Thursday, March 4, 2010

16 Days Sober

It has been 16 days since my last confession - oops... sorry, knee jerk reaction, wrong beginning. Let's start over.

It has been 16 days since my last dealings with sugar. And let me tell you, internet, it feels like a mother fucking eternity. This ridiculous scheme of mine all started back in January when I read this post by Finslippy about how she gave up sugar and how wonderful it made her feel and blahblah. At the time I worked at my adorable bakery (hi guys!) and spent most weekends and evenings sitting in bed with/missing claire eating our candy spoils from walgreens (mwahah! CANDY SPOILS!). I ate cookies and juji fruit and dots and sour twizzlers and sour air heads and skor bars [drooling noises inserted here]. You get the idea. And sometimes I would eat pastries from the bakery or the occasional oreo cakester from the grocery store. (Don't look at me!! I'm too ashamed!) And I LOVED it. But it also kind of made me feel gross and could (was already?) get out of hand at times. We call those times "binges".. er.. whatever.

Anyways - so I read this great article and claire read this great article about one woman's war on sugar and I think ahead to Lent (the happiest, most self deprecating time of the year) and I'm all "that's my goal... no sugar... and ... brushing twice a day". Dude, sometimes I'm already in bed and I'm just too tired to make it to the sink, ok?

Now then, the rules for me are different than the rules for claire and I'm sure are different than the rules for Finslippy but basically no sugar to me means no candy, no sweets of any kind, no fruit drinks, no sugar pops or gum, nothing ridiculously sugary like really bad for you cereals or yogurt that is low cal but sugar filled, etc. It's cutting all of the gratuitous shit out and making me think a little harder about what I'm eating. I know, I know... I recently wrote this post about how I've given up on sketchy meat and you must be thinking "how could she possibly think any harder?" What can I say? I'm cerebral. Ha.

And then I was watching this documentary (I know! I said I wasn't going to do that anymore!) about obesity and some doctor on there said the effects refined sugar has on the brain are similar cocaine or heroine. The more you eat the more you need, your need continues to grow and grow and grow in order to satisfy yourself.

16 days people. I crave candy every single day. And not like the "oh, that sounds delicious", but like the "I know it will make me feel better, Oooh it will make me feel SO GOOD just to have some sour patch kids... I know it will... mmm just one, i only really need one." Yeah. Crack is an understatement.

But i've held strong. And here are the benefits for me: Teeth are less gritty, my stomach has less issues, I feel good about my decisions and I feel more in control, weight loss, and believe it or not - I swear to god my hair is thicker, less stringy and shinier. Who knew?

All I can think about right now is that on Easter I'm gonna have the biggest Keebler Egg I can find. We'll see what happens between then and now.

4 comments:

  1. I'm on day 5 of the same, ass-tastic no sugar program and yes! I totally feel better, skin looks better, blah blah, etc. But OMFG I would kill for a bag of Swedish Fish. I definitely feel better, I do. But man, sugar is my Achilles heel, for sure.

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  2. You know.... I think I'm done with the junk foods for good. Even after the 40 days I don't think I'll actually go back. :)

    The only thing I crave every now and then is bacon.

    Mmm bacon!

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  3. Hahahahaha love it!

    ps: broke down on my first day back on the new unit, toooo stressful....had about 15 mini brownies :) baad claire!!

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  4. I gave up chocolate and coffee for Lent. Just today, I realized that the pint of chocolate milk that I drink every day at lunch is actually chocolate. I'd done such a good job of resisting chocolate in candy and desserts but was consuming it in liquid form daily without noticing out of habit.

    I can't wait til Easter so I can drink all the coffee ever brewed.

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