On February 15th, 2016 at exactly midnight I am off sugar.

Not kissing "sugar"

Not LSD "sugar cubes"

Not cocaine "sugar"

Not "Sugar" by Maroon 5

But good old refined, processed, bleached, filtered, and added to everything

SUGAR

Joey RN - is a man with a vision to overthrow big sugar one stevia packet at a time. He has led "No Sugar" challenges and currently is doing one (he is on day 8214 or something). My friend and I, knowing Joey, decided to team up. At midnight on Feb 15, 2016, we will have no more sugar (the ingredient/maybe the song) for 10 days. And to add insult to injury I will hold my coffee too; cuz go big or go home, right? Not going to trade one drug for the other.

In the grand scheme of things, my home diet is healthy. Mostly none of the sugars listed above. My wife carefully curates a diet with organic, free-range, antibiotic-free, gluten-free, no colors, preservatives, or artificial anything meals. It tastes great most of the time and good the rest. Alas, I still sometimes miss the garbage I ate fresh out of high school - mint Oreos, "cheese" burgers, 2/$1 tacos, and case after case of Live Wire Mountain Dew. Thankfully all this and more can be had for free at the hospital where I work. Managers, co-workers, grateful patients, and family members lavish us with gifts.

Working at a hospital you would think we would care more about what we eat... or I guess because we work at a hospital we are closer to the services we will require when we eat what we do. And as a bonus, we will even know the people that care for us (may not be a bonus for some).

Since I work night shifts, it was perfect, I could ease into the no sugar thing; half a shift with cookies and the other bigger half without.

In the hours leading up to midnight, I found doughnuts, cakes, multiple varieties of cookies - pink ones, brown ones, green ones, normal colored ones, ones with icing, ones with sugar crystals in and on them, chocolate chip kind, M&M kind (you get the idea), sodas, all manner of shaped boxes filled with chocolates in all shapes, sizes, and fillings, and some layered jello dish/cake/thing someone brought (it was amazing!). It was Valentines' Day after all; the love was everywhere and I was sampling all of it right up to the wire with my last slice of jello heaven at 23:50.

And as the clock struck midnight and I no longer was permitted the sweet bliss of sugar - I braced for the fallout.

(Disclaimer: Joey - I signed up for the no sugar thing. I am still not sold on working at work with workouts; some other time... maybe)