Reflections on the Jan-Junk-Free Challenge
Posted by dnbarton on February 1st, 2008
Me: Well… I honestly failed miserably in my own challenge. I have a lot to learn from it and that’s good. 1st of all.. I don’t do well when I tell myself I can have “NO” junk.. it tends to turn into an “all or nothing” battle. Once I eat one then I might as well just keep eating because I’ve def. blown the “nothing” part. That being said, it was so so so so so hard for me to not eat sweets. I would walk into WinCo and start drooling. At the dumbest stuff.. like a type of cookie I would never buy and would usually never interest me. My Junk Free Jan turned into a psycho sugar craving nightmare.
It’s amazing to me as I’ve spent the last 4 days on CORE.. that I’ve made contientious decisions to not eat junk,( besides my SF puddings (which I wouldn’t even allow myself during the JJFC)) because I don’t want to count the points for it, and NOT because I am depriving myself. I drink my sf hot cocoa and eat my sugar free puddings and for the most part, I’m content. And if I want to take a bite of a cookie, candy, etc… I can… and not go crazy afterward…. there’s no longer a need to eat the entire baggie! (:
Well that’s it… that’s my thoughts on all the reasons why I won’t be doing a Junk Free Challenge again… HOWEVER… that being said… there are other WW’s out there who found it very helpful to curb the crazy sugar fest they’ve been on. Either way… it’s def. a personal preference… each of you have to decide what works for you!
BigTickles says: that she has found the JJFC to be helpful… it helps her to choose fruits over sugary snacks… and when she starts on sugary snacks she just keeps going… so for her the JJFC was a good thing!
Jacquie says: Junk free January wasn’t junk free for me but still better than normal. I’ve began eating a yummy bowl of fruit in the mornings and yogurt for morning snack and I’m back at the gym again, this time with a personal trainer on Wednesdays. So it was good to go from lost to focused. Thats a big step for me so it wasn’t a waste of a month. I’m up for the next challenge.
Everyone else… didn’t offer an opinion in time to add it to this post! (: Happy February!
February 2nd, 2008 at 7:17 am
Shall we do another challenge this month? I found the group aspect motivating. As the no junk month was hard what about ‘take away a bad habit and add a good one month?’
Like this month I’ll eliminate fast food from my diet and add one serve of yogurt every day. 28 days to build a habit. It could be done. What do you think?
February 2nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Sorry didn’t get to post earlier but here are my comments:
I think the JJFC was good in the sense that it helped me curb a bad habit I had started–eating sweets and craving dessert again with every meal. Towards the end I did have some sweets but I felt they were more controlled and a treat. I think the aspect of “someone’s watching” always keeps me in check and accountable.
I did notice, though, that in the beginning I gravitated to the salty stuff which wasn’t always a good thing. But, I did substitute sweets for fruits and flavored hot teas too. Once I switched to drinking different types of flavored hot teas then I felt better because I was getting water in and wasn’t consuming the salt.
I do have to agree that completely saying “No” to junk/”bad” food is probably not the best thing to do. I did find myself wanting more sometimes but the “someone is watching” aspect kept me in check. I have been proud of sometimes just saying NO to a snack size candy bar when someone offers it. That just happend to me on Thursday night and I felt so proud.
I think I have gained back my control and the overflow of the holidays has passed me by. I have noticed that I am again losing weight so I don’t know if its that I am more back on plan or cutting those sweets really got my weight loss going. Very interesting… Maybe it’s both. Gotta see. For now, I’ll try to continue to substitite tea or fruits for the sweets but allow myself a sweet here and there. They do say that you should allow yourself one dessert a week…maybe I’ll try that???
Good job on sticking to Core!
February 2nd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
[…] posted her reflection on the January Junk Free Challenge (JJFC). So, I thought I would do the same. I really learned […]
February 5th, 2008 at 10:20 am
To be honest this month was just bad, bad, bad for me in so many ways that I quickly abandoned the challenge. Sorry to let you guys down!
However, I will be giving up red meat and all sweets for Lent. And this time, I’ll do it!
Thanks for hosting these challenges!