So I’m two days into this sugar-free living malarkey and I’m feeling cocky because it’s not bothering me at all. Normally, for the first few days I can be a bit tetchy (she says, as friends and family fall over laughing…actually I’m usually like a bear with a sore arse, in fact a bear with the sorest arse any bear ever had) as my eyes adjust to a bleak and barren chocolate-free landscape.

This time, nothing, in fact I feel amazing. It’s like my head has just gone along with the plan… oh right we’re doing this sugar-free shit now? Cool, no worries..knock yourself out. I nipped out of work at lunchtime yesterday to pick up food, and some bits and pieces for a bunch of my colleagues. There were two different kinds of crisps on the shopping list which required me to pause and browse the snacks aisle, as well as two packs of cookies which meant I had to stray into that other well-known danger zone. Even as I was throwing stuff into my basket, it didn’t bother me one bit because…well, that’s not my kind of food any more is it?

Back in the office, the cookies were opened for general consumption and they sat on the desk opposite mine all afternoon. I didn’t flirt with them, not even once. And I don’t mean in a huffy I refuse to even look at you kind of way either…they just didn’t make it onto my radar. Now, we all know that normally they’d drive me bat-shit crazy from across the room, and I can’t begin to tell you how liberating it is when previously impossible-to-ignore food become invisible. I feel normal.

The most amazing thing of all is the way I sat in the armchair last night catching up with a bit of TV, and my mind stayed locked and loaded into the programme I was watching. It didn’t set off on a mental adventure around the cupboards in my kitchen wondering what snacking opportunities may be lurking behind closed doors. It wasn’t calculating how many of my weekly points I could get away with using up by the end of Tuesday. I didn’t even consider licking a piece of Charlie’s dog-chocolate. I mean, nothing. 

I’d been so absorbed in what I was watching, it wasn’t until I climbed the stairs to bed that I realised just how quiet it’d gone inside my own head. And the more I thought about it, the more I remembered that feeling of calm from the last time I kicked sugar to the kerb…it’s like someone throws a blanket over the incessant chatter which exists to de-rail my good intentions and the noise just stops. My mind becomes a dieting quiet zone and it’s fucking awesome.

Now, y’all know I’ve crashed and burned at this point several times so I’m not counting my chickens. And I can’t put my finger on why exactly, but this time I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m not fighting with myself and it just feels like the time is right.

I’m calm. I’m determined and I think it’s time to bring this home 🙂

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