Monday, April 13, 2009

Hide the Easter Candy!

Well, the sweetest of all holidays is behind us. Sort of. The candy in my kids' baskets is still staring me down, begging me to eat some more. I've never been a fan of people who can take one bite of dessert and feel satisfied. Actually, I totally wish I could be one of them. How do they do it? For me, it's all or nothing. If I never take a bite, I'm fine. But there's no way I'm going to be able to have just one mini Twix bar, and stop there. Nooooo way. I'll have 5 or 6 or 10... And don't think I can take two bites of chocolate cake, and leave the rest. I'll eat mine AND the rest of yours. What about those magazines that say to take two bites, eat them slowly so you can really savor them, and leave the rest. WHATEVER!
Are you all sick of my sugar ramblings, yet? I'm obviously trying to work through some sugar issues. If you know how to have your sugar in moderation, then please skip to the comments to shed some light for the rest of us. How do you do it?

But for the majority of us, why is it so hard to resist sugar? Well, for starters, it obviously tastes better than broccoli. But the truth is, when you consume large amounts of it, your pancreas has to work overtime. It then produces loads of insulin, which causes your body to build up a sort of resistance to sugar. So what happens, then? The more sugar you eat, the more you need to eat to feel satisfied. Ouch.

If you ate bucketfuls of candy this weekend, oh well. Don't beat yourself up. But here are a few numbers for the curious calorie/fat/sugar gram counters in all of us:

Cadbury Cream Eggs – 140 calories
Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs – 180 calories
Jelly Belly Assorted jelly beans (35) – 28 g sugar
(Small) Cadbury Chocolate Eggs (12) – 26 g sugar
Nestle's Crunch Solid Chocolate Easter Bunny – 36.2 g of fat
Reese's Reester Bunny – 42 g of fat
Hershey's Hollow Milk Chocolate Egg – 570 calories in the shell alone. (If you eat the four Hershey’s kisses inside, you’ll consume 660 calories and 41 grams of fat). Yikes!

Hopefully you added some real eggs to the menu. But whatever you ate, hope you enjoyed it. I did! And a sugar overdose always leaves me a little more motivated to avoid it in the near future. We'll see how long the motivation lasts! How was your Easter?

6 comments:

Kimberly said...

Now I feel even more sick for all the sugar I ate this weekend. Ick! I totally overdosed on candy this weekend. It's going to be 2-a-days for me for the next month to work off all the sugar I consumed!!

Lyenna Kemp said...

I had about 100 peanut M&M's, 100 chocolate eggs, and a huge piece of cheesecake with rasberries on top. Will the insanity ever end? Oh and because I see it it goes in. I've got to get it out of my house! Of course one day is never enough. My husband just had to do rootbeer floats yesterday, and I could not say no. I can turn away from butter, cheese, gravy, etc, but if sugar is around there is no resisting. Is there such thing as sugar addicts anonymous? Maybe we should start a group:)

Jill said...

Go ahead and keep posting your sugar ramblings. It helps me to know that I'm not alone!

Cindy said...

Oh, my! That's a lot of sugar and fat... all in one weekend. Time to get back to work!

Diane said...

Mmmmmm chocolate! I can't resist! I have to admit that reading this made it all sound a little sickening though!

Ann said...

Something that may be helpful to all sugar "binge" eaters (myself included) is a book called "Intuitive Eating." I was introduced to the book during grad school, and have been converted ever since! Something interesting happens to our brains as soon as we say "No more, never, not any, etc." We CRAVE it even more! So we may be able to resist the sugar for a while, but once we get our hands on it it is all over from there. The book really helps to teach you to eat something if you are hungry for it and then stop when you have had enough.

The reason we can't stop once we get our hands on sugar is because in our minds we are saying "this is it, I'm never eating sugar again" So we eat as if it will be annihilated from the planet.

In reality, some sugar is alright and loving sugar isn't a bad thing. As the book teaches, if we give ourselves "permission" to eat sugar (or other foods that we crave) the binges will naturally disappear. In addition, we can learn to enjoy moderate amounts of the foods that we love without all the guilt. It has totally worked for me.

Just a little food for thought (and I hope I haven't said too much...)