Truth: Sugar is not my friend.

Truth: Sugar is not my friend.  AKA I can’t build my success on self-sabotage.

This has been an exhausting week for me.  I’m not sure why exactly, but it has been.  Monday, my family came to visit which is such a delightful change from my going to visit them.  It’s a little unsettling, but very fun, to have people come to our tiny house versus us travelling to visit them an hour and a half away.

This summer, I’ve been really trying to focus on my nutrition in combination with my daily workouts to try to see how much progress I can make with my body.  I’m not going extreme or anything, but I want to see what difference nutrition changes will make when added to my consistent workouts.  

My continual weakness is sugar.  I’ll start with fruit and then the fruit becomes a cobbler and then the cobbler becomes eating a bag of caramels or jar of jellybeans.  Once I head down the slope, it becomes very slippery and I’m at the bottom again.  

I’m not sure about you, but for me, once I slip, even a little, getting back up is difficult.  I forget all of the benefits I had from being at the top - when I was eating little to no sugar, I was less tired and had more energy, I didn’t get stuck in my shame cycle for sabotaging my goals with mindless eating. And, once I slip, I just go all in.  That’s the power of sugar over me. If I have one jelly bean, then my mind is like, “Heck, why stop with one? You already did it! Just have twenty more jelly beans while you’re at it.”

At any rate, like most people, a change in my routine often gets my mind back into thinking that what will really make me happy is eating cake, or jelly beans or ice cream or whatever sweet thing may be in sight.  I think that in order to fully enjoy the experience, it has to include some indulgence of some sort.  

So, on Monday while my family is here, right after lunch I busted out many of the things that are reserved for after dinner treats for the kids. Soon enough, I’m passing around the jar of jelly beans and the delightful maple caramels that were in the cupboard.  In my mind, I was offering something sweet to my family knowing that they have a sweet tooth too and, of course, I was indulging as well. Them being here was my excuse to do things that work exactly against what I’m working for.  

Sugar is something I crave, but afterward, I feel the sugar crash and that makes me crabby.  Then it has me reaching for more sugar to ease the crabbiness. This works exactly in opposition to my fitness goals, my mental-wellbeing goals, my to-do list goals, and my be-a-loving-and-patient-mother goals.  

When I woke up on Tuesday, it was hard to get out of bed.  In fact, I got out of bed and then immediately returned to bed and crashed for another hour and a half to dead sleep.  That is quite unusual for me.  

Looking back on the day before, I tried to figure out why I was so tired.  Did we have a busy day? Yes. Was it all that much more busy than other days? Not really.  Did I stay on track with my nutrition? Not really. Did I eat more sugar than usual? Absolutely.

Now, from my experiences in the last couple of years, I know that what I eat has a HUGE impact on my mindset, my body and my energy level.  And yet, it’s hard for me to decide in the moment that I should make the conscious decision to eat or not to eat the sugar. In fact, most of the time, my impulsiveness goes straight to sugar without even pausing to think about the mental/physical/energy ramifications of my decision. 

This week has been full of me waking up way past my alarm and creating a domino effect that impacts the kids.  I wake up late, so I start my routine late. My routine goes late so I let them watch the iPad later than I typically would.  They end up watching more screen that day because I’m tired and that’s not what my intentions were for the summer. Then since I’m running late, I cut out essential parts of my routine that I had planned.  Then I look back on the day and am irritated with myself that I didn’t do the basic things that I promised to myself.  

That’s just not what I want for myself.  I want a life where I follow through on the things that I agreed upon with myself.  I also want a life that is full of energy. I also want a life where I can show up for my kids.

Sugar is sabotaging that.  

That is so weird to say.  Sugar is sabotaging my life.  

Today is day three of avoiding sugar.  I’m feeling a little foggy and lethargic at this moment, but I know that’s a normal part of they cycle of leaving sugar behind.  This feeling will pass and I’ll find the energy that I typically have without sugar. I need to approach eating with intention and awareness - something that I’ve sort of abandoned lately.  I need my food to fuel my body so that I can show up to my life with energy - for both me and my kids.  

Trying to build success on my self-sabotage just won’t work.