Monday, February 15, 2010

Sugar no More


A couple of weeks ago I totally OD'd on sugar, and no, not in a good way. I was at work, and was surrounded by sugar, and had an entire movie sized box of candy plus a couple of cookies and a handful of chocolate, by-my-self. I went to Bikram (way to hot to be comfortable) yoga that night with my friend and mostly laid on the floor in class, feeling the sugar coursing through my veins and wondering why I had, and had been, doing this to myself. I resolved that night to stop eating junkie sugar products (candy, baked goods, and other sweets) and to see how I felt about it after a week.

Days one and two were hard, there were the ever present bowls of candy and well meaning plates of baked goodies sprinkled through the office. I apparently see anything sugary and my brain instantly tells me to eat it, but once I identified the urge and resisted a few dozen times, I found that if I think about it - I can control myself. Duh, but when you don't actually evaluate and run on autopilot when it comes to this - it's easy to eat handfuls of this stuff without even registering it.

After week one, my impulses were controllable again, and walking away from sugar temptations were pretty easy. I was also surprised how much sugar has influenced my energy, emotions, and mood the past few months. Instead of feeling exhausted all the time and commenting several times a day that all I really wanted to do was sleep, I slept better at night, woke up rested and made it through the day with some energy to spare. I still had moments of stress, but instead of diving into a candy bowl to avoid it, took a deep breath or two and worked on addressing it in a positive way. And instead of getting frustrated or cranky when things didn't go as planned at home (like dinnertime), I learned to joke about it and move on. This low to no sugar eating is a habit I am planning on continuing as it has made my life better in so many unexpected ways. Goodbye sugary drugs, welcome back to the real Summer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is truly amazing what your body will tell you if you let yourself listen. Glad you shared the news.

xoxo