A Month Without Sugar: Day 4

Right now, quite honestly, I would sell my mother for a piece of chocolate cheesecake.

I think if I weren’t eating fruit and my once-a-day piece of REALLY dark chocolate (75%, whew!) I’d actually be taking out people from the top of my apartment building with a rifle. Or at least I’d be eating dessert. But, the plus side is I haven’t had an afternoon headache this week (yet) and I’m managing this.

Let’s go back to the beginning and why I’m doing this, considering I LOVE chocolate (and dessert, and pastries, and this that contain sugar). I started noticing that all too often I’d get a headache in the afternoon, and that my blood sugar level was way out of whack. I’m talking about being normal, eating, having a total sugar high (and this was after eating something normal like baked chicken and a salad), then crashing about an hour later. Every day. A couple times a day. Then add in the headaches. They weren’t often, but they were often enough that it was obnoxious. I’d eat lunch then as the afternoon wore on my head would start to ache. Then it would get steadily worse until I’d go to bed by about 8:30. At which point it would keep me up until around 10.

So I started thinking about what to do about this. Then last weekend happened. I ate two pints of gelato in three days. It was delicious too and I’m not going to say I regret it, but I will say that something needed to change. I started to wonder if I really could give up sugar. Just go cold turkey and not eat any. So Monday I did a little research and found the people who cut out all sugar (natural or refined), decided they were crazy and that would kill me, and then found the people who still ate fruit and the occasional piece of very dark chocolate and kept the sugar in any processed food below 5 grams and I realized I might just be able to do that. So I stocked back up on fruit, check the food I eat on a regular basis, and bought my almost totally unsweetened dark chocolate. (Can I just say that stuff is delicious? Because it is.)

And then I added in the snacks. I’ve tried for a few years to be a person who just eats three solid meals a day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. But I’m starving by the time lunch and dinner come around. So I thought that it may not be helping my blood sugar to go from breakfast to a low to a really big influx (lunch!) to a really low low to another big high (dinner!). This might be part of my problem with the whole headache thing. And the wanting to take a big nap every afternoon. So I started packing snacks this week. Fruit for the mornings, and usually something crunchy for the afternoon (pita chips and hummus, wheat thins and cheese, etc.).

So today is day 4 and I’m feeling pretty good. Aside from the withdrawal of course. I’ll evaluate next week and see what needs to change, but so far I’m liking this. Aside from the withdrawal. And the obsession with sugar right now. I’m serious, I think about it constantly. I’m working and my brain is thinking “Okay claim 2 depends on…mmmm chocolate…wait, claim 2 depends on claim 1. And claims 3, I can eat ice cream on June 8, that’s not so far away, crap, claim 3 depends on…” Which is why I’m writing this right now because otherwise I’m going to start thinking about how Smith’s is just down the street and I could run over and get chocolate and come back and no one would know. That’s why I’m writing this instead of proof-reading a response is because I cannot go more than 5 minutes without thinking about chocolate. And brownies. And cake. And cookies. And Grasshopper cookies. But right now it really is brownies. And white cake with that chocolate frosting Mom makes. Mom, I’ve been daydreaming about that frosting. Seriously.

Anyway, this has been ramble-ie and probably more than any of you ever wanted to know about me, but it was good for me. And it’ll explain if I go out to eat with any of you and look longingly at the dessert menu and then say “no” very sadly.