I gained about a pound yesterday. Given what I ate, and that I succumbed to grazing (again), I’m actually surprised I didn’t gain more. Once again, the culprit was sugar. Those chocolate-covered almonds are going to be the death of me. Because it’s Easter weekend, I thought I deserved some chocolate, and not only did I pick up the almonds, I got a bit of ice cream. Although the ice cream was just a few of those little Haagen-Dazs single-serve containers, that stuff is loaded with sugar (and, as a result, carbohydrates). Finally, I got hamburger buns for “cheeseburger weekend,” and rather than just limit myself to what I needed for yesterday’s burger, I had a couple more after being unable to resist the allure of a grilled cheese sandwich at two different times during the day.

Hamburger buns (and some other types of bread) have a surprising amount of sugar in them. The processed white flour they’re made of is quickly broken down in the body, causing a rush of glucose being dumped into the bloodstream, and that excess glucose is then consumed for energy rather than fat. Because I’ve decreased my sugar intake over the past four weeks (although not as much as I should have), the buns actually tasted sweet; I was tasting the sugar in them. Each bun contains 25 grams of carbohydrates, and over the course of the day, I had three of them, putting my carbohydrate intake over the “magic” 50 gram limit. For comparison, an apple has 25 grams of carbohydrates but is a much better choice because of its high fiber content, which would have resulted in a slower release of glucose into the bloodstream.

When I look back over the past four weeks, the glaringly obvious stumbling block has been my sugar intake. I’d planned to give up sugar (and flour) entirely for four months but slipped up once…and then slipped up a few more times. I’ll again invoke the analogy of addiction: I am a sugar addict, and I relapsed, so I have to recommit to avoiding sugar in the weeks to come. My weight loss over the past four weeks will end up being close to the goal of 20 pounds. While that’s obviously better than 10 or 15 pounds, it could have been 25 or 30 pounds had I been able to resist the intermittent sugar-laden indulgences.

Weight gain during the weekends has been a problem, and I’ve realized that’s been because I haven’t really had a solid plan for eating on Saturdays and Sundays. I tend to graze, which means I’m not fasting at all (even for part of the day), I eat too much (partly due to the grazing), and I make bad choices (like eating chocolate because it’s Easter weekend). But, ultimately, I’ve faltered most on the days during which I couldn’t resist sugar. I’ll do better in the coming month, and as a result, I expect to lose more weight than I did this month.