Yesterday morning I woke with a mild headache behind my right eye. It didn’t go away after a couple of cups of coffee and breakfast, so I took one Advil and that seemed to help. I did check in with the 21-Day Detox Facebook page, which is an AWESOME resource – they have qualified people who will answer your questions and keep you on track. They confirmed that I am probably still having withdrawal symptoms, and that sometimes those symptoms do appear later with people who were already eating fairly well before they started this program. (Here is an affiliate link to the program I’m doing.)

I’m still not feeling 100% myself, and my husband is really struggling. I think this is the point that a lot of people give in and start sneaking some sugar, but this is where I am DETERMINED to keep going. I have come this far, I am not going to waste it all just to give up now. I think people naturally think that they don’t feel good eating this way and it’s not good for them and they NEED carbs, but in reality, it’s just a matter of getting over the hump.

The theory is, our bodies were designed to run on fat, to be a fat burning machine, in which case you don’t have the ups and downs caused by regular sugar consumption and you can go longer without eating and will be on a more even keel mentally, emotionally and physically. But you have to retrain your body because due to our SAD (Standard American Diet) we have trained our bodies to run on sugar. The point of doing a detox like this is to change your body from a sugar burning machine to a fat burning machine.

Mark Sisson has a lot more about that on his site, Mark’s Daily Apple. In fact, this is how I plan to eat when I’m done with The 21-Day Sugar Detox. I’ve loved his site for years, and I have used it as a resource since I started paying attention to my health several years ago. I’ve WANTED to do the primal/paleo thing and never could seem to get 100% on the bandwagon. Now I’m ready to go all in.

So back to my recap. Yesterday, as I said, I had my regular coffee with cream. Then before I had a chance to get shaky, I reheated some of the bacon & cheese egg cups I made on Sunday. I ate 3. I knew I should have some veggies with it, but didn’t have anything already cooked to reheat so I went without. I felt satisfied.

At 11AM, I was packing to go to the pool with the kids and knew I would have nothing to eat there so I quickly heated up a hotdog (we buy Applegate Farms b/c they use a natural source of nitrates) and ate that, dipped in mustard. I brought water with me and sipped on that while I was at the pool.

When I got home, a box had arrived on my doorstep – these YAWP! Bars. A friend had recommended them and said they are allowed on Whole30 so also on my 21-Day Detox program so I had ordered a whole box of them.

I dug right in, and I was so excited. They taste great, not really sweet at all, but definitely sweet enough, and they just hit the spot. I’ve had nothing like this in 7 days and I’ve always enjoyed Larabars and KIND bars and the like.

I immediately posted them to Facebook and Instagram and was feeling so pleased with my new find, but it was only 30 minutes later that I started feeling sick, weak, and flu-like. I have heard that you can get flu-like symptoms when your body is detoxing from sugar, so I started to think this was all part of the process, and wow, I sure AM having late withdrawal symptoms, this is his how I expected to feel the first few days on this plan.

THEN my stomach started cramping as it does when I eat foods that aggravate it. AND THEN I KNEW IT WAS THE BARS. My stomach cramped on and off for an hour or two – just the way it does when I eat avocado or drink milk. Well, when I drink milk it is much worse, but a similar type of sensation.

I just had to let it pass. There’s nothing else I know to do when this happens. I really wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep but I had two posts to write and kids to take care of and dinner to prepare so I kept going. I did make myself a mug of my favorite Yogi Kombucha Green Tea and that seemed to help a bit.

After that, I felt pretty low-energy for the rest of the evening, which is typical after I get a reaction like that. I’m so bummed, though, mainly because I really like those bars and was looking forward to having something like that in my pantry. Oh, well, such is my life.

Dinner was these chicken zucchini poppers (very yummy!) and a salad. I had an espresso at 7:30 while I was hanging out with my family, and it seemed like a decadent treat! Amazingly, it didn’t keep me up all night either.

I slept well and woke at 6:15 raring to go! So that’s where I am now. If you’re just catching up, you can find all my 21-Day Sugar Detox recaps here.