Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie

Not eating added sugar is not as hard as I thought it would be.

• Day one: Rough.
• Day two: One mammoth, splitting, day-long headache.
• The rest of the week: No problem.

I even went out of town to a friend’s surprise birthday party, where I was faced with almond cake with buttercream frosting and molten-lava chocolate brownies with vanilla ice cream. But it didn’t faze me.

Do I chalk this up to ironclad willpower? Of course not. I’d never turned down buttercream frosting. Ever. In. My. Life.

The shocking part of this No (Added) Sugar Challenge is that my cravings disappeared in a matter of days. I still have a Pavlovian response to the end of mealtime: “Bing!” the bell in my head rings. “Time for something sweet!” But I eat fruit, and the feeling passes. The natural sweetness of foods is, for now, pretty satisfying.

This Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie has become one of my favorites:

If you are taking the No (Added) Sugar Challenge, how is it going for you? I’d love to hear about it!