7.25.15 now does not mean tomorrow

"When you complain, you make yourself a victim.

Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it.

All else is madness."

-Eckhart Tolle-

My sugar-free day today [well, technically yesterday, since it's past midnight] did not go well.

At all.

I thought it was going to be fine, but I made a concious bad choice, and after that I just sort of said 'Ah, fuck it'.

That's always a good way to deal with life, right?

Anyways I was trolling perusing the internet and found a 6ish minute video that was an ex drill sergeant calling out people for, well, basically being fat unhealthy. It was very much a tough-love video. Very much so.

But the moral of the video is that it's unhealthy [duh, we all know this already], and that for many people making excuses for why they are unhealthy/overweight/obese/etc, very few of them are actually legitimate. Mostly people are lazy [not wanting/being too tired to work out, not wanting to take the time to cook healthier meals] and/or have low self-control, specifically when it comes to eating.

[Yeah, I get it, people have thyroid problems. I have had thyroid problems. And when I was diagnosed with them, I still only weighed about 130 pounds. It's less of an excuse than what people want to admit. Also, I have to take fracking steroids right now, thanks to my lovely autoimmune disease, and although this caused me to gain like 20 pounds in one effing month, that doesn't mean I can't change it. I can. It's just "too hard". *eyeroll@myself*]

It sounds harsh, and it is a bit. And I am usually wary of fitness and health "experts" ranting about fat people because, seriously, they we get that enough from scumbags who just want to shit on others.

But strangely enough, his video did not turn me off.

It was actually quite intriguing, to the point that I followed it to his facebook page and read more about him.

Whatever, I'm not going to link it or anything, but you can google it yourself. They guy's name is John Burk.

The main point I took home from the video is that it has to start today.

And I have problems with that.

I'm always like, okay, I'll have this one last day of eating all this crappy crap food that I love just to get the cravings out of my system, and tomorrow I'll start eating baby carrots and drinking 5000 gallons of water per day.

The thing is, tomorrow is always tomorrow.

And so tonight, I decided that is does not start tomorrow [even though it'd be super easy to make that excuse, seeing as it's so late]. It. Starts. Now.

And I've already had to test my willpower once. It only took three hours before my brain was back on the food train.

I went to eat cereal and was literally thinking 'One for the road' as I opened the box...

then stopped and thought about how I was already giving up after three fucking hours? Seriously?

So I closed the box and put it back

and possibly gave myself a congratulatory mental pat on the back.

I need to hold myself accountable.

I need to think of the bigger picture.

I need to remind myself of the longer picture.

Is one minute of having happy taste buds worth feeling uncomfortable and unhealthy and generally shitty the other 1439 minutes in the day?

No. Not even a little bit.

Soooo why would I continue to act like it is?

7.23.15 sugar tantrums

"A river cuts through water

not because of its power

but because of its persistence."

-Jim Watkins-

I've always had a massive sweet tooth, but lately [okay, maybe not JUST lately] it's gotten completely out of control.

I'm probably eating... 500-1000 calories per day worth of dessert food.

That is not okay.

Reeeaaallllly not okay.

So I need to break this habit. Unfortunately, I don't think it will work to try and ween myself off the sugar. 

Mostly why I don't think it will work is because I've tried it countless times and oh, hey, it still hasn't worked.

So I'm quitting cold turkey.

I read this book last year called It Starts With Food, and yes, it's a paleo diet book, and no, I do not eat paleo. But it had some really good ideas and observations.

One such observation that I was previously not aware of

(no I was probably completely aware of it, just in 100% denial)

is that when I get a sugar craving, my mind is basically throwing a temper tantrum over wanting sugar and not getting it.

So when I give in to the tantrum and eat a delicious cookie or whatever, my mind stops stomping its feet like a toddler in the middle of the candy aisle at the grocery store.

However, since I gave in, next time I get a sugar craving, the sugar tantrum is going to be even louder and harder to control. So I give in again, and the sick cycle continues.

Which is why I need to cut myself off completely. Even if I say to myself, 'I will just have two desserts per week', well, that quickly turns into, like, two desserts per day.

But if I have no wiggle room, zero is zero is zero, then...I don't know. It might help?

Maybe.

We'll see.

I went all of Wednesday without dessert, and already today I broke down and ate half a cookie in the morning. [I get free cookies at my work, they are very giant cookies and the most amazing cookies I have ever tasted. So it's a problem.] But that 1/2 cookie shenanigan took place even before lunch time [kind of gross, I know], and the rest of the day I have not had anything else like that. 

Tomorrow will be sugar free for me! [fingers crossed]

change, and other crap people don't like to deal with

I was making a dessert tonight, and it got me started on thinking about change.

Those two things seem completely unrelated, right? Some sugary goodness, and then one of those not-so-sugary life 'you-have-to-deal-with-it' things.

I'll explain that later.

