Days of abstinence: 32
Days until surgery: 51
Weight: 164.0 pounds
My dad’s 80th birthday was yesterday. We had a big celebration earlier this summer
when the whole family gathered in Truckee, CA for a week (or less, depending on
how much time each family member could be there) of games, good meals, and
visiting. It was a great celebration in
a wonderful location. Yesterday, I
called my dad to wish him a happy birthday and we talked about our respective
Programs. Dad retired from the World
Bank when he was 55 years old. I can’t
even imagine retiring at 55, but he did retire at 55 and has been retired ever
since then. This is important because
prior to retiring he lived a very unhealthy lifestyle. He drank a lot, smoked even more, ate too
much and ate crappy food. He was a
weekend warrior on the tennis court, but didn’t exercise regularly. He traveled a lot, didn’t sleep regularly,
and had an erratic schedule. While
working for the bank he tried to quit smoking several times and was never
successful. When he retired (I like to
say it was the day he retired, but I am not sure that is true) he decided to
quit smoking for good, and he did just that.
I don’t think he has had a cigarette in 25 years, but that may not be
true. There may have been a cigarette
here and there in the early years of quitting, but I don’t know. What I do know is that Dad is now, and has been
for a very long time, a non-smoker. He
didn’t just change his smoking habit, though.
He changed his eating and drinking habits, as well. To be succinct, my dad is now a health
nut. It is mind blowing, actually, to
think about the complete reversal of his mindset with regards to his
health. The day he retired (or
thereabouts) he decided he wanted to live a healthy life and he started to
change his habits. Yesterday, we talked
about his sugar habit and how he has decided to be sugar free for the rest of
his life, except for special occasions.
My dad, at 80, is still working actively to improve his eating habits. I love it!!!
I am blogging about this conversation for a different reason,
though. I am talking about this
conversation right now because of a specific thing he said. It is not something I didn’t know, but it is something
that I need to be reminded of consistently.
The decision to change one’s habits is very personal. He knows this because he tried to change someone else's habits as well as his own, my mom's. That did not work out well. She truly resented any efforts he made to "make her healthier." It was not good for their relationship, at all.
Yesterday, we were talking specifically about my
decision to give up sugar and sugar substitutes for life. I am an addict, a sugar addict. There is no doubt in my mind that this is
true. Because I am an addict, I can
never eat sugar (in any form, natural or artificial) again. I don’t get to have cake on birthdays, candy
canes at Christmas, or pie on Thanksgiving.
I will never eat sugar again.
Sugar is bad for me because I am addicted to it and too much sugar is
unhealthy. There are a lot of people that
are not addicted to sugar. There are
people that can eat one cookie and be satisfied. There are a lot of people who truly enjoy
having one scoop of ice cream. I am not
here to say that those people should give up sugar. In fact, I am not here to say that anyone
should give up sugar. I am not here to
say that sugar is bad for anyone but me.
I can’t eat it. I won’t eat
it. And that is as far as it goes. It is unhealthy for me to eat sugar. I want to be healthy. Therefore, I will not eat sugar. These are intensely personal statements.
I recall a moment that happened 33 years ago very clearly. I was in college and had a roommate (and good
friend) named Teri. Her boyfriend gave
her a one pound box of Russel Stover chocolates. When I saw her box of chocolates I thought about
how much I would enjoy eating them. All
of them. I was very poor back then and
there is no way I would ever buy such an expensive (they seemed expensive back
then) box of chocolates. Teri opened the
box, took out a chocolate, looked at it, took a bite of it and put the other
half back in the box, put the lid on the box and then put the box of chocolates
in the refrigerator. I was stunned. First of all, it never occurred to me that
one of those chocolates was more than one bite.
Second of all, I never could have conceived of just eating half of one
chocolate. I said, “Why did you put that
chocolate back in the box, didn’t you like it?”
She said, “Yes, it was great, I’ll eat the rest of it later.” To say the least, I was puzzled. Shocked even.
People do that? Eat half a
chocolate and save the rest for later?
Really? Seriously, and I mean
seriously, if I had been given that box of chocolates it would have been gone
by the end of the day. I would have had
3 or 4 pieces of candy without even thinking about it. Then for the rest of the day I would have
eaten one or two more, maybe 3, at a time, until they were gone. As long as there were chocolates left in that
box I would have thought about them. I
would have fought the desire to eat chocolates all day, eventually lost that fight, and
consumed every last one of them. I have no
idea how long it took Teri to eat that box of chocolates, but they lived in our
refrigerator for a long, long time. Who
knows, she may have ended up throwing out some of them. I thought Teri’s response to those chocolates
was strange. I couldn’t believe anyone
wouldn’t just eat them until they were gone.
