Oatmeal with Caramalized Bananas

Goodmorning!

So I've made a few great discoveries since I last posted - one is how to make a great bowl of sugarless oatmeal! Here is how to do it...

~ Put a ripe banana split in half vertically in the microwave for a minute or so
~ Mix1/2 cup of steel cut oats with 1/2 cup of regular 5 grain oatmeal and heat with water over the stove
~ After oats are cooked add two pinches of salt
~ Add dried berries of choice (but be careful with cranberries, they contain a huge amount of sugar!)
~ Add a sprinkle of chia seeds! & nuts! I like using pecans in mine

Serve up and enjoy :)

I also found a great way to make ice tea, I grow my own chocolate mint and Stevia so one day I took my tea infuser brew basket and put dried chocolate mint, a mix of green and brown rice tea, and stevia in it and let it brew over night - it was so good! For this tea make sure you brew it in hot water first and then stick it in the fridge for it to become ice tea later.

~ Arianna

Honey

Good-morning Everyone!

In a single teaspoon of honey there are 17 grams of sugar! So I decided to cut out honey from daily use as well. I was putting way too much in my coffee and on my breakfast to substitute for all the sugar I thought I wasn't getting.

Weight Update: I just weighted myself this morning and it definitely fluctuates give or take 3 pounds throughout the day obviously as I eat but today I'm down to 141.0 pounds ~ remember the starting weight was 151.6 pounds.

10 pounds GONE all due to not eating sugar! Or at least being extremely conscious of what I eat. I confess that I've totally cheated this month with a square of 72% dark chocolate and some frozen yogurt on special occasions, but I always keep it to a minimum when I choose to eat dessert with my friends or family.

DINNER ~ Last night for dinner I made an amazing salad. Here's the recipe....

Cooked stake seasoned to your liking (4 pieces)
Mixed spring lettus and spinach
Green apple (1/2 and sliced)
Medium sized tomato sliced
Feta cheese (1/8 cup)
Home made Balsamic Vinegar!

Alana, take pictures of some sugarless baking that you do! When you come up the 1st and 2nd of July we're totally cooking yummy things and then making a blog post and we should also get the vlog figured out as well!

To our readers, feel free to comment and also send in recipes that you're trying too!


~ Arianna

Fancy

Sometimes a meal is just grab and go but if you take the time to brighten up your food with a little bit of an artistic touch then you actually begin becoming more respectful about what enters your body and you start being aware of ingredients as you add them to your masterpiece. This morning I woke up and had a bit of time on my hands so I ended up making my usual breakfast look a little fancy!

Here are the ingredients so you can do the same ~

Any fruit of your choice
Plain non-fat Greek yogurt
Sprinkle of cinnamon
Honey on the edge
Coconut flakes in the middle!
mmmm so good and sugarless! Happy Cooking! ~ Arianna

Breakfast & Lunch!

Hey Everyone! 

So I've been pretty good so far - my mom and I went to winco to pick up things for some new recipes and I'm excited to share them with you once we make them! Just giving the update on a GREAT sugarless breakfast and then what I have for snacks and lunch...

Breakfast: 
1 Orange
3 Scoops of Greek, Plain, Non-Fat, Lowest Sugar Yogurt
Drizzle of honey

Cinnamon! (so good in yogurt)
Coconut chips or shavings
Mix in a bowl and enjoy!

Lunch:
1 Grapefruit
1/2 Avocado
You can mix them or eat separately
And a piece of smoked salmon!! mmmm so yummy
I ate the salmon with the avocado and ate the grapefruit separate

Snack: 
Nut Mix ~ Pecans, Almonds, Dates, Apricots, Prunes, BUT! watch the sugar in dried fruit, it's deceptively a lot. I looked at the winco bins yesterday and cranberries had 75 grams of sugar per cup AHH!

WEIGHT UPDATE: I've been also keeping track of my weight just for fun to see what happends and so far on Sunday I was 151.6 pounds. Today (Tuesday) I'm 145.0 pounds when I weighed myself this morning before eating. WHOA. Probably water weight but we'll see. Also I've been drinking lots of water and mineral water for some flavor as well but make sure the mineral has no sugar or high fructose corn syrup in it because then it would be soda.

~ Arianna
 

Hey everyone! Welcome to my first ever vlog! 

This a quick update video, that I just pulled together out of the blue.

I hope you all are having a wonderful summer.

-Alana

Greetings!!

Hey all,

The transition to this diet will be a difficult road for me personally. Why I wanted to take this food journey is part of my larger goal to become more aware of what I am putting into my body. I have to be honest I have been struggling to become healthier in my college setting, and avoiding added sugar is going to be no small task. 

I have done some research on what sugar does to our bodies and minds, so I am completely confident that going on this diet will not effect my health whatsoever. In fact I am hoping to see many positive results from this. I will be updating regularly! Hopefully this will be a wonderful journey in where I can break a crippling addiction for all things sweet by the end of this summer. To be honest I feel like the first few weeks are going to be the hardest. Wish me luck!

~ Alana

P.S. Our first day begins tomorrow so we'll have updates to let ya know how things change!

Upcoming Post: June 13, 2015 = Day One

A Sugarless Summer

Happy Summer Ladies & Gents!

A bit of an introduction: Two college friends, Alana and Arianna, are about to embark on a nutritional mission that's probably going to be more difficult than going vegan! We decided to cut out certain unhealthy and, sadly, very common ingredients in our diets for an entire summer and see how it goes.

This blog will consist of our meals, new recipes, substitutes, and vlogs about our accomplishments and experience. Please feel free to comment & ask questions about our goals and blog! If you have suggestions of any kind or if you would like to join us, let us know!

Things that are off limits for the summer:

1. High Fructose Corn Syrup

2. Extra Added Sugar to Anything

3. Bleached Flower

The only sugar in forms that we're allowing:

1. Honey

2. Fruit

The goal is to discover what it takes to stick to a healthy diet and establish awareness for the hidden poisons that exist in common foods that we all eat today. Also, because we're college students our goal is to promote the idea that an extremely healthy diet can totally be affordable for college students. Most students are under the impression that they need to eat a 19 cent bag of top ramen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to not go broke. In reality, we all need the essential nutrients our bodies utilize every day... and it doesn't exist in a chicken flavored, dehydrogenated bag of noodles!!