It seems like most people don't really care for change. I know there are a few randos out there who not only deal with it well but actually embrace it. and even gag yearn for it.

[Maybe 'yearn' is a bit too strong of a word, but..you get the picture.]

That's not to say that everyone actively hates change.

Just that, when it does come along, it's an annoying little bugger that you'd like to be able to kill with one swipe from a fly swatter.

Ahh, sweet, sweet wishes.

The phrase 'if only' comes to mind.

Because why change, particularly when you're already happy with your life in general? Because change can be scary, and I don't know about you, but when I think of change, my mind immediately goes to all the negative things that can happen.

Kind of like the old adage 'Don't fix what isn't broken'? But, that's just too logical!

[Although, it would appear that some men people do have trouble understanding that line of reasoning.]

Just kidding.

You keep doing you.

But seriously, what if you stop looking at it as a "I need to fix this, apparently it is broken somehow?" and more like...an upgrade?

You don't have something broken, you have something that you love, and when an update comes along that could-would-probably make that thing even better..why not take it?

I mean, everything time you upgrade your phone software...it could be a faulty upgrade or a virus or something, but you don't focus on that, do you? You just focus on all the awesomeness [or frustrations for you iPhoners] that the upgrade will bring.

So what would it be like to look at changes in your life the way you look at upgrades to your phone?

I have just realized how drawn-out, possibly unintelligible but most definitely convoluted, this analogy has  been. I do apologize.

I love making up the most ridiculous [and hopefully unique] analogies. My best friend says they are horrible. But he says it with a tiny smile on his face so I know he secretly loves them, and thus I will never stop.

Anyways.

I have dealt with a lot of change in my life. Normal, most-people-encounter-this-at-some-point change, and then some not-so-normal "Holy shit this sucks" change.

[I'm seriously trying to fit in vast amounts of punctuation in this post, can you tell?]

But as a grown ass woman child, I was not resistant to change.

I loathed it.

Abhorred it.

Detested it.

It was practically traumatic for me.

[And I was not a dramatic child. Apparently, I just had a few weird...quirks. Sure, quirks, let's go with that.]

One time, when I was somewhere between the ages of 5 and 10 [don't judge, my memory from back then kiiiinda sucks], my parents decided to get a new couch.

I cried.

I threw a temper tantrum.

I had a legitimate meltdown.

Over a sofa.

I mean, all my parents were doing was updating. Upgrading.

I've gotten better at handling change, and I think sometimes I need it so badly that I actually force it to happen instead of letting it happen organically naturally. [One of my favorite tv shows, Treehouse Masters, has been using the word 'organically' waaaaay too much lately.]

I think forcing change is not unnatural, though. Right? All it is, is you making your own choice to change something, and then following through on it.

Seeing as the last 8 years have consisted of me attending FOUR universities [and one community college for a summer class], not to mention living in FIVE different cities, and moving houses/apartments/dwellings/whatever a grand whopping total of ELEVEN TIMES. Good god, I'm so sick of moving.

Every time I've decided to make that change, it's brought both new good things and new bad things into my life, as well as removing some old good things and some old bad things.

I think on a whole, though, so far the good things have [at least slightly] outweighed the bad things.

So don't be afraid of change. Look at is a chance to, such as in my case, get a fresh start [or eleven].

Maybe you'll learn something new. 

[I wouldn't be surprised.]

Maybe you'll meet someone wonderful, or accomplish something you didn't think you could-or didn't even think about, period.

Maybe, god forbid, you just might actually like it.

And if you don't and it's horrible? Well, lucky you.

Because in all likelihood, you now get to force some change, and change the change that you ended up not liking. [Did that make sense?]

So next time change comes into your life that you're not so sure about, take a minute to really examine it, and try to find something about it that is going to affect your life in a positive way.

If you can't find anything, and it's a change that you cannot sidestep, well, that sucks.

My advice is to hold on tight, wait til the roller coaster ride is over, maybe go puke in a metal trash can, then come back and make it your bitch.

Or something like that.

That's what I try to and sometimes fail to but whatever I tried do.

[About the dessert thing...it was stupid. I was making one of my favorite desserts and decided to finally see how it turned out if I swapped the sugar for a substitue sweetener (I used stevia or truvia or actually the kroger/dillons brand but that doesn't matter). I was always resistant to trying this because it's a dessert, sugar is sacred, I should be able to eat a normal dessert like a normal person and not have to rely on artificial sweeteners everytime I want some damn sweet shit in my mouth. But what's the lesser of two evils? The still-mysterious artificial sweeteners that are thought to maybe cause cancer or extra belly fat, and you might grow a beak or donkey tail or something as well; or copious amounts of real sugar, that is known to cause diabetes? Meh, you can't win them all.]

[A smart person would tell me to just stop eating so much sweetened food in general, barring fruit. You know where I'd tell that smart person to shove it?

Nowhere.
My mouth would be too full with decadent, sugary perfection!]