I go back to that moment and realize that I have been a sugar addict for
a long, long time.
I have tried to moderate my habit.
For the last several years I have justified eating very dark chocolate (organic,
85% cacao) because I’ve read articles that say it is good for you. Of course, the articles say one or two
squares a day are good for you, and I’d eat a “serving” as it was defined on the bar, which was 12
squares (or maybe 9, I don’t quite remember).
A lot of times after having a “serving” I’d have one or three squares
more. Most of the time I could satisfy
myself with one “serving,” though. I
keep putting serving in quotes because when I think about it, I think it is
kind of funny to define a serving of chocolate.
What is a serving, anyway? Some
stranger somewhere says that this much is a serving. It’s kind of weird. While losing weight, I counted calories and
I allowed sweet treats to be part of my daily calories. I knew exactly how many calories were in a
tootsie pop, or two. Usually two. By counting calories, I forced myself to
limit how much sugar I ate, but I was craving it, often. Eventually, trying to moderate my sugar habit
was my downfall. Day by day, week by
week, more and more sweets crept back into my diet. I’d sneak a little ice cream into my morning
coffee. I’d have a candy bar, usually
two, around two o’clock in the afternoon.
I’d have a dish of ice cream in the evening, an hour or two after
dinner. The cravings would usually hit a
couple hours after meal time.
This morning I looked at my weight graph on My Fitness Pal. I’ve been tracking my weight, off and on,
since 10/15/2011, so I was entering this morning’s weight of 164 pounds. On October 15, 2011, I weighed 228
pounds. On January 10, 2013, I weighed
150 pounds. The next time I entered my
weight into My Fitness Pal was August 5, 2013 and I weighed 156 pounds,
obviously I was trying to lose weight again at that time, because I
consistently recorded my weight until October 16, 2013. On that day I weighed 152.2 pounds. I almost got back to 150! I didn’t record my weight again until April
15th, 2014, when I weighed 165.6.
Oops! That was a 13.4 pound
weight gain over a 6 month period. That
sucks! I recorded my weight for a few
days, then nothing until December 6, 2014.
On that day I weighed 173.6 pounds.
Crap. There’s another 8
pounds. Just like that, in less than two
months I gained another 8 pounds. And
then, yes, by January 15, 2015, I was up to 179.4 pounds. Oh-My-God!
That is when I finally put on the brakes. That is when I realized that this slide was
completely out of control and I had to do something, now! There was no way that scale was going to
creep into the 180’s again. Not then,
not now, not ever. I started counting
calories and exercising more. Shortly
after that we went to Larry and Luz’s for dinner and Luz introduced me to the
Whole30. I started the Whole30 on
February 11th, 2015. On that day I weighed 171.4 pounds. Thirty days later I weighed 162.8 pounds. By July 4th I was to my lowest
weight of the 2015 summer, which was 156.4 pounds and I was feeling great. It was shortly before this that I decided to
have my surgery. I felt so good and so
strong and I knew that I wanted this extra skin gone, forever. It was about mid-July that everything went nuts
at work and I started responding to the stress by eating sweets. The next time I entered my weight into My
Fitness Pal was on August 31st and I weighed 169.4 pounds. There it is.
In less than two months I gained 13 pounds. It is so easy for me to overconsume food,
particularly sweets. I weigh myself
every day. I know what’s happening. I see my weight creeping up. And I eat sugar anyway.
Ugh. I didn’t expect this
post to go in this direction. What I
wanted to say is that not eating sugar is a personal decision. This is about me and about the fact that I am
an addict. Jackie can eat whatever he
wants. I’ll be honest, I don’t want
sugar to be part of his everyday diet, but I don’t care if he eats cake or
cookies or candy every now and then. I’ll
bake him cookies for Christmas, even. Jack
is not an addict, I am. I know that
sometimes when I blog it sounds like I’m on a “no sugar for humanity”
soapbox. That is not what this is
about. I blog because it helps me stay
focused on what I need to do to be healthy.
That’s it, plain and simple. I
sincerely appreciate you for listening.
Now, I’ve gotta run. I need
to cook our meals for the week and then spend the rest of the day at work. No kickball for me today.
Have a beautiful day.
