Days of abstinence: 23
Days until surgery: 61
Weight: 165.0 pounds
I haven’t had a day off in
who knows how long but I haven’t had to work super long days this week. Long days, yes, but not ridiculous 14 hour
long days. That has helped a lot. That means I can get up at 4 and get my
workout in and still have time to eat a leisurely breakfast and blog for a few
minutes.
Mornings are my favorite
time of day. I like getting up early
when the world is still quiet and having at least a couple of hours to myself
before I go to work. Do I have to get up
at 4:00 in order to get in a workout and be at work at 7? No, I don’t.
I could get up at 5:00 and rush around and get it all done, but that is
not how I like to start my day. I look
at it this way, mornings are the only time of day that no one else can
influence. I wake up refreshed and in a
good mood and for that two and a half hours I can do whatever I want, before
work has had a chance to frustrate me or wear me out. I particularly like blogging first thing in
the morning because it has a way of straightening my thoughts out so that I can
have a successful and productive day.
I talked to someone about
my decision to never eat sugar again, yesterday. We were walking out of the office together
and he grabbed an Andes chocolate mint out of the candy bowl on his way out
the door and made a comment about getting his “fix” for the day. I said something about abstaining from sugar
and he took it to mean that I was on a diet.
I told him that I meant forever because I have an addiction to sugar and
we had a brief conversation about it. It
wasn’t a particularly deep or thought provoking conversation but it reinforced
this thought that I have been having lately which is that not eating sugar ever
again is not that big of a deal.
The funny thing is, if you
go back a few weeks in these blog posts it was a HUGE deal to contemplate the
idea that I could never eat sweets again.
Just a few weeks ago never eating sweet treats again seemed so
unreasonable. Now it seems so matter of
fact. I am stunned that this
transformation happened so quickly. I am
kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Will I wake up one day and head straight to the store for a candy bar
because I can’t take it anymore? Am I unknowingly going to eat something with
sugar in it after months or years of abstinence and have it trigger
uncontrollable cravings? Or now that I
have accepted the fact that I am an addict and sugar is just plain bad for me,
am I done with it forever?
Who knows how many more
decades I will live? I certainly don’t,
but I hope it is several. If I assume I
am going to live another 4, 5, or 6 decades, I am going to eat a lot of meals
between now and the day I die. I am not
going to cook all those meals, we all know that. It’s impossible. There will be moments, either because of work
or because we’re traveling or because we are socializing that I will eat food
that someone else prepares. There is no
doubt in my mind that, on occasion, there will be sugar in my food that I am
not aware of. But in spite of the fact
that I know that sugar or one of its substitutes, like maple syrup or honey, will
sneak into my food now and then; I know that I will never choose to eat sugar
or sweet treats ever again. I am done
with sweet treats, forever. No candy, no
cake, no cookies, no ice cream. I don’t
need it and I don’t want it. Done. Kapoot.
How do I feel about all
this? I can sum it up in three
words. I am relieved. This phrase just popped into my head, “I have
shaken the monkey off my back.” That is
exactly what it feels like. It feels
like this thing that was clinging onto me and burdening me and influencing me
in ways that I could not control is gone.
It’s not there, anymore. The
weirdest part about all this is now that I am free of this “monkey” I have a
hard time recalling why it was so difficult to shake it in the first
place. Why was it such a big deal? What is it about sugar? Why did I want to eat it every single day,
multiple times a day? Why was having a
candy bar in the afternoon so damn important to me that I was willing to eat
that candy in spite of everything else I was doing to keep myself healthy and
to try to lose/maintain my weight?
Quitting sugar is not a
panacea for losing/maintaining weight. I
know this. It is evident in the fact
that I have not lost much weight in the last couple of weeks, in spite of 23
days of abstinence. It is still possible
to eat too much, even if your diet is perfectly clean. There is such a thing as too much of a good
thing. Portion control is still
incredibly important. Exercise is still
incredibly important. Sleep is still
incredibly important. All of these
things and more influence my ability to get to and maintain my ideal
weight. It’s not just about the sugar,
but now that the sugar is gone, all of these other things are a little bit
easier to manage. Right this minute my
biggest hurdle to overcome is the stress caused by my job. But, really, the worst of it should be over
in a few weeks. I just need to focus and
get the job done.
By the way, I have been
able to exercise more this week, since my work days haven’t been too long. That makes me happy!!! Yeah!!
Ok – to quote Hud, “I gotta
go!”
Have a wonderful day!!
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