Defeat and victory in 24 hours

I decided to give up sugar about a week ago. I read Sugar Busters and decided that even though I may not neccessarily have an addiction, sugar definitely plays a negative role in my life. I have to admit that I was inspired by Jenny McCarthy who is writing a blog on Oprah.com about quitting sugar. I have so many reasons for quitting sugar- lack of energy, family history of diabetes and heart disease, losing weight. Losing weight brings up a whole second list of reasons. I want to lose weight and get into shape because I want to be able to do things with my kids- ski, white water raft, bike rides, go to a water park without being embarassed.
I began my quest against sugar on Monday. It was pretty easy the first few days. I was so excited and had a bunch of new recipes to try. It was going to be fun. Over the last few days, I've run into a few temptations, today has been the worst. I took Fisher to the Farmer's Market today and there were so many goodies there. Since it is so early in the season, the fresh produce was lacking but there were tons of breads, fresh homemade tortilla chips, refined white flour everywhere! My biggest mistake was going there at lunch time without first eating lunch. Fisher, of course, spotted the popcorn right away and couldn't stop talking about it. I decided that would be the perfect treat to tide us over until we got home for lunch. Once I tasted it, I knew it had sugar- it was delicious! I asked the guy what was on the popcorn and he said it was sprinkled lightly with sugar and salt. So, my first big screw-up. As the Sugar Buster's lady said, sugar makes you want to come back for more and I was no exception to this. I snagged a couple more pieces from my son. I guess that overall, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I guess it's what that mistake represents. On the other hand, I didn't go nuts and eat handfuls of popcorn. So, I guess in a way, I should be proud of myself.
Then, this evening, we were all starving and all of our dinner plans were falling through. We decided to go out to dinner... yikes! I made the decision to go to Sweet Tomatoes, thinking that with all that fresh produce, I couldn't go wrong. Well, I was definitely wrong. There was temptation everywhere. There were strawberry buttermilk muffins, cranberry orange muffins, strawberry apple cobbler, pizza, ice cream... I didn't think I was going to get out of there without making a big mistake. I thought that surely, walking by all these wonderful baked goods without picking any up must burn an enormous amount of calories. Long story short, I ate fruit for dessert and I'm incredibly proud of myself. I guess it's the small every day battles that make the difference. And that is my lesson for today.