Year of No-Added-Sugar - Day 4

So, this morning I woke up determined to go to Food and Thought and find out once and for all if there are any sweeteners in their raw vegan overnight oats....
And, after being a little bit of a persistent pest with my asking.... found out that they do, in fact, have a sweetener added: maple syrup.
I walked out disappointed. I forgot to even ask if they can be made without the maple syrup or if that is something they put in the whole batch the night before....
I tried not to let it ruin the roll I was on.... Today was supposed to be Day 4 of no-added-sugar; and, here I am finding out that maple syrup was in yesterday's breakfast. It's difficult not to be a little bummed out.
Today's meals/snacks consisted of this week's "typical" rice, sweet peas, rice cake, almond butter, green beans, Hilary's adzuki bean burger.
I am just in love with Hilary's adzuki bean burgers!
They do have apple cider vinegar, which some may say is a sugar; but, I'm going to let this one slide since the nutrition info says zero grams of sugar per serving.

Year of No-Added-Sugar - Day 3

Day 3.
So, I think... because this is, in reality, either perhaps the 5th or 6th time (lost count) I'm starting my "year of no-added-sugar" that it's starting out a LOT easier than previous attempts....
For example, the sugar cravings are not near (not even close) to what they were the first few attempts.
The first few times I attempted the year of no-added-sugar, I made it 11 days, then 3 weeks!, and then a bunch of start and stops with success for maybe 2 or 3 days in between days and days and weeks of sugary splurges.
During the first week of each of the first two attempts, I would dream about yummy sugary foods just about every night and I would think about and crave sugary foods just about every day, all day....
This, being perhaps the 6+ attempt, I haven't dreamt about sugary food yet; but, I am starting to have some cravings for sugar this afternoon/evening... which could very well be because of stress or, because of what I had for breakfast.....

Photo from Food & Thought, Naples, FL

Breakfast: raw vegan overnight oats from Food & Thought (guessing ~700). Photo of raw vegan overnight oats from a Food & Thought post: https://foodandthought.com/author/oliver/
UPDATE: Later found out that Food & Thought overnight oats have maple syrup!
Lunch: rice, peas, and a Hilary's adzuki bean burger (~600 calories).
Dinner: rice and bag-o-green-beans (~350 calories).
Total calories ~1,650, which is about right on the money for my weightloss goals and I also do not feel like I'm starving. In fact, all these meals have been quite filling.
Hot black, rose hips, and peppermint teas throughout the day. Magnesium/calcium supplement Calm tea at night.
And, water throughout the day, can't forget to drink water!
Now, back to those sugar cravings I'm having this afternoon/evening....
I am wondering if I'm having sugar cravings because of either the fruit in my breakfast, which is of course filled with its own sugar (but not added), or if there was in fact some type of added sugar...
In my ebbs and flows in various elimination food choice scheming, I always find it easier to be "all or nothing." For me, moderation is like holding on to the wagon with only one foot and one hand while the rest of the body is hanging mid-air off the side. One taste of sugar and the body is like, hmmm... that was good, more please! But, I digress...
So, back to breakfast...
On previous adventures during no-added-sugar attempts, I had asked the Food & Thought staff if there was any added sugar in the raw vegan overnight oats.... but, perhaps I should have asked more detailed questions, for example, if there were any kind of sweeteners added, like agave or honey or stevia...
What I do know is, the raw vegan overnight oats at Food & Thought are delicious. They do have oats, homemade almond milk, goji berries, banana, walnuts, and chia seeds. They are yummy and perhaps it's just the fruit adding the sugary taste. Perhaps tomorrow I will go in and ask a little more detailed question about added sweeteners. The one thing about making no-added-sugar food choices is that you kind of end up being a pest to waitstaff.
UPDATE: Found out next day that the overnight oats have maple syrup in them.
So, moving on... I did get a headache today, near migraine towards mid-afternoon. I think it was still remnants from the too-hot bath last night because my head was just feeling on the verge of headache most of the day and finally went into full headache mode in the afternoon. Took a couple alleve and it eventually went away.
Walked 30+ minutes tonight, accomplished 10,000 steps today (Fitbit).
Day 3 in the books.

