Sugar shame FTW!

Confession time. Number 1: The date is April 4, and I'm already a post behind this month. I watched Gone Girl instead of writing last night. Doesn't bode well, does it? I'm not scoring very high in the self-control column of life because .... hold on while I pour another glass of wine .... because ...

Confession number 2: Remember I gave up booze in February? That was a rousing success, except that I didn't realize any benefit at all. Nevertheless, if I can get through the frigid month of hearts and cupids, you'd think I could get through March without sugar, right? Fuck, yeah!

The first couple of weeks it wasn't even that hard. No, really, it wasn't. I'd either eaten or thrown away all of the chocolate in the house. I had to stop eating my favorite health-food cereal because it has sugar in it, but I was fine. I ate scrambled eggs for breakfast and oatmeal with raisins instead of brown sugar. I didn't kill or even maim anybody. I was fine.

Except that once again I realized zero benefit from cutting sugar out of my diet. Zero. I didn't lose an ounce, and no, I didn't eat more of anything else to compensate. And I was getting more exercise walking the dog. The scale didn't budge. I didn't feel smarter or fitter or anything else. I just didn't eat sugar.

(photo credit: healthydirections.com)

And I think I could have done it too, if only I hadn't gone to Steamy Cynthia's birthday party on day 14 and come face to face with Chicken Grrrl's concord grape pie. You've never heard of a grape pie, you say? Most people haven't. You'll just have to take my word for it when I tell you it's the most delectable pie .... flaky, buttery crust, sweet and tart and juicy. Oh, so fucking juicy. This pie rivals my grandma's black raspberry pie, and I don't take pie lightly.

I caved. Like an under-cooked souffle, I flopped into my soft center. I ate a piece of pie. Then I ate a bite of cheesecake that another friend brought. I mean I had to be fair, right? Even though he'd already left? And then a bite of something chocolate. And then another half piece of concord grape pie, because the train had already left the tracks and was plowing across the field.

I hated myself, but damn it, that pie was delicious. And that was the end of my sugar fast.

Confession number 3: It wasn't really the pie that ended my sugar fast. My sugar fast ended several hours earlier when I made homemade dark chocolate pudding to fill tiny shortcake crusts, because that birthday happened to be on Pi Day. I burned the pudding, so I had to taste it and make sure it was still usable. Right? I mean, what would you have done? Thrown it out untasted? Used it anyway? I had to take a little taste.

I ate 5 tablespoons of pudding. I know because I ate it from the measuring spoon.

The first taste was almost disgusting it was so sweet. I thought, This is it! I don't really like sweet foods any more. And then I took another taste. I didn't even think about it. I didn't even register that outraged voice in my head shouting, No! No, you fucking idiot! We said we weren't going to do this! Put the fucking spoon down now and stop eating the fucking pudding!

Apparently that voice wasn't in control. It rarely is. Poor thing. It just whines and cajoles and threatens and cries every morning when I step on the scale. It's not driving the train though.

I might have been OK if I'd used all the pudding in the cute little pies, and if I hadn't given in to the concord grape pie. But I did eat the pie, and I did have about 3 cups of pudding left. So the next day Coraline and I ate some for lunch. And we finished it off for dinner.

And my sugar fast was over. I failed. I've eaten sugar every day since, including the frozen chocolate chips in the freezer I ate earlier today.

I had to wonder why I could get through a month without booze, but failed so early and hard with the sugar. Of course more foods contain sugar, but I don't eat a lot of prepared foods. I cook for myself, rarely eat bread or other foods with hidden sugar. My sugar consumption comes primarily from chocolate.

It should have been just as easy though, shouldn't it? Even if I didn't get a reward for it, I still should have been able to just not put it into my mouth. Easy peasy piece of pie.

Here's what I think is the difference. If I hadn't been able to get through 30 days without alcohol, I would have considered that a problem. Like, I have a Drinking Problem problem. That scares me. No, that terrifies me.

But sugar is food. Or so I tell myself. That one voice in my head, the angel-on-my-shoulder voice doesn't believe it, but the silent-but-deadly train-driving devil on my other shoulder is more persuasive. Sugar is food. And chocolate is supposed to be good for you. Lots of antioxidants and healthy shit like that.

And it's not like you can really compare alcohol and sugar. It's not illegal to eat chocolate and drive. You don't have to be 21 to eat chocolate. People feed it to babies. It's in formula, isn't it? You can buy it at the check-out counter of any store -- no license needed to sell it. It doesn't make you do stupid shit like ... oh, I don't know. Fall down stairs. Wreck the car. Tell your secrets to bartenders. Ruin relationships. Sleep with strangers. Sleep with bartenders.

(I've eaten enough of it I don't want to sleep with anybody now, but that's another confession I don't even want to examine here.)

(photo: 5healthytowns.org)

Several people told me I was crazy to do it anyway. They said they ate sugar every day, so what's the big deal?

Yeah, what's the big deal anyway? 

The big deal is that I couldn't do it. I failed. I couldn't go without sugar for 30 days. Or I haven't yet. I didn't even try in April my shame was so complete.

So, there you go. My confessions. My red-faced shame. My failure. All right here in public for all to see.

