Hi friends, and thanks for stopping by to read about how my sweet tooth is sabotaging my healthy lifestyle.
I admit it all the time around here. I’m a chocoholic. It’s really hard for me to walk past bakeries and candy shops.
When it comes to goodies – I suffer from FOMO.
Fear of missing out!
I might not ever see that sweet concoction again. I better buy it now and enjoy it. Who knows when I might run into one of these goodies again.
In July of 2018 my doctor ran some blood tests and the end result was I needed to get my blood sugar level down before crossing into diabetes territory. The best way to do that was to lose weight. Fear worked for me. I do not want to get diabetes. Fear is a great motivator for weight loss.
I’ve struggled with weight my entire adult life. I go on a diet and struggle to get down to a healthy weight. It really irks me people who can drop a couple of pounds a week or 10 pounds a month. My weight barely moves the scale. For months I can be at a plateau and then maybe I’ll lose half a pound. I work really hard to get to a weight I’m happy with and then my sweet tooth sabotages me. Little by little the pounds creep back.
Maintaining a healthier lifestyle
Every year on July 29 I do an update on maintaining a healthier lifestyle.
Click here to read last year’s installment: Year Five of Maintaining a Healthier Lifestyle
Staying healthy includes body, mind, and finances.
I don’t focus so much on the weight loss but talk about all areas in my life that keep my healthier lifestyle in balance. For me it’s living a simpler life.
When it comes to food this means portion control and eating healthy at least 80% of the time. I try to limit foods with salt, sugar, or deep fried. I’m doing a lot of housesitting and usually buy bagged salads, oatmeal, fresh fruit, yogurt, and bake granola bars to have on hand.
I also talked about falling off the wagon and trying not to beat myself up about it. Taking on Slattery’s Chocolate Challenge might not have been my smartest move.
Recent blood work
I’ve been down this road before. Sigh.
I had blood work done in March, 2025 and for the most part, not too bad. But once again the doctor is telling me the blood sugar level is getting up there and to cut back on sugar and carbs.
I wish he’d called before I went shopping that day! LOL! How did those cookies make it into my shopping cart?
My jeans feel a bit tight so I know I’ve put on weight. A combo of a few things. Sweet treats and colder months not walking as much. When I was in Europe I walked everywhere and for the most part the weather was decent enough that I could walk for miles. And I was in safe places to walk.
Where I’m staying right now it’s not a safe street to walk. I’m talking traffic, not crime. It means I have to drive to a neighborhood with sidewalks or go to a park with walking trails. And there’s been a ton of rain. Atmospheric river the weather forecasters call it. Flooding. Mud. Not ideal walking conditions.
I’ve been very good with my meals and cutting out snacks. My usual oatmeal for breakfast with Greek or Icelandic yogurt and a handful of walnuts. Lunch is usually a smoothie. Dinner is salad with a handful of pumpkin seeds and either fresh or frozen fruit. Mostly I drink water with a squirt of Crystal Lite Strawberry Lemonbabe.
No chocolates, no baked goods. Those cookies I bought? Still unopened.
After two weeks the scale barely budged. Down 1/4 pound. After 3 weeks, down one pound. I’m not alone. Thousands of people who’ve tried to lose weight and doing everything right – smaller portions, more exercise – get frustrated when the weight does not come off. Eating less and exercising more doesn’t work. So if it doesn’t work, might as well go back to overeating and quit exercising.
It’s such a vicious cycle. Willpower and sheer determination to shed pounds doesn’t always get results.
European food
Unless a person is going inside expensive restaurants, the cuisine across Europe is pretty much the same. Pizza, french fries, and sandwiches.
Yup. And I’m usually all about avoiding potatoes, pasta, and bread. I love them but my body doesn’t need them.
Those are your choices if you’re a budget traveller. Normally I can get to a grocery store and buy salad and yogurt, but sometimes I ended up in towns or countries on a Sunday and the shops are all closed. Yeah, I’m looking at you Spain and Austria!
Then there’s the old saying about when in Rome… How about, when in Belgium, one must eat a Belgian waffle at least once. Hmmm … the strawberries were healthy!
Below is a photo from Budapest, Hungary. Yeah I was hungry in Hungary! Ha ha! I walked past a sidewalk restaurant serving pasta and decided to eat here. Mediocre pasta. But there was just something empowering about sitting at an outside cafe eating mediocre pasta in Budapest.
