10/4/2015: Is This a Big Deal?

Days of abstinence: 11

Days until surgery: 73

Weight:  165.8 pounds

I do not eat sweet treats.  I don’t eat sugar or sugar substitutes.  I have determined that eating foods with added sugars in them is bad for my health, therefore I have made the decision to never eat them again.  Is this a big deal?  If it is a big deal, why is it?  It doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal.  Who really cares, anyway, if I eat sugar or don’t eat sugar?  Anyone?  This decision impacts no one but me.

And Jack.

It impacts everyone else that cares about me only in the fact that (I believe) I will live a longer and healthier life and if someone cares about me then that should be a good thing.  Right? 

The internet is an amazing tool.  I just googled “why is it hard for people to give up sugar” and got tons of hits.  All but one said the same thing, “I gave up sugar, had a difficult withdrawal period, and now I feel better than I have ever felt in my life.”  There were countless studies, mostly from the UK and Australia, sited that discussed the negative impact sugar has on our health.  There was one article, one lone article, that said all this talk about sugar being bad for you is poppy cock.  It’s not sugar that is bad for you it is overconsuming calories that is bad for you, and sugar is just calories, after all.  That theory seems to be getting totally debunked these days.

So why does it feel like a big deal to say, “I don’t eat sugar.”  There really is only one answer.  It’s because sugar has been my go-to fix.  When I’m feeling “used and abused” I turn to sugar to comfort me.  Keep in mind I am neither used nor abused and I know that.  I have a comfortable, safe life.  I am loved and I love.  I have a nice home, a good job, a loving husband, two cars in the driveway, and a cupboard full of food.  I have a supportive family, with siblings, grown children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, cousins, a parent, an aunt (I’m getting old, that generation is getting small), etc. who love me and care about me.  I am most definitely not “used and abused.”  But sometimes I feel that way.  Sometimes I spend too many hours at work or I take on too many projects and I start to feel ragged and worn out.  If I’ve had a particularly hard day or even if I get really bored, sugar has been my go-to pick-me-up.  For whatever reasons, when I sit down on the couch at the end of a long, difficult day and eat a bowl of ice cream, it’s comforting.  Just for a moment, it’s comforting.  That feeling doesn’t last long, but there, for a minute, while I am eating it, I feel sublime.  The feeling is fleeting.  It does not last long.  But it is a powerful moment.  For that moment, while I am eating that ice cream, it is all I think about.  It is an escape from the world.  I am sure it is exactly why an alcoholic drinks, or a drug addict pops a pill, or a gambling addict walks in a casino; it’s an escape.  For a moment, the world falls away and nothing else matters.

I just had an interesting moment when I wrote the words, “The world falls away and nothing else matters.”  A moment that made me anxious and caused me to get up from the computer and heat up my coffee and think about what it means, if anything.  Perhaps it means nothing.  Sometimes my thoughts are ridiculous and this may be one of them.  But those words, “The world falls away and nothing else matters,” implies that for a moment, I have totally isolated myself from everyone and everything.  For a moment, I am completely and totally alone, and that is a good thing.  The funny thing about this is that I don’t think it is a good thing to be completely and totally alone.  In fact, I think the opposite is true.  I think being actively engaged in a community is key to being mentally and physically healthy, particularly as I get older.  The truth is, outside of work and my relationship with Jack, I find it difficult to be actively engaged in a community.  It is something I really have to work at, and do work at, but I often feel like I am not working at it hard enough.   Huh.  I’ll have to think about this.

Anyway, here we are.  I’ve been completely sugar (and all crap food, for that matter) free for 11 days.  I am no longer having cravings for sugar.  There is no reason in the world why I should ever eat sugar again.  It’s completely unnecessary, and really, it’s not that hard.  As I’ve said before, I don’t cook with it anyway and I do cook all my own meals.  My love affair with sugar has come to an end.  It’s that simple. 

The one person this impacts the most, aside from me, is Jack.  I don’t talk about Jack in this blog much, mostly out of respect for his privacy.  But Jack and I are a team and it is impossible to tackle this subject without dragging him into it a little bit.  Jack appreciates the fact that I am an excellent cook and he appreciates the fact that the food I prepare for him is very healthy.  He is much healthier now than he was when we got married almost 7 years ago and he knows it is because his diet has improved so much.  He is also a key partner in keeping healthy food in the house.  I don’t like grocery shopping, at all.  I wouldn’t care if I never went in a grocery store again.  Jack does all of our grocery shopping.  He’ll go to multiple stores to get exactly the ingredients I want.  If I am cooking and don’t have something in the house he will stop what he is doing and go get it for me.  Yes, I do all of the cooking, but the fact that Jack does the shopping is huge.  It makes maintaining our healthy eating regimen so much easier for me.  Also, if I ask him to, he will help me cook.  Occasionally, rarely even, I will be really pressed for time and I will ask for his help.  But mostly, I cook and Jack and I both like it that way.

But, and there is a but, Jack likes his sweet treats.  He seems to be struggling a little bit with the concept of me being a sugar addict and abstaining from sugar for the rest of my life.  Jack has participated in numerous food programs with me.  For the first six months or so that we were married I only prepared vegan foods.  He was OK with that.  Then it was vegetarian for a while.  I eventually added poultry and fish.  We now include pasture raised beef and pork in our diet.  When I decided to give up all wheat, he went along for that ride.  Then when I decided to do the Whole 30, he participated in that.  He’s been more than supportive, he’s actively participated in my various food program experiments because he has come to realize how much a healthy diet has improved his quality of life.  He recognizes, as do I, that the Whole 30 food program is the program that makes him feel and look his best.  Ever since we’ve been married he has fully participated in and not minded my various attempts at providing us with an optimal diet.  But when I came home after my first therapy session and said that I may be coming to terms with the fact that I am a sugar addict and, therefore, I may be coming to terms with the fact that I will never eat sugar again, he flinched.  He visibly flinched.  He does not like this idea.

I have thought about this a little but not a lot.  Mostly I have been inside my own head and I’ve been trying to figure out how I feel about this.  But this thing with Jack is nagging at me.  He and I have to come to terms with this.  I have told him that it is my choice to not eat sweet treats, not his.  I am not going to ask him to give them up.  I am not even going to ask him to keep them out of the house.  I am not going to ask him not to eat them in front of me.  I acknowledged that I may have a weak moment now and then, and in those moments I might ask him to keep his treats away from me, but for the most part, I don’t think his treats being in the house will bother me.  Once I’ve made up my mind that this is forever, I’ve made up my mind.  Yet he still seems uncomfortable with my decision to abstain from sweets forever.  Is it because he is afraid that I will never bake cookies for him again?  He really likes my cookies.  I don’t know.  He and I will have to talk this through and figure it out.  I know that we will.  That’s what being in a partnership is all about, after all.

Now that I have had several days to process the concept that I am a sugar addict and all of its implications, I have had to conclude that never eating a sweet treat again is not that big of a deal.  So what?  What is sugar anyway?  It’s just sugar.  It’s just this thing that wreaks havoc in my body.  It has a huge allure, I am not denying that.  But I don’t need it and I most certainly don’t want it, anymore.  I’m done with sugar, and that’s that.   I’ll never eat it again.  I’ll figure the rest out as it comes.

That’s it for today.  I have cooking to do, a couple of kick ball games to play, and a week to plan for.

Have a beautiful day!