Maybe I'll try it again in May. Yeah, that's what I'll do. And I'll make up yesterday's post too. Eventually. Before May 1.

I'd say don't judge, but go ahead and do it. I could use the company.

How are your New Year's resolutions going anyway? Got any confessions to make? I didn't make any resolutions, except the February booze fast. Good thing, huh?

Goodbye, my friend

Guess what I'm doing ........ You're right! Drinking a glass of wine. Cheers.

Guess what I'm not doing ...... Eating chocolate. Or any sugar. Like I said a couple of days ago, the booze fast was just the warm-up for the big test of willpower: giving up sugar for a month.

That means no more best friend chocolate, no more brown sugar in my oatmeal, no more honey in my tea ... this is starting to sound like a 70's pop song .... and no more cookies. No sugar at all, unless it comes in the form of whole fruit.

I joke about my love of wine, but that's really just a cover for my real addiction. My love affair with chocolate is an epic consumption poem that must at last come to an end.

In preparation, over the past 4 days, I went on a chocolate binge that would put Willy Wonka out of business. I would be embarrassed to list here how much chocolate I ate, but let's just say it involved a bag of Dove coconut-filled eggs, 2 caramel Cadbury's, a Mounds bar, a Heath bar, a bag of licorice twists, an orange and a sea salt dark chocolate Lindt bar, an organic dark chocolate coconut bar, and a tiny container of Cherry Garcia. For once, I let myself eat as much as I wanted. I didn't have much left to throw away this morning. Roll me into the river, Willy.

Notice I didn't start my chocolate fast on the first day of March. I intended to, but when I told my daughter Elvira she expressed deep concern for both my mental health and my inflated sense of hedonism. She said, "Mommers, why would you do that to yourself? You're not even allowing one day in between so you can drink that first glass of wine since January with a bar of dark chocolate? Are you suicidal?"

Of course, I had to admit she made a reasonable argument, so, much like a convict on death row, I enjoyed my cold glass of Chardonnay with some high-percentage dark chocolate last night before midnight.  And then I said good-bye to the one thing that keeps me sane most days.

My son Drake, who was bitter because his sister had said something wise, admonished me and said, "Mom, you know there's sugar in wine." I stared him down and said, "Drake, I'm giving up sugar and chocolate, but I'm not going crazy and giving up all carbs. Whatever sugar is in wine has turned into wine. I will not give wine up along with chocolate, and I suspect none of you want me to do that either."

I did hop up on the low-carb bandwagon about 10 years ago. I had been a vegetarian for 9 years, but I started eating meat, cut most of the carbs out of my diet, and worked out several times a week at the gym. I lost a shit ton of weight and I felt fantastic. Strong. Sexy. Full of energy. Daring. I confess I flirted heavily with my little eating disorder for a few months, but I didn't fully succumb. It was the one time in my life I told my poor body image to go fuck itself. It was lovely.

Then the news about how healthy dark chocolate is came out, and I decided I could surely handle one Dove dark chocolate a day. I would take it like medicine. One piece a day and no more. Turns out that was like a chronic alcoholic deciding he could handle one shot of vodka a day. Not sustainable. My addiction is such that it wouldn't be satisfied with an entire bag of Dove darks a day. No hyperbole.

I've made it through one day, which I know is the easy part. Tomorrow the cravings will hit, and the irritability.

I know I'm doing the right thing though. You see, I received a sign. A big, fucking, neon-blinking sign from the universe. Last week I ran out of chocolate. I'd even eaten all of the frozen chocolate chips. And I wasn't feeling well, and the sky was dumping a bunch of snow on us or the temperatures were below zero or some shit. I didn't want to go out, and even if I did, I refuse to placate my addiction by walking half a block and across the street to Big Daddy's to buy chocolate. I have boundaries.

And then I remembered I wasn't really out of chocolate. I had some baking chocolate that was probably several years old, but there was a box of semi-sweet there. Big, thick chunks of chocolate that's supposed to be melted and remade into something else. I let one sit out for about 5 minutes to thaw, and then I took it into the living room to enjoy while I watched my secondary addiction, Netflix. About the third bite into it, I felt something crunch. And I realized I'd broken the front half off an expensive crown on one of my front teeth -- a crown that is connected to 4 other crowns and can't be replaced without replacing all of them. I don't know yet what that moldy old piece of chocolate is going to cost me, but this time, it's not worth it. 

And it's not just my tooth. I've done enough research on sugar to believe it really is an addiction for me, and it's a poison. I don't want to be held hostage to it any more. I don't want to hate myself for my weakness, and I don't want to suffer physical repercussions either.

So, I'm off sugar for a month, and then probably a month after that. I think I can do it a month at a time. I am going to give myself a free day toward the end of the month when Elvira and my daughter-in-law Montana are celebrating birthdays. And if I do decide to continue next month, I'm going to take the first day of the month off for a gorge because .... wine and chocolate. Maybe I'll throw a party.

Otherwise, no simple sugars for this girl. Zero. I can't be trusted with sugar, and especially chocolate.

What's your addiction? How do you deal with it? Or do you?