Addicted To Sugar, Not To Love
Kristyn Meyer is on a journey to make herself the best human that she can be. These posts are a reflection of that. She welcomes your support via reading and through commissioned affiliate links within her posts! To stay up to date on all of her shenanigans, please subscribe to her email list! (psst…there’s a free gift involved)
Full Disclosure: I am writing this after having consumed seven cake pops today.
So about that sugar challenge! As you will recall, I made the brave and noble plan to forego the bulk of my sugar consumption for the month of February. You may also remember that I chose February because it was the shortest month and also that I wasn’t eliminating natural sugars, like fruit, milk, Biggby coffee, etc.
Just kidding on the Biggby. I found a workaround for that. Remember, this mom doesn’t settle for boring coffee.
I’m sure the fact that I am just now updating the world in regards to my February challenge on March 24th isn’t lost on anyone. You know that if I had a slam dunk of a February when it came to sugar intake, it would be known to everyone. My facebook status would reflect it, I would tell it to all of my friends, I would be posting pictures of cinnamon rolls on my Instagram story with the caption of: “Reunited and It Feels So Good!”, and there would likely even be a Coming Back to Sugar party invite floating around.
There is no party because I did not have a slam dunk challenge in February.
I’m still addicted to sugar.
For the first three weeks I did really well. I thought it would be horrible. I thought I would have bad headaches and go through an intense withdrawal process. With both pregnancies, I was given a diagnosis of gestational diabetes. When you have this diagnosis, it’s a quick and drastic change to your diet that happens, essentially overnight. Both times I have had migraine-category headaches for days following the change due to the reduction of sugar and carbs.
Maybe it was because I was still carb-ing it up, but I didn’t get headaches this time. And although I did have some cravings, they weren’t as bad as I thought. I think because at the beginning of the month I was all hyped up about making it through with no cheating, my mind trained itself not to think about the items I would typically crave. And I was tested. Oh boy, was I tested. My husband went to a Super Bowl Party and brought home leftover brownies. Let me tell you about these brownies. These brownies were thick. They were large in size. They had a consistency that wasn’t hard and wasn’t cake-like. You could tell by looking at it that it was fudgy. If there was a competition for brownies, and one of the components was aesthetics, this brownie would be one of the top placers.
Addicted To Sugar, Not To Love
And he didn’t bring home just one or two of these beauties. He brought an entire batch. One dozen of these challenge obstructing chocolate miracles. Great for a person that is addicted to sugar.
After I stopped yelling at him for trying to sabotage me, I thought about just throwing them in the trash can. If they are in the trash, I can’t eat them. Unless I get really desperate, and I hope I never find myself at that level. But I also thought that I could use this as a strength-based exercise. That sounds really technical – basically, I wanted to try exposure therapy with a brownie. See it there, know it’s there, but test my strength and willpower to say no to it.
And you know what? I won. The brownies did not get the best of me.
The chocolate cake at the work dinner a few weeks later did, however.
I’m Addicted To Sugar, Not To Love
In my defense, we are talking about chocolate ganache. I mean, seriously. It would have been a crime to pass it up. I did it for all of us, really.
In the first three weeks, I found healthy hacks for my food staples. My morning coffee got almond milk, or sugar-free syrup if I was using the fancy coffee machine at work.
This lead me to discover that you can get a grande hot mocha mocha with nonfat milk and sugar-free syrup. Try ordering that without forgetting anything. And surprisingly, it doesn’t taste like cardboard. I am quite happy with it.
After the first three weeks, things went downhill. I think in my mind I was getting a little bit cocky – telling myself that obviously, I was awesome, I completed three weeks! Sugar addiction? What sugar addiction? Addicts aren’t people who can go three weeks without a chocolate chip cookie. They can’t say no to gorgeous brownies. I’m clearly not one of those. I stared a brownie in its face and walked away. I’m in the clear.
Says the person who consumed seven cake pops today.
So then I tried to justify it. I went from counting a one-time occurrence as cheating to then telling myself that cheating more than once in one day still just counted as just one cheat. As long as it was within 24 hours, it was all looped in together. Like when you shop at Zulily and you pay for shipping, but then for 24 hours you get free shipping if you order anything else. The additional items just tack on to that original order. That’s how I saw sugar in my head. Well yes, I did eat a piece of candy earlier, but because we are still within the 24 hour time restriction, I can really just indulge as I wish until this time tomorrow. It’s all one and the same.
My friends, this was the beginning of the end.
I had this glorious plan originally, where on March 1st I would prepare a batch of warm and gooey chocolate chip cookies and enjoy them while basking in my February success. I did not end up going through with this plan because the full seven days before March 1st were consumed with sugary foods. Pretty much I just gave up for the last week.
So do I think it’s disappointing? Yeah, I do. I wish I had pushed myself through and committed to the whole time like I had intended. Do I think it was a wash? Not at all. I still came out with some new things that have stuck. I still use just almond milk and sugar-free syrup in my coffee. And I still get the really long Biggby order when I go. Those are changes that are definitely for the better that I don’t think I would have initiated if not for my challenge.
I also think there is probably a shorter name for the Biggby drink. Something like reduced calorie mocha mocha or skinny mocha mocha, but I kind of feel a little more important having a super specific coffee order. In my head, the people behind me in the drive-thru see me as some kind of coffee connoisseur – I envision them thinking that I must really know my way around an espresso machine and taking a mental note that they need to step up their own coffee game to be more like me.
In Reality…
They are probably more annoyed that I am taking longer to place my order by insisting on using the long description instead of the brief and succinct title given to it already. And I’m sure the baristas are rolling their eyes at my ignorance behind the speaker as well. With that, I will be dialing down my pompousness the next time I go Biggby-ing.
So all in all, I failed but I didn’t fail. I failed at not completing the task I set out for myself. But I didn’t fail because I still learned from the experience. And if you’re learning, can you ever really fail in the end? No, you can’t.
And with that, I will end this with two of my favorite quotes:
“Failures are a part of life. If you don’t fail, you will never learn. If you don’t learn, you will never change.” – Morgan Freeman
“I never lose. I either win or learn.” – Nelson Mandela