Sweet stuff
Back to Belgium. The towns I visited, Bruges and Brussels, were packed with chocolate shops. I went in and out of many chocolate shops, very few offered samples of their wares. And for the most part I was very good and didn’t buy much, but I took a lot of photos!
Here’s my haul from Bruges. Surely I have to go into a store named Chocoholic and buy a little shopping bag for my purchases.
It’s June and it’s hot everywhere in Europe. Except for England. You’ve probably heard on the news for the past few years how Europe is having heatwaves. What tastes good on a hot day? Ice cream. When I was in Győr, Hungary, people were eating ice cream cones at 9am! Hmmm, not a bad idea having ice cream for breakfast.
Check out the video I put together of all the goodies I came across in Europe.
And I want to say these sweet treats were not a daily thing. I was eating healthy at least 80% of the time, but somehow had a weird obsession of taking photos of the goodies.
FOMO!
When am I going to be back in Linz, Austria enjoying a fruit and ice cream sundae on a sidewalk cafe? Probably never, but at least I kept it somewhat healthy by choosing fruit!
My fear of missing out has not surprisingly landed an extra 10 pounds on me and put my blood levels higher than what they should be.
I was eyeballing the M&M’s and reached my hand out. Then I said – what the hell are you doing? Save your money and save your blood sugar levels! I turned around and got out of that aisle.
Cheryl @ The Lifestyle Digs
Back to the basics
I’ve been here before nearly 7 years ago. I took off the weight and maintained it pretty well over the years. Spending time in Europe vacation should not have pushed me off track.
There’s other things too. When I was on Mayreau Island and London and other places in Europe, I walked a lot. Especially on Mayreau, I was up and down hills equalling at least 40 staircases daily. Mayreau was more like 100 flights of stairs, but that level of fitness has gone away.
As I previously mentioned, where I’m currently staying it’s not ideal for walking unless you want to take your chances on speeding traffic. So that means driving somewhere safe to walk, and if it’s raining, not walking at all.
That means using YouTube videos to exercise.
I’ve gone back to some of the videos I’ve mentioned in other posts. Check out Motivated by Fear: my Weight Loss Plan.
In the past I’ve exercised along with Walk at Home who does walking exercises equalling one mile. Lately, the video below is the one I’m doing.
Along with a couple of yoga videos for flat stomachs, I’m hoping to get back to my normal weight by the summer.
Then there’s the Horsewoman’s Guide to Slimming Down. Even if you don’t own a horse or ride regularly, there’s good advice here. And when you think about every time you see a woman riding a horse, she’s probably in pretty decent shape.
My sweet tooth is sabotaging my healthy lifestyle
Yes, I’d say for sure my battle is with my sweet tooth. I’ll also say in the past few months my lifestyle has become less active. That’s mainly due to colder climates and rain or snow. I don’t like to go outside in bad weather. And the other thing is when I became a nomad I downsized to a bare minimum wardrobe. The plan was to stay away from cold places! I had to buy a woollen beanie in Ontario for the winter.
I probably shouldn’t brag about where I bought it – at the Fudgery in Brockville, Ontario.
Yikes! Stay out of fudge shops!
Kind of ironic that Fat Les’s restaurant is next door. I was pretty good when I went inside the Fudgery. There was a couple of small pieces of fudge that had been cut for a previous customer and I bought them to help the staff neaten it up. And the beanie was on sale. I think it was $17 marked down to $8, and for a hand knitted hat, that’s pretty good! I was very pleased with my purchases. One of the fudge pieces was candy cane bark. Yummy! Like we need even more proof that my sweet tooth is sabotaging my healthy lifestyle.
Most of the places I’ve been housesitting have provided warm outwear for me to use. Even still, I’m not too keen on being outside in -20 weather or if it’s above freezing and a torrential rainstorm is happening.
So inclimate weather means back to the exercise videos, including the happy walk because it gets a little cardio in.
As the warm weather approaches most of the housesits I have lined up are with dogs. I should be able to get more walking in, and if I leave the goodies on the store shelves, I should be back where I belong. Hopefully by late July when I do my maintenance check in …
How about you? Does your sweet tooth sabotage you from leading a healthier lifestyle? Leave a comment below.
Thanks for stopping by to read my blog today. And you’re not alone if you have a sweet tooth sabotaging your plans for a healthier lifestyle.
xoxo
Published by Cheryl @ The Lifestyle Digs on April 2, 2025.
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