It is resoundingly true that we all are creatures of habit – I think for some people though this truth can become an extremely destructive force, as I am finding during my sugar free journey. Also, why are good habits harder to make/keep than bad habits? There must be some underlying emotion that is in fact the habit rather than the action – rather than what I do being just excused as a habit, it is the emotional reaction that the habit brings which is what I am chasing.
I have lots of good habits now, but I am still struggling to
shift a few bad ones. These bad ones
will have the ability to derail all the good I am doing so it is important that
I deconstruct them and figure out why I keep doing what I keep doing when it is
hurting me and my progress. I have
started to feel a bit of a difference finally in my weight, with clothes
feeling looser (yes, even the lycra ones!) but I find with every 2 pounds off
my immediate reaction is to reward myself with a burger (ok not quite that
extreme but almost!). I think for a lot
of people weight is a security blanket.
I find that realisation is the biggest problem I am having. I was at my thinnest when I lived in London,
I had a great job, loads of amazing friends, lived in a cool warehouse,
boyfriends etc. I ate healthy and well
but I didn’t really think about food much.
I was too busy living my life.
I left London nearly three years ago, and have put on 3
stone since. And I can’t seem to let go
of it. My eating habits were appalling
until recently, including eating food I am allergic to and not caring that it
made me ill. I really believe everything
about sugar addiction has got me to this place, and I know this new lifestyle
is the right thing to be doing for my future health and happiness. But now I am not in London, not particularly
happy with my living situation and painfully lonely without my friends, I find
that my body is clinging on to the weight.
I almost feel like no matter what I do for my health, until I am able to
let go of this security blanket of weight emotionally I will get nowhere. I have always had people comment on what I
eat, especially thin people, who can’t believe how careful and monitored I
am. I now know about sugar and realise
that while being careful I was/am a 100% feeding a sugar addiction. So I am in a bit of a quandary. Weight loss is slow, but I believe in what I
am doing. I know the moment I stop focusing
on my weight and live my life I will see all the benefits I have been reading
about. But I feel I am constantly
walking out of the room loudly, shouting “ok weight, I am not looking now, you
can go” only to peek back around the corner and see if it is gone.
This then leads into habits.
I have these habits, almost rituals, which I need to figure out how to
stop. One is eating at train stations,
something I was discussing with my sister yesterday. She commented how she always would ‘treat’ herself
to a bagel or burrito on the way home from London to our parents, which would
happen once every few months. I had the
same habit, though more often frequenting Burger King! Now though with my new job I am at a big city
train station literally 4-5 times a week!
I now find myself standing in stations, surrounded by stimulus of sugar,
sugar, sugar, screaming my name, and my normal habit is to listen to it and get
something. Not only is this a bad habit,
but now it is 4-5 times a week?! And
damn David
Gillespie’s book that
told me how burgers have no sugar, as this is now also chanting in my head with
the call for sugar. My sister thinks it’s
the fear of not having access to food for 2.5 hours that fuels this habit. If that is the case, a packet of oatcakes in
my handbag should suffice … but it doesn’t.
I can’t stop myself associating train station = ‘treat’. This is one of my current challenges. The other is eating in my room. This has been a huge habit my whole life,
from when I was a small child stealing biscuits and eating them in bed, to when
I was at University and obviously at in my room a lot. What a bedroom is used for is really blurred
for me. Again, when I was at my thinnest
and happiest I lived with a boyfriend, and it was very clear what the bedroom
was for (wink wink … sleeping!). But now
I am single I think I actually have a hatred for my bedroom. No, not think, I do HATE my bedroom. It represents loneliness to me as my bed is
now empty. It represents a place of
challenge where bad habits have been formed and perpetuated. And what do emotional eaters do when they are
lonely and upset … eat sugar as you get that rush of serotonin that makes you
feel happy for a moment. It is a
comfort, fuelling that security blanket of weight. Now, again with my job, I stay in hotels 3-4
times a week. My bedroom in the hotel
has become my living space, where I will eat something for dinner after work
while watching TV (which is the worst thing to do when eating apparently – in fact
eating with the TV off literally fills me with dread – I will deal with that at
a later date though). How do I address
this then? The bedroom is associated
with so many bad eating habits that I am now really struggling to associate it
with the good ones. I buy rice cakes, I
try so hard to get food from the supermarket that is on program and make salads
in my little hotel room. I travel with a
plate, knife, fork and spoon. And yet,
alone in the hotel room, it is so hard to sometimes say no to that chocolate
bar even now I know what I know about how evil sugar is. Sugar is not my friend … but it has always
been there. It never left me. Maybe that is where I am right now in my
journey. I have successfully kept off
sugar for three months now, but I do occasionally slip. Like that bad boyfriend you know you shouldn’t
ring, even though he keeps texting … I seem to have found myself responding to
some of sugars calls.
I guess that is it
– I need to break up with sugar once and for all. I need to accept that we have had some
amazing times together, some real highs and lows (ha ha I love a pun), but it
is time for me to move on to a different future. I can’t see the life I want to have for
myself happening with sugar still in it.
It is the biggest habit I will have to break. I have given up smoking and worse with
greater ease than sugar, and it must be due to the emotional bond. It’s the emotional bond that is so much harder
to break that the physical addiction. Perhaps
just writing this blog post, in which I seem to have personified sugar, will help
me … I do feel better about it actually already. Time to move on to new companions – nothing is
taken away from the fact that sugar was there for me when no one else was, and
I am grateful for that. But now I need
to break that habit and move on with my life.
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