Well, as I wrote about last week, I’ve taken on a challenge for January

It has been one full week at this point, and i’m happy to say that I am still alive! I’m not sure how I haven’t completely crumbled to pieces yet without sweets, but somehow I am still here. I’ve had a few brutal struggles, however.

The first thing I did on day one was to go around the kitchen and pack up all the sweets in the house. I ransacked the pantry, the baking cupboard, and the fridge. For the refrigerated items, I buried them all in the very back of the fridge, as hidden as possible.

The pantry and baking cupboard items got loaded up into a crate and put in a storage closet for the month. You might think that the baking stuff doesn’t pose a threat, but I looooove eating chocolate/peanut butter/salted caramel chips. The peanut butter chips especially. I usually only have 5-10 a day as a little taste, but over time they disappear and leave my wife completely confused as to how we ran out!

So now with everything locked away, day one was a resounding success, especially as I was still full from my New Year’s Eve sweets.

At work this week, things were a little bit harder.

• Blackberry cheesecakes.
• 200 cream puffs.
• Silk chocolate squares.
• 250 Sticky Toffee Pudding.
• 4 different kinds of ice cream, including a favourite of mine – Cookies and Cream.

Everywhere I went, all day long, I was surrounded by goodies. I was doing a lot of baking this week, and I couldn’t taste anything. The cheesecake nearly broke me. I love graham cracker crust, and you better believe I “sample” the leftover crumbs after I get everything mixed together and in the baking pan. But not this time!

Normally, I would have had very small tastes of these things. So small that it wouldn’t have greatly impacted my daily calories, but it definitely keeps my sweet tooth active.

My highlight of the week was when we went over to my wife’s parent’s house for dinner and my mother-in-law made a wonderful sugar free dessert. It was roasted mango with ginger and coconut, which was absolutely fantastic.

As far as being vegetarian goes, I haven’t really noticed the lack of meat in my life, except for one specific day at work when we were making butter chicken and sweet & sour pork. Two dishes that I absolutely love. I went out of my way to make sure I got a little bit of the butter chicken sauce before there was any meat in it, and that helped, because that’s mostly what I was craving. I was slightly annoyed at the added effort needed to make sure I was sticking to the vegetarian diet, but I’m glad that I made that effort. The specific pork product that we buy for the second dish, however, is absolutely one of my favourite foods. I definitely missed that a lot, and imagined the taste of it as I looked at it.

Sounds rather woeful, doesn’t it?

So, I am definitely struggling here and there, but I feel it getting easier. Thankfully, I have already worked on my self control over the past few years, and that helps. I’m not going to update every week during this challenge, but I wanted to make sure I document the first week and let everyone know that despite my successes in general, I still struggle with cravings just like anyone else.