Lead me not into temptation

Is it possible to stay completely away from Easter candy? Does anyone manage to do it?

Filling up the baskets on Saturday, Paul and I sampled.
And then Sunday, I tucked into the Swedish fish pretty liberally.
I'll say, it wasn't the usual Stuff-Your-Face-Until-You're-So-Full-You-Don't-Sleep-Well fest that most holidays have been in my past. For that, I'm grateful.

The troubling thing is, even with Eloise sneaking into her jellybean-filled eggs every time I turn my back (yes, I finally put them out of her reach, much to her chagrin), we have loads of candy lurking around. And I was very conservative, compared to past holidays, with my candy purchases this year. I concentrated much more on things like books, and for the most part, left the chocolate gifts on the shelves.

In years past, I would be typing right now with one hand, while furiously unwrapping as many leftover foil-wrapped chocolate eggs as I could manage with the other. But Easter Monday came and went with not so much as a jellybean crossing my lips. What could have caused such a reversal around here?

Not to toot my own horn (although we are eating a ton of beans lately . . . ba-dum-bump!), but I think my resistance to the sugary stuff has been a direct result of my vegan eating over the past few weeks. I didn't feel as though I wanted sweets so much in the first place. Physically, I wasn't as lured by them as I usually am, and mentally, I didn't want to feel like crap. Plain and simple. I knew that if I loaded up on too much junk all day and then went to bed with a tummy full of sugar, I'd sleep horribly and wake up feeling tired and fairly disgusted with myself.

I'm pretty pleased with how this holiday turned out. This holiday and the lack of aftermath, that is. I'm not going to kid myself (or you) and make it seem like I suddenly have some sort of iron will, however. When I worked in the casino biz, we used to say that being in a casino is like robbing a bank -- the longer you're in there, the more likely you are to get busted (or go bust). I'm thinking it's the same idea with having junk in the house. The longer it's here, the more opportunities I have to indulge, no?

I should just throw it out, shouldn't I? Oof. That's a tough one for me. Perfectly good candy! What?! Isn't there a drop box for half-eaten tubs of Swedish fish and gumdrops?

I like to believe we can retrain our tastebuds so that sugar isn't so appealing. You know, like the people who taste a dessert and say, "Oh, that's too rich." (Who ARE those people?? Is it really possible to become one of them? Or do you have to be born that way?) In the same vein, I'm wondering if a body gets used to nutrient-rich foods, and when it's full of them, doesn't feel the need to keep reaching out for empty fuels. Kind of like "an object in motion tends to stay in motion" . . . a body fed good stuff tends to crave good stuff.

And that concludes the physics and philosophy portions of our discussion today. You all get A's. And I know that comes as a relief if you sweated through physics as badly as I did.

Back to the good stuff -- I came across this blog recently, so we kicked off our week with Banana-Date-Walnut Muffins and big bowls of fresh strawberries and bananas. Quite possibly better than Swedish fish!