I have a confession to make.
I am a big fat sugar-fail.
There are a thousand things I could blame it on, but it’s my fault really. The 2 weekends that we moved house were very stressful and probably not the best time to decide to ease back into sugar. It didn’t help that those weekends were also around Easter and if there’s one thing that can sway me better than most it’s a Cadbury Crème Egg (even if the new recipe for the yolk is absolute bollocks). I had one, and then two. I said no to Mum’s offer of a big hollow egg and then yes to another Crème Egg.
I got back on track but it really was (honestly) time to put just a little sugar back in my diet. It’s one thing to look after my health but it’s another to miss out on once in a lifetime flavours and textures in Europe because they will make me sick. That’s what sugar does to me – my body has been so empty of it that any small amount makes me sick. I don’t want to be trying gelato from the shop that invented it and then spending the afternoon regretting it. I needed to get my body used to small amounts, but still stay in control.
Um, yeah. Control.
Squish started baking goodies while home sick and bringing them to pre-Monty-and-NurseB-leaving get togethers. Some, like her sugar-free cookies, were safe. The Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies that turned up to work with Wozz (who conveniently lives with her and works with me) were not. Ah Squish, damn you for being so amazing in the kitchen.
By all means it is not Squish’s fault. I think it goes more back to moving into Monty and Nurse B’s house. When I went sugar-free, I stopped buying sugar. Even if I wanted it, there wasn’t any. At Monty and Nurse B’s house, I was suddenly alone with a pantry that included chocolate chip biscuits and hot chocolate mix and a fridge with juice and soft drink. It was cold, and there is nothing I love better for warm comfort food than biscuits dipped in hot chocolate. I ate the biscuits. All of them. Of course, I replaced them. Then I ate those too.
2 weeks later, I have a list on the fridge of everything we’ve eaten that needs to be replaced before we leave. 90% of it is sugar, and I ate it. Including the chocolate buttons from the baking shelf. I’m actually ashamed of it but I couldn’t not tell you because I promised to be honest. I have tried, I swear! I have still said no to things. I have made good choices. But once a day, I’ve made a bad one.
I sat at Courtney’s Dad’s house and nodded quietly as they offered biscuits to everyone and acknowledged that I was sugar-free but could have a treat when I accepted one. I wasn’t being dishonest by letting them say I was sugar-free. I haven’t given up. I will get back on track. I have to, because to be honest, I feel like crap. I’ve fallen asleep on the couch every night this week. I have a really bad headache today. I’ve slept in every morning. I feel stodgy and gluey and yuck. Imagine pouring buckets of gelatine into a previously free-flowing river. That goopy slow moving mess is me. It goes to prove just how much sugar affects me. And after weeks, nay months of people commenting how loose my jeans are and how silly they look, I bought new ones. They’re two sizes smaller than the last, and if I keep eating sugar they won’t fit for long.
Last week, I had my first Hot Chocolate this year. It might just be one Hot Chocolate to you, but to me it’s proof I’m letting myself down, going back on all this hard work. I’m becoming dependent on a sugar-fix mid afternoon and I didn’t work so freaking hard to end up back at the beginning.
Damn you sugar, we meet again. But I’m yet to see a sequel where the good guy lets the villain win.
