Sugar: Breakfast Preamble Shamble

The actual elephant in the room. Her name is Emma "Sugar Smack" Elephant.

There is an elephant in the room of my diet. It's white, it's powdery, it's highly addictive, I've been indulging in it in the secrecy of non-blogging weekends,  it's even better when cooked down. Yep, I love me some crack rocks sugar. This week, I'm gonna think about sugar.

• Today, some digging into some personal memories. 
• Tomorrow, some review of the current research. 
• Wednesday, addiction. 
• Thursday, culinary uses and balancing in my life. 
• Friday, mad jokes. Because that is how we do it.

When I was a little kid...
When I was  a little kid, usually it was on my mom to feed me and my older brother. Maybe once a week , my dad would be the one to make breakfast while my mom slept in, usually on the weekends. Today, I take great pleasure in occasionally cooking off a batch of pancakes for my family, because that was my dad's thing. Sure, it was from an Aunt Jemima mix where you just add water, but dude, it was my dad.

Dad's Pancake Hero. It's not racist if it's delicious, right?

We never had sugared cereal in the house, and I never desired it because it wasn't an option. We had Rice Crispies, Special K, Corn Flakes, Chex and Raisin Bran, which had those oddly sugared raisins in it which I never liked. Chewy rat turds. For some reason, one day we had a box of Fruit Loops. It might have been bought by accident or it was a freebie or something. I must have been 4 or 5 years old, and I distinctly remember my dad picking it up, looking at the nutritional label and saying, "Oh, that's not bad, it just has a lot of sugar." I remember not liking it -- it was too sweet.

Don't get me wrong, I was a fat kid who liked cake, but breakfast was never supposed to be that sweet.

Welcome to FBIWC's first animated gif!! No cliches can ever be as refreshened than when uttered by famed thespian Fitty Cent.

Last week, I was roaming the aisles of local drugstore CVS with my 3 year old, and we sauntered down the "food" aisle, which contains shelf-stable edible things that come in boxes, cans and plastic containers. A good deal is dedicated to breakfast cereal, and many of those are kid-targeted "Sugar" this, "Froot" that and "Frosted" thisamabob. All my morning cereals, from my ancient-grain infused kolon bloe to my simple 3 ingredient crispy brown rice (rice, brown rice syrup, salt) all come in around the same caloric values -- 110 calories for a 30 gram serving. The Sugar Smacks and the Chocolate Doodie Double Doos all had little banners on their packages, proclaiming "NOW WITH MORE WHOLE GRAINS" and "A FULL SERVING OF WHOLE GRAINS" and "MORE WHOLE GRAIN IN THE CEREAL THAN IN THE CARDBOARD BOX". Out of curiosity I picked up a box and looked at the nutritional labels, smug in the feeling that what I eat is far superior to this stuff that boarders on child abuse.

"I wanna molest your children!"

And on the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Crisps, a 30 gram serving was....110 calories. I immediately thought of my dad saying "oh, it just has a lot of sugar" and momentarily feeling bad for ever doubting my ever-loving, all-knowing, omnipotent poppa. But he was wrong. Sure, it's the same calorie load, but the load in the Strawberry Froot Smacks was coming from the sugar side of the carb listing 12g of sugar, or about 50% of the carbs. My healthy stuff has about 1g of sugar, or 5% of the carbs.

When I visited the nutritionist, she looked at what I was eating at said I gotta raise how much protein I take in, lower the carbs and not worry about fat. Though she did not specifically address sugar, in my bones I just know that much sugar just ain't right. It makes me feel wrong, unless I'm actively riding my bike or lifting weights or doing something physically strenuous. I'll follow that thread tomorrow...

THE COUNT:2215
Did not do well over the weekend, particularly last night -- the siren song of sugar brought me to eat 2 homemade ice cream sandwiches and most of a box of Japanese chocolate that was given as a gift. Old school eating. Rather than beat myself up about it, thought I should dig in deep here. I hope to not just get more control over the sugar cravings, but kinda do a root-canal on them, eliminate them so I don't have to depend on self-control to fight them.

Dinner out with other toddlers and parents, but I felt slightly hungry going to sleep, so my estimates were probably correct.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, steel cut oatmeal, water, 375 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, chicken sausages, steamed string beans with butter, whole wheat ritz crackers, pickle, 600 cal

PM SNACK: 2:30pm, 7oz diet  sprite, 0 cal

DINNER: 6pm, cheeseless eggplant parm hero, house salad, a couple og garlic knots, 1/3 of a slice of pizza, +/- 1000 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:30pm, watermelon, 215 cal