Fighting the Winter Blues

I am on my second week of greatly decreased / no processed sugar, and things are going well.  The stomach bug was a great jump-start, but that doesn't mean things have been easy.  While I feel my cravings are passing, earlier this week was particularly bad.  I think a lot of it had to do with the cold, but all I wanted was cake.  I didn't want anything cold...just cake.  Luckily, Hans and I had picked up some fruit-filled bread last Saturday, and that helped to satisfy my needs.  Otherwise, I've been doing OK.  I'm feeling good, but aside from all that cutting sugar does for me, there's one other side effect I hadn't anticipated.

I feel like I've accomplished something.

One of the worst things about the winter blues is that I end up sleeping a lot.  When I sleep a lot, nothing gets done.  When nothing gets done, I feel bad.  When I feel bad, I want to sleep a lot.  Do you see the vicious cycle?  By cutting sugar, I didn't have to really do anything (other than fight urges).  It was something I wanted to do, and it really didn't require a lot of work.  Now I feel like I've accomplished something.

Since I accomplished one thing, I now want to tackle other things.  I've done the dishes.  I've folded laundry.  I've even cooked a few meals.  I'm going to they gym this afternoon, and I think I'm going to set up a pretty awesome work out plan.  Tackling one hard thing has made it easier to tackle other easy things, and that's pretty cool.  So, for now, I'm keeping processed sugar to a minimum.