Sugar Is Some Crazy Stuff

It's the morning after Halloween and I started my day feeling completely spaced out and with a stomach ache.  The culprit? Too much sampling from the treat bowl.  For the first year, we actually bought enough candy for the masses of trick or treaters that descend on our neighborhood.  Which meant I sat down to watch a scary movie* with Jason with a few mini Butterfingers to keep me company.  This is in addition to the few I had eaten while handing out candy.

Then I woke up feeling awful.  This is why I don't eat candy that often.

*Paranormal Activity 3.  Not as good as 1 or 2, in my opinion, but still plenty creepy.

Speaking of candy, I made an interesting observation while we were in Ireland last week.  (Yes, we went to Ireland!  It was fantastic and I'll be writing travelogues shortly.)  Every time we made a pit stop I would grab a new English candy bar for us to try.  Jason and I each had our favorites, but I observed that I was infinitely more satiated by the good quality chocolate.  Everyone talks about how dark chocolate is more satisfying generally, which I've found to be true, but even the milk chocolate was better.  I could eat half a candy bar and think, "That's plenty for now. I'll just put the rest away for later."  Right this moment I have half a Wispa Gold still sitting in my carry-on bag. 

It's not that it's not tasty, because it is, and downing all of that American chocolate last night just reminded me how much better the non-waxy English stuff tastes.  But just a few bites of some high quality chocolate, and I'm good for awhile.  It's similar to eating empty, processed foods and being hungry a half hour later, versus eating good whole foods and being satiated for a long time.

You know what else is satiating?  Irish breakfasts.  Bacon, sausage, eggs, mushrooms, beans, toast, fruit, puddings.  I didn't care for the beans (pinto beans in tomato-y sauce, meh) and would just have a little toast and fruit.  Usually my breakfasts consisted of bacon, mushrooms and a small slice of brown soda bread with butter.  All of that protein and fat kept me full all day long as we tramped around Ireland.  We would have breakfast at 7 or 8 AM, half a candy bar and a cookie around 1 or 2 PM, then eat a nice dinner around 7 or 8 PM.  In the meantime we hiked up hills and wandered around ruins and averaged about 20,000 steps per day.  And I was full all day long.  Fantastic!