You know what I mean when I say ‘the sweet spot’, right? It’s the holy grail. It’s that rock solid, cast iron will which clicks into place and acts as a shield, protecting you from cake. When you find the sweet spot you no longer have to argue with yourself for a good hour at least about whether eating the cake is a good idea or not.
Any food junkie worth their salt will know that even if you manage to gag the asshole voice in your head and win the argument with yourself, that cake continues to flirt with you from a distance. It stares right into your soul…your mouth waters as though you’ve already taken a bite. It doesn’t matter what else is going on in the room, all you see is the cake. It’s like a magnet with its own force field, and you keep on having the should I/shouldn’t I conversation with yourself in a loop, right up until the point someone else eats it.
But none of that applies, if you’ve found the sweet spot, and you’re in the zone. If the magic happens, you’re somehow immune. Nonchalant even…cake, what cake? No thanks (wrinkles nose), I don’t really like cake…do you have any lettuce?
It’s elusive. The more you dig deep, the harder it is to find. I have a theory actually…I think perhaps the sweet spot is a finite resource that you’re only able to truly tap into a handful of times in your life. Kind of like a cat has 9 lives…maybe you’re even born with an allocation and once you’ve used it up you’re destined to be a salad dodger for the rest of your natural life.
I don’t think there’s a formula for finding it, or holding onto it. It’s irrelevant how much you want to find it, or even how much effort you put in to trying to find it. But one thing’s for sure…without it you have zero chance of sticking to your diet, because the asshole in your mind will always win the argument about cake.
My rock bottom moment happened just over a year ago when I had to buy one of these…
Passport, check. Tickets, check. Sunglasses, check. Airplane seatbelt extension, check. The ultimate indignity…well, it’s a 9 on the 1-10 scale. 10 would be having to ask the string bean in a cabin crew uniform if you can borrow one of theirs. Having your own mitigates the shame down to a 9 but even so. If that’s not rock bottom I don’t know what is…yet still I continued to argue with myself, and eat cake.
Affliction lol, love it. I think that sums it far more than addiction. I was born with a sugar spoon in my mouth for sure, gifted by my similarly afflicted Mum. Her treat was to send me to the shop for a bag of mixed sweets, to be shared with Mum and hopefully not too many of my siblings, sitting on the couch in front of the coal fire, no TV for us, fun was throwing a sweet wrapper onto the fire and watching the flames change colour 🙂
Does it help sometimes to think about what you don’t eat? I don’t eat crisps, I don’t drink fizzy drinks diet or real sugar versions, I don’t down gallons of fruit juice, I seldom eat between my two meals a day, alcohol isn’t my friend so I drink very little, I don’t buy or eat biscuits and I don’t eat much chocolate.
In my house though I am known as the snake charmer, the jelly snake charmer as it happens. These scrawny, fruit flavoured jelly reptiles have found their way into my life on far too many occasions. I promise myself to only eat 4, one of each colour, yet somehow more seem to work their way out of the packet and into my hand, called by some barely audible tune. I can be strong willed, put the half packet into a box, leave them in the car or bury them under a cushion. I forget about them, truly, yet somehow I call them to me, I lift the lid on the box, move the cushion and even on the coldest, darkest night find myself car keys in hand rescuing the poor cold creatures from the glove compartment. Oh they’re so grateful to be back in my warm hands, my reward is increased salivation, tempting them once more from the packet to the lips, from the lips to the buccal cavity to be drowned, masticated, tasted and finally swallowed. We are as surely entwined as a charmer and his snake. The family have been known to find and eat them too, oh how I hiss and spit and threaten when that happens, they were my jelly snakes, mine!
It’s an addiction isn’t it, pure and simple, soft, sweet, sugary snake shaped slivers of delight. A cure anyone?
Oh bless you Esther, I know it’s an affliction but you did make me smile! I find jellied candy fairly easy to resist but don’t wave a cashew nut anywhere near me or you’ll get trampled in the stampede. Each to their own! Dee x
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts about this phenomenon and for defining it so well. Reading your post was a true light bulb moment and I’m so pleased I’m not alone.
You are so right! The Sweetspot. It first turned on for me at 14, again at 16, then periodically through my adult life. I first recognised what was like a switch that just turned off at various times (or on depending which way you look at it). It won’t turn off/on through sheer willpower and the catalysts for the turning off/on of the switch are many and varied which may be what makes it so elusive. It takes a specific incident (crying on the changing room floor because you can’t even fit into a size 16 – when size 16 was about a 20 now, being called ’rounded’ or ‘well covered’ by a well-meaning but misguided family friend, a blood test result which shows a 7.2 cholesterol and high blood sugars, a chronically morbidly obese friend dying at a young age from a cancer that is more prevalent in overweight people…).
I’ve been fortunate that the sweetspot switch has been off/on for the past four months (since my dear friend passed away) – alcohol holds no attraction, neither has anything with added sugar. Until last night which was, hopefully, only temporary after the most dreadful day at the coal face – suddenly all those things that had held no power at all for all these months were staring at me with all their power restored.
Today is another day and I hope the switch is off/on again.
Thank you again and thinking of you on your journey.
Hi Sue – first of all I’m so sorry for your loss, that must have been hard. And you’re definitely not alone…if writing the blog has shown me anything it’s that the things which have made me feel isolated over the years are there in so many more people than ever I’d imagined. But we’re all here to support and walk the path together. I hope today is a good day x