Year of No-Added-Sugar Day 2

Shocked that I didn't get a migraine headache yesterday, the first day of no-added-sugar... For me, no-added-sugar means no coffee because I really don't like the taste of coffee without cream and sugar. My coffee order goes something like this...  I'll have cream and sugar with a little bit of coffee, please, LOL.
So, Day 2. More hungry since I didn't eat much on Day 1. Possibly plenty of remnant sugar and calories floating around my body from the weekend...
Breakfast: rice and peas with salt/pepper (~400 calories)
Late morning snack: wild rice cake with 3 TBS almond butter (~400 calories)
Late Lunch: Amy's frozen meal, black-eye peas (300 calories)
Dinner: rice, Hilary's adzuki bean burger, and bag-o-green-beans (~550 calories)
I stepped up the calories today, coming in at ~1,650. This is about where I've been told by others that I should be at for my age/weight/height and activity level, with a weightless goal of 1-2 lbs per week.
Still having black tea, rose hips tea, and peppermint teas throughout the day.
I went out and got some exercise today too, walked about 3 miles in an hour.
The mis-step I took today is when, after walking for an hour, I took a long hot epsom-salt bath... that was too long and too hot.
It felt so good but when I got out, I felt woozy and not so good.
While I thankfully didn't faint, I found this interesting post while I was recovering....
http://livelighter.org/hot-steamy-baths-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
Besides being woozy after bath, the other unfortunate downside was that, I hadn't had a headache all day but after that too hot bath, I felt the sensations bubbling.

Year of No Added Sugar - Day 1

Happy vernal equinox, Happy First Day of Spring (northern hemisphere), Happy first day of the Astrological Year!
Seems like a perfect day to start a year of no-added-sugar!
Unfortunately this isn't my first try. But, that hasn't caused me to give up yet! I'm hoping that writing this blog will help me persevere for a year.
So, what does "no added sugar" mean to me?
For me, it's going to mean that fruit, in its whole fruit form is okay, but fruit juice is not.
It means choosing foods with no added: sugar, agave, honey, fruit juice; and, no artificial sweeteners either. No added dextrose and definitely no fructose.
But, while I do tend to be a purist at heart, I have allowed myself a couple/few exceptions as follows:
1) My favorite calming magnesium supplement tea: Natural Calm by Natural Vitality. It does have stevia in it and raspberry flavor.
I wanted to try and avoid stevia as well but food limitations become a little daunting when it comes to natural supplements.
2) My second exception, which also has stevia, is the raw vegan protein powder that I use by Sunwarrior.
So... today... I'm starting off at about 180 lbs on a 5 foot 3.75" frame, which puts me in the category of obese with a BMI of 31. I need to get down to 170 just to get back to the category of overweight.
I'm currently wearing around a size 16 or XL.
It's really difficult to attribute these categories and sizes to myself because I've generally been at a healthy weight most of my life to date; but, it's even more difficult to make a change without acceptance and a desire to change.
After a weekend of sugary delights, today, first day of "no-added-sugar" year, and a Monday:
Breakfast consisted of 1 cup rice and ~1.5 cups of peas flavored with Himalayan salt and pepper.
Lunch ended up being one wild rice cake with ~3-4 TBS almond butter.
Dinner included full bag of Whole Foods Organic Haricot Verts (which are super yummy thin green beans) and 1 cup rice flavored with himalayan salt and pepper.
Throughout the day I used 4 bags of black tea and two bags of peppermint tea to make a total of about 60-80 ounces of tea. No sweetener in the tea so I find the peppermint helps lighten the taste of the black tea. When my energy comes back up, I hope to be able to reduce the dependence on caffeine.
Finished off the day with natural calm tea, the anti-stress drink, which is needed on the first day of no added sugar!
Total caloric intake for the day, amounted to only about 1200-1300 calories, which is pretty low. Not feeling hungry, which is probably because I ate so much over the weekend in anticipation of this no-added-sugar year challenge. I'm sure I'll be more hungry tomorrow!
No headaches today, which is surprising since every first day of no-added-sugar attempts to date (about 4 or 5 in past 3 months) has included a headache... I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings!