Sugar-free Oztag

Tuesday, July 22

Day #1 of my completely sugar-free diet! I felt fitter & tighter already, just walking home with my $50 of new groceries to restock my cupboards. Not that I ever purchased anything without be conscious that the cereal or the yogurt or whatever it was (though that’s pretty much 50% of my diet right there) was the least amount of sugar possible compared to all others on the shelf, but I had been noticing my dependency on that little something sweet, and decided to make that small change. A small change of removing one ingredient from my diet, which I very quickly realized wandering those grocery store aisles is not actually a small change at all. Everything has sugar in it! I didn’t put it in my basket unless it had less than 1 gram of sugar. I won’t even restock my fruit supply once my remaining bananas and apples are done (these are the only things I let linger! Everything else was completely cleared from my cupboards & fridge shelf). It just feels good to be conscious of a change. You can train & monitor your eating habits, but unless you have a specific goal, it is so hard to keep it all modified. I’m excited! I’ve got 20 days until I hit the beaches of Thailand, and I’m excited to see what kind of visible difference cutting out this habit makes. It is going to be tough!! I have developed such a sweet tooth since being here. But they say it only takes 21 days to break a habit. I plan to beat that goal by 1 day!

Today was also (and more importantly, haha) the first day of Equal Playing Field at Warrawong High :) It went well! I’ve got 10 year 7s, 8 year 8s – it is fantastic to be in small numbers for once. And while some of my students for sure stand out over others, it is so much more manageable than anything else I’ve ever experienced in a classroom. I taught my kids in a circle outside in the sun. I loved that. We talked about equality and respectful, strong teams. I loved that too. They had fantastic responses for how a team is like a relationship, and how we should treat others in those relationships, and they demonstrated all of this through round 1 of our Oztag tourney. I loved that most. It’ll be an awesome next couple of months.

The 10 instructors grabbed lunch on the beach afterwards (courtesy of E.P.F., which I think is heaps generous), swapping first impressions and Australian novels (my first Aussie author! Tim Winton, I’m diving into his text Dirt Music now). That great company will continue this evening with a few drinks downtown.

… Does beer have sugar in it!?...