Myself and sugar are on a break


know this is the kind of thing that makes people not want to eat lunch with you but I am currently on a break from sugar. It's been two months and I'm not sure If I'm ever going back, does that sound a bit mad? probably. Had you told me a year ago that I could a full day without sugar I'd never have believed you.

Before I cared about my health I was chocoholic and I ate so much sugar I'm pretty sure I was borderline diabetic. Not that I cared because Sugar was so damn delicious. Then suddenly I started to care and I made minor changes all the time until my diet became virtually unrecognizable from what it used to be and so did my body, you could say the lifestyle change came with its own rewards. Overall I was doing much better but chocolate was my achilles heel and I knew it. If I wasn't eating it I was often thinking about it or craving it and it's hard to be good when being bad is so damn delicious. I became pickier about what chocolate I'd eat meaning I was eating less but paying significantly more. Green and Black's (organic chocolate) have a lot to answer for. I was doing pretty okay until I started work in the Bookstore last May and re-familiarized myself with their Belgian chocolate counter and that was my downfall. Here I was regularly working out and eating clean as much as I could but then eating far too many of these Creamy milk chocolates and wondering why I wasn't making as much Progress as I should. I made all sorts of excuses even after I found out how bad they were, even after I realized they were the reason I felt a little ill ( all that butter and cream) but I kept going back for more and when I tried to resist I just found myself almost obsessing over them.
It eventually got to the point where I had to acknowledge this is getting seriously out of hand and put a stop to it.

Now you have to admit you have a problem with sugar/chocolate when you can't go cold turkey on it, even so I bought a pack of mini Green and Black bars and prepared myself to want them all but weirdly I didn't crave them and having them as back up meant I wasn't munching away in work. The only thing I noticed in the first week is I was hungry all the time, so so very hungry and I'd reach a point in the day where I just stopped being productive until I was fed again. Once I realized it was the sugar cravings I started eating dried fruit, which helped. I passed one week and it was okay and then two weeks in I found out my gym was running a lenten challenge which involved giving up sugar plus some other dietary vices for 40 days and I thought fuck it, I've already got the worst part over with and how bad could it be. ( I cut all and I mean all sugar from my diet)
That's when the real fun began. Did you know that if you are like me and eat emotionally that you might be using sugar to suppress emotions? okay well maybe you're super smart and did but did you also know that when you stop eating sugar that all of those emotions come to the surface. For about three weeks I was really really emotional, no Joke I was a mess. I found myself crying all the time over nothing and I was just all over the place. The best part is I had no idea what was going on because it took me ages before I even mentioned it to anyone else. It was like I had given up sugar and on a completely unrelated note I was also losing my mind.

It's been two months now, the 40 day challenge ended almost two weeks ago. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and for the first time since I can remember I won't be eating an Easter egg. By now the physical craving for sugar has gone and thanks to things like agave syrup and Booja booja icecream, magic mayan chocolate (they use coconut sugar) plus other healthy treats the health food industry has dreamed up, I'm not feeling overly deprived. More excitingly the horrible emotional roller-coaster I was on for the first few weeks seems to have ended and I'm back to normal. The only residue, of my old life filled with sugar, that remains is my emotional need for it. Every-time I get stressed or upset I find myself wanting it but these days I'm smart enough to recognize it for what it is. I think at this stage I'm worried is all it would take is one Easter egg to get me right back where I started so for now I'll abstain. Even if it seems extreme or completely bonkers.
Maybe one day I'll find where my self restraint went and sugar and I can try and work things out

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