Quick Sugar Update

I’m off to Bangor for a library meeting today, so I don’t have much in the way of time. I did want to stop by briefly to give you all a quick update on my new goal to cut sugar out of my diet. I’ve got a couple days down now, and I was really surprised by how difficult it’s been. Even during my dieting days, I still would put sugar on things, and ice cream at the end of the day was always my reward to myself. I’d eat sparingly so that I’d be able to indulge in ice cream.

With this approach, I eat as much as I want–just nothing with sugar in it or on it. And when I was thinking the goal through ahead of time, I thought it would be difficult, but it’s proved more than I anticipated.

Right off the bat, there was a cupcake at work. An innocent, friendly little cupcake. The last one, even. So it was the ugliest one. It had been upside down and gotten smushed, and there it sat, right in front of me at the reference desk for over an hour. Wanting to be eaten. It was giving me the puppy dog look. Eat me, Bryce.

And I didn’t.

Then at home, there they were on top of the fridge: the peanut butter cookies I made earlier this week. My favorite. Waiting to be taken out and eaten, each time I went to get something out of the fridge.

And I didn’t eat them.

Television in the evening wasn’t the same without my ice cream. Some of this is no doubt because I’m focusing on it consciously. But then again, I’ve done the diet routine plenty of times. I know dieting, and this feels different. I read some things online about sugar addiction and sugar withdrawal. I’m not willing to go saying this is on that level, but it does feel unique.

As a Mormon, we have a monthly fast–a day once per month when we’re supposed to go without food or drink. I do it pretty regularly, but this no sugar thing has made me realize something. Going without food is something I do all the time, whether it’s for a diet or because I just forget to eat now and then. Fasting, then, isn’t all that different from what I normally do. Going without sugar? A whole different level.

Today at the library meeting? There’s going to be cookies. Maybe even donuts. Sitting there. Waiting. Through the whole meeting.

Wish me luck.