Tag Archives: calm

Life In The Quiet Zone

In the here & now, ,

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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Two Things Have Happened…

In the here & now, , ,

There’s something distinctly weird happening in my head at the moment. This probably won’t come as a big surprise to those of you who’ve raised an eyebrow here and there over the last 18 months at some of the titter and shit that has tumbled onto this very page…lets be honest, weird stuff happening in my head is not unusual in itself. But when I say weird, I mean different.

I’m used to feeling like I have to dodge bullets on a regular basis. You all know that I regard myself as a food addict, right? Dieting is a challenge for anyone, but if you have a food addiction and you’re trying to lose weight, you are locked into a constant battle. It’s a never-ending negotiation with your own head over what you’re allowed to have, when you’re allowed to have it, and most importantly how much of it is the right amount to have.

And it’s relentless because even after the decision is made I find my asshole voice coming in hard with a rear-guard action trying to re-negotiate. Let’s be honest, what is generally considered amongst normal folk to be the right amount looks to me like it wouldn’t feed a sparrow and the injustice of not having a plate that would feed a small army leaves me seething with resentment. It’s exhausting.

Of late however, it’s felt different. Calmer somehow. And I don’t know that it’s got anything to do with being in the sweet spot, I mean I was fully locked and loaded into the sweet spot when I started this diet eighteen months ago,  for the first few months I didn’t put a foot wrong in terms of eating more than my allocated food budget but the Asshole voice was in constant communication with my willpower and it was tested on an hourly basis. Now, not so much so.

The difference? I’ve more or less excluded sugar from my diet. It’s the only thing I can put my finger on, you know? And before you worry that I’m going to turn into one of these evangelistic preachy teachy kind of bloggers who tells you what to do and how to do it, I’m not, I swear. This blog hasn’t ever been about that, it’s always been more about sharing what’s going on in my head as I try and navigate the path to Skinny Town. But it makes you think, doesn’t it?

I’ve always said that for me, I can stick to my food plan providing I can have the odd treat so I don’t feel deprived. Except my odd treat was way way out of balance with the rest of my diet. I could stick to a daily points allowance, but let’s say I had 35 points to go at, I’d start with the crap and work my way back, you know?

If I count two Mars Bars at 24 points, that means I have 11 points to spend on proper food…fruit for breakfast which is free, salad for lunch which is free and then maybe chicken for supper with a mountain of vegetables which are also free, so I get that stuffed fit to bust feeling but I can still ‘relax’ and eat two Mars Bars because technically I’m not doing anything wrong, right? I stayed within points and look at this innocent face…

Except, having eaten two Mars Bars – or hob-nobs or Daim cake or whatever, it could have been anything – I’d still feel deprived, because two wasn’t three and there were more in the fridge which I wasn’t allowed to have. And having got the taste for them, often the ones in the fridge for another day wouldn’t survive the night because I’d pay forward my food budget then wake up the next day and sulk because I was going to have to live on dust for the rest of the week.

That’s all gone. I’m 61 days food sober, and I haven’t eaten chocolate, or cookies, or crisps, or anything with refined sugar in it except things like maybe low-fat salad cream which has a trace element. Nothing processed that has added sugar, just lots of fresh food. And two things have happened.

The cravings have stopped dead. I’m no longer tortured by the relentless need to eat something sweet. If I haven’t eaten one of something, I don’t crave a second or a third, and I’m no longer even bothered by the thought of it. I mean…this is me we’re talking about. The other thing is I’ve stopped seething with resentment at the fact that I’m on on this journey to begin with.

You can’t help wondering, can you? I started this whole clean eating thing as a bit of an experiment, but actually I have a feeling it’s morphed into a bit of a game changer for me…I’m just going with it, I mean why wouldn’t I? The prospect of not living the rest of my life as a slave to my drug of choice is blowing my mind 🙂

 

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