try new ones when they go on sale! Eat them as snacks, with hummus or some kind of dip (less dip, more veggies) Keep them handy and available.

Anyone else out there with more yummy ways to eat veggies?

Go green!