Week 1: Noticing - Final Day

Well well well, what a strange and flaky week it's been. 

But I just found this article by Deepak Chopra about how to quit sugar in 10 days. The book won't have arrived until way after I've grown a beard or two and tomorrow is the big day, so here goes. 

Here's to cold turkey, sugar-wise. 

• Here's to no more tea (because the milk and honey hit is just too much of a habit)
• Here's to cutting out white flour, dairy and anything else enraging for the system, just to help.
• Here's to drinking a pint of water, ringing a lovely friend or (thanks, Gemma, for the suggestion) self-pleasuring every time a craving come
• Here too is to lots of lovely vegetables, celery snacks, nuts by the fistful and foods that I know give me bliss, like avocados, cucumbers and peas.
• Here's to feeling zippier by far, having more energy and less dullness in myself. 
• Here's to being even more made of water than before - about bloody time. 

I have to confess, I am a little scared. OF what? Last time I made a change like this, it was huge, so I'm afraid of failing, yes, of course, and I'm a little bit afraid of what it might be like if I succeed. 

Fear is just fear. It has little to do with what will actually happen, or what will change. It's just what happens sometimes. 

 So bring it on, I say. We're doing this!

Week 1: Noticing - day 3

Yesterday was interesting. Honey in my tea was an all-day event. At lunch, I ate a ciabatta bought from the farmer's market. It was a delight. I had the first half as a sandwich and the second was smeared with nut butter. 

All of a sudden, my nut butter feast was covered in sweet marmalade. Entirely unconscious sugar feed. I hadn't had a conscious craving and I hadn't noticed myself putting marmalade on my bread. Well I had, but I hadn't made the obvious connection that marmalade is mostly sugar.

Last night, conversely, I had no cravings at all. I was at Spud Night for North Korea, a regular and truly lovely fundraiser in Tufnell Park. There are always cakes so good it makes you cry and meringues (one of the purest sugar hits there is, pudding-wise, and a personal favourite). I didn't crave one and I didn't want one, so I stuck with my potato and a couple of glasses of water. No hardship, no problem.

It happened again today, though, the unconscious sugar, with a squeege of brown sauce on my sausage. Slightly stealthier sugar than marmalade, admittedly, but again, it snuck in without my noticing. 

On the noticing front, I ate the cake I'd baked for my lovely cousin Ruth's birthday. It was obscenely sweet (chocolate brownie cake with lavender and vanilla buttercream icing). I had one tiny slice, which was lovely, and then thought about having another all the way round the pond. It was in my blood and on my mind. 

Sugar, you are a fickle mistress, but when you dominate me, you need no whips or buckles - just heady sweetness and quiet omnipresence. We're in this together, Lady Sweet. We need to have a talk about our relationship.

Week 1: Noticing

Beating an addiction is a huge thing, and yet it's really nothing at all. It's as much what you don't do as what you do. 

You and me, we're done

Before I stopped drinking alcohol, I couldn't imagine a world without it; or rather, the world I imagined without it didn't add up in my head. I feel the same about sugar. I can't imagine not craving it. I can't conceive of how things will be when it isn't a huge part of my life. 

But I'm going to try, and my fucking lovely, delightful friend Kath is too. We're both going to blog about it, because that's what works, for me. 

Our first week, until May 1st, is all about noticing. Whether or not we eat sugar is by the by. This is the first part of the process... noticing the attachment to it. Logging where it rears up or just peeks an eyebrow over the wall of our consciousness. 

There is another way

Today, without the pressure of not being 'allowed' any sugar, I made it through the day with almost none - just a little honey in my tea...Then I talked to Kath and we laughed and bandied vegetables about and I went home and filled my face with pure white sugar - icing, no less, and a brownie cake mix. And both those states are fine. 

What I noticed: I felt better during the day. I face-filled off a bag of tomatoes. I ate avocado-sweetpotato-onion-flavoured mush for lunch (Very Fine). I drank tea and water. After the brownies, a thing sits in my stomach. My head is heavier and my energy more sluggish. Good to know.