The weeks prior to Lent I was on a cookie and sweets binge.
Let me first explain that I’ve never once in my life followed Lent. I’m technically Protestant but never practiced and my Mom always asked that we do more good for the world/community/our friends during Lent versus give something up.
Anyway, it had become somewhat of a winter habit this year to always have sweets in the house ready to gorge on after dinner or when it was too frigid to go outside. During Nemo I think I ate a pound of chocolate over the course of the weekend. On Monday and Fat Tuesday I ate an entire bag of chocolate chip cookies from Trader’s and a decent amount of homemade cookies (…like 24). No, I’m not exaggerating. I actually had the worst headache on Tuesday night and I felt beyond ill after all of that. In total, since the wedding I have gained back about 8lbs.
Enter a goal moment.
Usually when I have a goal or an idea, I’m the first person to shout it to the world. I’ll write about it on here and I’ll tell everyone I can as a way of holding myself accountable. Now that really worked for certain goals – like my first triathlon. I asked people to watch me cross the finish line which forced me to always push my hardest during training and during the tri because I had 10 people driving hours to watch me and I felt like I had trained hard enough to give my best.
When it comes to personal goals though, where it’s really only myself at the so-called finish line, for some reason lately when I shout my goals to the world…they fall through. I lose steam, I lose drive and as quickly as I explain them to the world, the goal loses its appeal and I’m on to the next. It’s like, as I’m typing my goals, I’m excited, motivated, passionate and an endorphin rush hits…and then I hit publish and I realized I’ve already peaked and I feel exhausted before I’ve begun.
So one of my so-called “secrets” that I held off on writing about for a bit, and that you probably figured out by now, is that for Lent I gave up all sweets and desserts. That includes cakes, cookies, chocolate, candy, dessert martinis, ice-cream, frozen yogurt, hot chocolate etc. I also haven’t added any additional sugar into things, well, I wasn’t really before anyway, but I don’t add sugar into coffee, baking, oatmeal, etc.
For the past 13 days I have not had a single sweet treat or dessert.
Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big deal to most, but to me, it’s huge. I can’t remember a time in my entire life that I went more than 3 days without some kind of dessert, candy, or sweet treat. Even in college when I was doing Weight Watchers I made sure I had points for at least one dessert a day. I’m a dessert girl through and through.
The truth is, it actually hasn’t been that hard these past 13 days. Sure I’ve had a few cravings but nothing too intense and they fade more and more as time goes on. I’ve been taking notes for the past few weeks and trying hard to notice any differences that I could document at this point, and then to compare again at the end of the month when this all ends on March 30th.
I will say that so far the hardest part are the PEOPLE! I swear the most frustrating, annoying, and irritating thing of all has been responding to people and their apparent need to force feed me sweets. As it is I’m one who hates peer-pressure of any kind with a passion. If you try to get me to drink faster, or eat more, I will be that much more committed to not doing it. Even more so, and what I don’t think most people get, is that this is a choice for me to do this. I want to stop eating sweets for a while, but I don’t care in the slightest if anyone around me eats them.
Here’s pretty much how conversations have been going, almost daily with people at work, to friends, to family, everyone (minus the Husband who has been far more supportive than I imagined):
Person: “Do you want a piece of [cake/cake-pop/candy/ piece of chocolate]?”
Me: “No, thank you”
Person: “No really, have a piece, we have a ton!”
Me: “No really, I’m good, but thank you anyway”
Person: “But it’s a [celebration/birthday/goodbye/hump day/good day/bad day/national girl-scout cookie day/dumbest reason ever day], you must have some! You’re not on some crazy diet are you?”
Me: “No, I actually gave up sweets and desserts for a while so I’m going to stick with saying no”
Person: “Omg, why would you do that? Is that hard? Are you losing weight? Can you cheat a little?”
Kill.me.
There were alternate (worse) versions to that conversation too. Once that included the person then popping their treat into their mouth in front of me and mmming and ahhing to explain how good it was and if I had changed my mind yet. Or those who responded with why (my) giving up sweets is silly or stupid. Or a few people who doubted that I could do it and they felt the need to tell me that. There were moments where I wanted to say something like, “I’m diabetic and it would kill me to eat that” just to shut people up. It has truly surprised me at how negative people can be and for a lack of better words, what a pain in the ass they can be.
The thing is, I’m not giving up sweets forever. There’s no way in hell I’d do that and that’s not the goal. So what is my goal?
For one, I do want to prove to myself that I can turn sweets down and that I don’t have to eat dessert daily (or multiple times a day). I truly got to the point where if I was looking at cookies and I could only have one (instead of 5) than I didn’t want any because one wouldn’t be enough. I want to retrain my thinking when it comes to desserts and not eat loads of sugar just because it’s a habit to do so every night. I want to eat a healthy portion of a dessert, thoroughly enjoy it, and be OK with stopping there. Or even on some nights, decline dessert.
So far I’ve held strong and I really do feel fantastic.
The good:
I’ve lost 3 pounds.
The past few months I have had these crazy ups and downs in my moods – practically every other day. I haven’t had a single mood swing since I gave up all the extra sugar.
I’m eating a ton more fruit in place of sugar (which seems to make my digestion happier). After the first few days of cravings passed, the fruit usually satisfies any dessert craving. Strawberries are my go to.
I’m sleeping better. I feel like I’m waking up less during the night and it’s been much easier to wake up early in the morning. I swear since this started I’ve been up naturally by 7am even on weekends.
I have more constant and consistent energy.
Talking about it with people who are supportive or doing something similar is really fun. I was with a few girls this past weekend, one who actually is diabetic genetically, and one who is borderline type 2 diabetic, and it was just a really good conversation about healthy lifestyles, snacks, workouts, positive body and mood changes, etc.
The bad:
I’m craving more carbs. This gets a little dangerous as I know that carbs turn to sugar, so it seemed like instead of dessert I’ve been grabbing extra portions of garlic bread, pasta, or rice. I have to be more conscious of this one.
Socially, it has already required far more conversations and defenses than I would want to deal with on a regular basis.
What I thought would happen, that so far, has not:
I thought my skin would be exceptionally clear with the lack of sugar but truthfully, so far, it’s been worse. I’m not sure if it’s the total change in diet, something else I’m replacing the sugar with (i.e. the carbs) but I’ve had more breakouts than I have had in a long time.
I thought my headaches would go away. I wrongly assumed my headaches were from all the sugar binges but I’ve had just as many. I think it’s more connected to clenching my jaw.
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In the end, this morning I really struggled with whether or not I was going to talk about this goal so soon but the truth is, I can do this. I’ve gone 13 days so far, and I have no doubt I can go another 33 days. I’m excited to see how I feel in comparison at the end.
Pursuit of Happiness 