Kicking sweet tooth to the curb

When you're on the third day of anything, it sounds pathetic. "It's our three-day anniversary!" "I've been getting enough sleep for three whole days!" "It's the third day of my diet!" "I've been over him for THREE days now."

So happy for you.

Why bother mentioning anything? Just bring it up when it's actually a success. Nobody needs to see the whole process.

Well, it IS the third day of my diet but I still want to mention it because ho, this is haaaard.

Do not want.

I'm supposed to avoid sugar for 8 weeks!!

Did you know sugar is in almost every fucking salad dressing? I also have to avoid sucrose, high fructose corn syrup (any form of fructose, really, including hateful bananas), simple carbs (because your body is all over that shit and starts digesting it before you even finish swallowing), sugar alcohols (goodbye, sugarfree gum), juice, ALL of it. I'm walking around with a jar of anise seeds in my purse so I could chew on those instead of gum. (Seriously, that is the allowed substitute.)

Why am I doing this, you might ask?

This one minute clip explains it:



I have tried to avoid sweets before but could never really pull it off long-term. After a not insignificant amount of reading about sweets (sugar lights up the same areas of the brain as heroin, FYI), willpower, and health, I decided to attack the issue at its source. I wanted to not want it. I do great at avoiding what I don't want. Like, veggies are awesome, I eat them all the TIME. But that's because I want them.

Source: Thug Kitchen!

But as much as I love veggies, they do NOT replace the yawning chasm of need for chocolate with peanut butter. Sure, you can eat a fudgesicle instead but if you're trying to actually lose weight, cycles of leptin and ghrelin, the satiation & hunger hormones, can get outta whack because eating sugar causes more sugar cravings. No one ever finished a gargantuan tub of ice cream and said, "welp, I'm good for a decade!" Nope. You want it again. Maybe even 5 minutes later.

Anyway, the idea is, spend 66 days cementing this because that's how long it takes to form a habit. Then, when sugar is reintroduced, the sweet tooth should be much more sensitive, leaving it possible to be satisfied with much less.

Yesterday I had a low-grade headache all day but someone said those were part of the withdrawal symptoms. Physical symptoms from withdrawal of sugar? Huh. I expected cravings and hunger but that's about it. Anyway, that's what's new. Stay tuned. If I'm in a bad mood for the rest of February, now you know why.