One of the reasons why I shared this blog with friends and family at first was to help them gain a better understanding for why I am doing this sugar-free year. While they all love me, I know a lot of them are having a tough time wrapping their heads around this "sugar addiction" thing and why I have chosen to go cold turkey. I'm sure it seems rather extreme to some people. And I get it. Really, I do. So many of us struggle with eating well and almost all of the literature out there says to make small changes and not do anything too radical because that is tough to keep up with long term. I actually completely agree with this. I think most people should live their life with a 90/10 rule. Ninety percent of the time eat well and ten percent of the time cut yourself some slack. It's actually the main philosophy from the online program I completed.
The problem is, at this moment, I just can't do that.
As I've stated before, I believe I am physically addicted to sugar. Much like an alcoholic. The good news is that the human body is amazing in its ability to regenerate and recover. There is a very good chance that after a year of healing I can eat a little sugar without it affecting me so severely. There's also a good chance that part of this addiction has a huge emotional component, and that through blogging and discovering my emotional cues and patterns for overeating, I can overcome this as well. In those books on sugar addiction that I referred to in a past post, many people find that after a certain amount of time they can handle unrefined sugars. Natural sweeteners like honey, coconut sugar and maple syrup can be tolerated in small amounts. But, for some, they will always struggle with any kind of sugar. I try not to get too hung up on that because there's no sense worrying about that now. I know that I need to do this for more than a few months because that is what I have done before and I wasn't successful. So I assigned myself a year and I plan to stick to it and see what happens come January 2014.
Now with almost a month of blogging under my belt it's time to get this a little more organized. I knew that January was just the start and that my only goal was to make sure I wrote consistently. And I did that! There were a few days I didn't feel like writing but I sat down and made myself do it more often than not. I think I only missed a few days and I'm really proud of myself for that.
I'd like to organize my weeks a little more this upcoming month. So I've decided that every Monday (starting next week) I'm going to write a little bit about the reasons why I am doing this. I want to share all the changes I see when I'm sugar-free and why this really is a big decision for me with powerful and positive outcomes. And there's more to my diet than just sugar-free. I try to eat REAL food. And I'll define this more specifically as the year goes on. I've got seven reasons that I plan on addressing each week:
1) Anxiety
2) Fatigue
3) Long-term Health
4) Weight Loss
5) Support farmers and companies who care about the well-being of their customers and the planet
6) I LOVE Food
7) It Completes Me! (you may have to channel your inner-Oprah to stomach this particular post...)
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