The past week has been a doozie. On Fat Tuesday, no less, I decided to stop having carbohydrates. This includes sugars and starches. This is no easy task. Apparently, I have a bit of an addiction. I’ve never had a good grasp on cutting out sugar for more than 2-3 days.
This week, I also got a head cold, and lost my voice, and hardly have it back now, six days later. And I’ll just stop there, with my woes, because it’ll get too complicated.
At first I felt crazy without my best friend, sugar, and kept craving sweet things: candy, chocolate, cake, pie, bread, you name it. But after 3 days it’s like my body adjusted. I put a tad of frosting in my mouth from my son’s cake, and it wasn’t what I was hoping for. Very surprising.
And I’ve lost 5 lbs. It’s not easy to cut out sugar. Sugar is added to bread, meats, and plenty of things you don’t expect. Plus, I love rice, pasta, and bread…that’s all broken down into sugar….like BOOM. For me, sugar seems to hijack my metabolism and make it really difficult to shed extra pounds. I’ve gotten rounder in the last two years. Too round.
CRAZY STAT I LEARNED
In the U.S. each week, each person ingest 5 pounds of sugar (from various sources). Just read that again. For most of us, it makes us feel awesome for a short bit, with a sugar spike, and then there is a crash type of feeling later. This was worth the ride for me. But I’ve noticed having eggs and other proteins for breakfast keeps me satisfied and stable for about 4 hours, compared with 2 if I have juice or cereal or pancakes at breakfast.
BUT I LOVE SUGAR. The food fantasies were crazy.
This is the season of Lent. I didn’t give up sugar for lent. I haven’t given anything up for lent. I am trying to be more spiritually aware, and this time without sugar during what is also the season of lent, has been the one-two punch for me to stare my cravings in the eye, and not back down. I see that this sweet delight is a kind of poison for me on several levels. It’s sobering.
How does sugar play out in you life?
What sugary things do you like?
Could you give them up? Let Me Know.
wow that’s stunning. I’d love to lose five pounds in one week. Bummer that rice breaks down into a sugar, I don’t each much bread. I may have to try this out.
Wow…. 5#’s….I think that’s low ball. Maybe I’m the guy who’s keeping it at 5. Maybe without me, the average is really 3, but I keep the number high. But I do like sugar. And trans-fats.
I start every morning with either a cup of tes or coffee, and the coffee tends to get more sugar than the tea, but there you have it. And thats just how the day starts. And I’m not into artificial sweeteners. I like my sweet to be natural, and hard core.
When I was going to Honduras I was very aware of my love for the Coca-cola. I also realised that my love was borderline insane and I didn’t want my love for the carmel-colored deliciousness to get in the way of me serving down South America way, so I gave it up cold turkey. I had headaches, and the shakes. But it was worth it. Anything that keeps us from serving is need of an operation.
A coke addict…hum. Fight the power, man.