as if i'm not trying to do enough already—research home-buying, cook more, be more diligent about writing, save money, chart my fertility—i decided the other day that i need to get control over a substance over which currently i seem to have none.
sugar.
i made this decision about noon on Saturday when, after sweating like a champ in my Total Body Conditioning class, i ate a whole wheat bagel with peanut butter for breakfast. doesn't sound so bad, right? there's protein in peanut butter and at least the bagel was whole wheat. problem was, i chased the bagel with about 25 caramel-filled Hershey's Kisses.
why? because i am a sugar addict.
at least that's what my research has shown so far. i can't remember the last time i let a day go by without some kind of dessert, after lunch or dinner—or usually both. just last Friday, when i went out with the girls for pizza and wine, i was the only one who ordered dessert—a cannoli, and i finished the whole damn thing by myself.
i was born with this wicked sweet tooth, i'm convinced. it was inherited from my father, who is almost worse than me. (he could write his own blog entry about his eating habits over the holidays—not that i'm in any position to judge, but he was having dessert after breakfast, strolling oh-so-casually by the cookie jar in the kitchen and oopsie! those oatmeal raisin cookies just leaped into his hand!) but the genetics excuse only gets me so far. it's time i come clean and take responsibility for my own sugar-junkie actions.
they have a long and scandalous history.
between fifth and eighth grade, i would regularly throw out my brown-bag lunches and instead spend 35 cents on the Little Debbie snack cakes sold in the cafeteria. during high school, the majority of my lunches (all purchased in the cafeteria) consisted of a soft pretzel with mustard and at least one (but usually two) freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
in college? HA! the first three years are a blur of Friendly's sundae cups, gummy peaches, peanut butter M&M's and Entenmann's anything. even senior year, after i'd finally stepped on a scale and realized i had to stop the insanity, i still indulged in slices of chocolate cake available at—of all places—the on-campus Sbarro's.
but wait, there's more.
back when i worked at Seventeen, i went across the street to an upscale deli for lunch every day. i would get turkey, tomato and mustard on whole wheat (hold the cheese), a bag of baked chips—and a chocolate chip cookie the size of my face. at my next job i developed an addiction to triple-chocolate brownies sold at a nearby food market and had one after lunch at least three times a week. since i started my current job, my treats have run the gamut—Harvest Cookies from Pret to black & white cookies from a gourmet market to whatever calls my name in the candy aisle at Duane Reade downstairs.
seriously, it's a wonder i'm not 350 pounds.
still, i'm determined to beat my addiction. i've been able, in the past, to satisfy my sweets cravings with just a bit of dark chocolate (which has health benefits, dammit!). granted, those stretches lasted only days—soon enough i'd be jamming a dollar bill into the vending machine at work, trembling with anticipation as i watched the bag of Skittles or Peanut M&Ms (or, i admit, sometimes frosted Pop Tarts) drop down into the bin.
but this time i'm really determined. i found a reasonable plan of action on wholeliving.com and i'm going to give it a shot. i'm making progress already—instead of my usual three mini Peppermint Patties after lunch today, i only had two. (one of the first rules of breaking a sugar addiction is to cut back slowly; go cold turkey and one is liable to turn into a raging B-I-T-C-H—i would never do that to Michael!)
so we'll see how this goes. i'm thinking that if i don't try to get the situation under control now, someday those Little Debbie indulgences circa 1989 will come back to haunt me and i will be 350 pounds. and no amount of strawberry cake would ease that heartache.
mbm
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