Thirty Days

Thirty days ago, I decided to try an experiment. I stopped eating sugar. At first it wasn't really a big deal. Perhaps because I was getting sick and couldn't taste anything, not eating sugar wasn't that big of a deal. I continued, freezing the beautiful sugar cookie my visiting teacher brought me, freezing a piece of CE's birthday cake and even avoiding the continual stores of M&Ms DH brings in the house. I didn't drink a single soda and I didn't even eat frozen yogurt when we took the kids for a treat last weekend. I wish I could say I didn't still want it, but I'm looking forward to breaking those sweets out of the freezer tomorrow. I wish I could say I dropped oodles of weight, but I didn't. I lost a bit, but I'm still outside the healthy range I'm seeking. The biggest thing I've gained from the experience is learning something for sure that I've always sort of guessed. All my best rewards are sweets. When life is crazy and my children send me around the bend, I deserve a lot of things, but sugar is what I reach for. Sugar is shorthand for me in a world where I have neither the time nor the money for the massage or pedicure that would be a healthier reward (and a nap is out of the question). Sugar is the compensation for another day when I failed to anticipate just how inexplicable life could really be. Sugar is my decadent treat of choice. I have noticed sweet where I never thought it was before--in wheat thins, in bread, even in Idaho potatoes, baked and ready to eat. I've always had a high tolerance for sweet. I wonder if that will change, if, when I break out that frozen cookie, will it seem too sweet to finish?

I have been listening to my body more. Realizing, in addition to my tendency to reward all highs, lows and crazies with sugar, that I engage is some boredom sweet eating. I have picky children who will eat next to nothing normal. DH is also pretty picky. Each day I must choose which proclivities to cook for and most days it's not my own, because the blowback is too much. Sweet eating had become how I infuse something interesting in my intake. That part must change for good. I found that the times I most craved something sweet was when I was most bored with the other things I was eating. I wonder, if there is more variety in the rest of my eating, will I be able to let go of the sweetness crutch?

I don't want to go back to mindless sweet eating, but I think it's okay that my tastebuds run sweet, that sometimes, I indulge them. Interesting experiment. Glad it's over.