Whew! I did it. I finished one week of the 21 Day Sugar Detox.

If you’ve followed along, you know that we started eating a paleo diet back in November of 2010. I did pretty well with that until this summer when we found out that Nikki was pregnant. Geoff was in Saudi and, like the good mother-in-law that I am, I ate along with her. Oh it was fun!

But I didn’t feel good. All of the reasons why we chose to change our eating habits came flying back into my face. I was tired, my joints ached, I was gaining weight.

I tried really hard to get back on track. But then came Pinterest with all of those delicious recipes (my baking…nom nom nom board was my most popular) and Christmas and I just couldn’t manage to be more than 50/50 on Paleo. I was slipping into a sugar hole.

Unicorn came back from Saudi and went to a project in Little Rock. I had disentangled from EVERYTHING in my life in order to go to Saudi and I was kind of at loose ends trying to figure out what to do.

I stumbled across the Daring Bakers Challenge. And joined it. Then I found Tuesday’s With Dorie which is a group baking their way thruogh a Julia Child baking book. I joined them. And then I found Project Pastry Queen. I bought the book and joined them.

My thought was that I would bake the items and give them away. But I didn’t know anyone in Little Rock to give them to so I either ate them or threw them away. Both bad choices.

I was back and forth between Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma babysitting for my friend’s twins and the birth of our glambaby, Aniston.

On February 25th, faced with having to make a quick bread, a rum cake and chocolate tarts for the challenges, I had an epiphany: THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR ME!

It came down from high, I’m sure.

I had seen the 21 Day Sugar Detox and had been leaning towards doing it and it seemed like it was the perfect time. A new group was beginning on March 5.

I bought the program and got started. I’ve done the first week and it hasn’t been too hard. The night of the third day, I got a headache. I was expecting a headache but am still not sure if it came from taking the sugar out of my diet or the heinous winds we had here in Oklahoma last week.

I was flat out tired by days four through six. I expected that, too.

But I was able to stick to the program and eat no sugar. I really do feel better overall. And, I’ve lost 5 1/2 pounds as a cherry on top.

I know I can make it through the 21 days and on into the future. I KNOW how bad sugar is for me. But when I read an article saying that sugar helps to cause wrinkles, it gave me extra motivation to succeed.

If you find yourself falling in the sugar hole and not being able to climb out, I suggest you give the 21 Day Sugar Detox a whirl. They have a facebook page where you can find support, answers to your questions, recipes and all manner of good things.

What do you have to lose but some pounds and wrinkles?