After 5 days, I felt edgy, especially when I saw people eating certain sweets as they passed by me at an eatery. Even when I was not feeling in a deprived state, sweets and pastries had a lingering aroma that I could detect. The aroma got locked in my head. Like a bear looking for honey, I kept looking for my honey pot or a cookie pot. I wanted to alienate myself from all the lingering aromas and from the people who kept eating all the foods in front of me. I wanted to take a break from cutting off my loves. I wanted to scream for taking on such a huge task. I wanted to break my word to myself and say, “Quit.” However, I made a commitment to myself and I am determined to keep it. Just couple of more days, a full week in 2 more days.
Just wanting to give up, terminate this project now was the feeling that I kept getting every waking minute. I am not going to, I kept telling myself. However, it occurred to me that I want to be happy too going forward.
I did meet my goal of one week without added sugar, but my plan definitely needed revision. I needed to learn to work with having sugar in my life, not cutting it out entirely at this time.
What I learned from this short distress was that I felt if I were not eating sugar or did not have access to it, there was something missing. I felt I could not truly celebrate life; I could not join in on the fun. There was a little void. It crept up without my permission, and sometimes I went to philosophical ends like, “Isn’t one of the purpose of life is to enjoy what you eat?”
I tried again to slowly remove my favorite sugary foods, now allowing some room for mistakes. This time, I paid more attention to my lingering craving. The awful part of the craving would sometimes last minutes, but most times lasted hours. Truthfully, it lasted until I fed the relentless crave with exactly what I had in mind. If I desired for a chocolate chip cookie, and I settled for the most decadent ice cream, it would not be enough to satisfy the distinctive chocolate chip cookie crave. (You know the ice cream satisfies the tongue with something smooth and sweet and cold. The cookie satisfies the crave with a chewy gooey crunch). I can go to bed and wake up the next day and still have this gnawing to burning crave the next day.
I can be sitting on the bus or talking to people and this nice picture of round golden brown colored cookie with a chewy middle and cute dark brown chocolate chips all over would pop up when the intense crave hits. I can actually inhale the distinctive smell, the buttery sweet scent waiting to be bitten. My body just tortures me until I get that chunk of chip in my mouth. Not just a bite, but a whole scrumptious cookie, where the savory bits are sunken into your teeth, wrapped all around your tongue with a good satisfying swallow.
Acknowledging few of my failures with not being able to completely remove sugar, I tried to reduce my sugar intake by being aware of what I used sugar for. As it turned out, I started with sugar in the morning for coffee: 1 cup of black coffee with approximately 3 tablespoons or 9 teaspoons of sugar.
The math revealed that 1 teaspoon contains 4 grams of sugar. 9 teaspoons equates to 36 grams of sugar. Today, I had my coffee with 2 slices of 9 grain bread which contained 8 grams of sugar. Pairing with the toast, I drank a glass of store bought orange juice, which equaled 24 grams of sugar. The same day, I decided to have a pre-lunch cookie. This small cookie contained at 10 grams of sugar. If the cookie was any smaller, it would be about the size of a quarter. My lunch included 1 boiled egg and a sandwich, and some chips which equaled approximately 10 gram of sugar. This totaled 88 grams of sugar or 22 teaspoons full of sugar. Discouraged, I had gone for dinner and did not count my grams of sugar because I had already exceeded the recommended grams of sugar for the day.
To continue to part 7 Sugar experiments and curbing the sugar urges click here