When it's Hard
It’s day 5 of the 2 Week Sugar Challenge. Which means…it’s no longer novel and exciting. Last night, it was even hard. It felt hard to make a decision to not eat dessert. I felt sorry for myself as my husband ate his Ben and Jerry’s.
It had me ponder why at times a change in diet can feel exiting and come with ease and at other times it feels hard and I feel robbed. Here is my take: when it feels easy it’s because the WHY is clear and the WHAT FOR is a good one. And I think that when it feels hard that may be because I have lost sight of the why and what for and the focus has landed on the “not feeling allowed”.
In knew this was coming. I knew at some point in the 2 Weeks I would miss my sugar and forget what this was all about. Which is why on my last sugar indulgence, the day before the start of the 2 Weeks, I kept a journal on how sugar and I did together. Here is what happened:
I ate an iced sugar cookie (a big one!) and I loved it.
5 minutes later: I feel almost dizzy, my mood is light, within a few minutes I am noticing the sweet taste on tongue becomes bitter, I feel thirsty.
15 minutes later: The joy from the sugar is gone, I am wishing I had not eaten it, I am wondering why I did, I feel lightheaded with a headache forming on my forehead.
30 minutes later: I feel tired, I decide to make a cup of coffee, I am craving something salty.
60 minutes later: I feel sort of sad, I want more sugar.
4 hours later: My appetite for “real food” (dinner) is low, it’s like my palate wants only intense or fatty flavors?
Ok, so there are enough reasons in there WHY I don’t really want sugar. Funny, this memory of the “pain” of the post sugar experience is not really enough to keep me from it. I have certainly noticed this pattern before (consuming sugar and then feeling crappy afterward), and I have continued to eat it every day up until this Challenge began. I need more to motivate this big change.
What is becoming clear is that the WHAT FOR has to be bigger than my cravings for sugar and bigger than the joy I associate with eating sugar. And this brings me back to the hypothesis of this experiment:
1. I noticed I was associating sugary sweets with getting a break and doing something sweet for me.
2. If I add in other ways of getting to relax and find other ways to treat myself, then perhaps my ties with sugar will lose their power and appeal.
The WHAT FOR is that I get to practice what it feels like to actually get a break and actually feel taken care of, so that I can stop abusing sugar to try to fill these desires. I GET TO actually relax, everyday if I choose, in this experiment. And when I think of it, that feels like a really fair trade. I can let go of the sugary distractions (the afternoon sweet and the evening dessert) if it is being traded for permission to go and get what it is I really want. I GET TO feel permission to read my novel after I put my daughter to bed and let the dishes sit in the sink for another half hour. I GET TO sit down and watch 10 minutes of Oprah to take a break from cleaning the floors. I GET TO step out for a quick walk between clients to window shop. That is the WHAT FOR, and that is even sweeter than sugar.
