Week One of the Twelve Week Challenge

One week over, eleven to go. When I signed up for this challenge, we were encouraged to set goals every week. I kind of laughed at this. Weekly goals? I only overall goals: I want to lose a few of those extra kilos, tone up and get fit. But after week one of the challenge, new goals have started to emerge.

On Day One (Monday of last week), I tried going a whole day sticking to the eating plan. Which meant that for the first day in (quite possibly) my entire life, I tried to go a whole day without sugar. If you had asked me before the challenge if I was addicted to sugar, I would have told you Yeah! with a huge grin on my face because I didn't really believe it. Do I like sugar? Definitely. Am I completely dependent on sugar? No way.

And this is how I was still feeling when it got to ten o'clock at night on Day One. I was getting ready to go to bed. But I couldn't relax. My palms were sweating, I was shaking a little bit and I was starting to get a headache. Finally, after bursting into tears, I raced down to the kitchen and started tearing through our pantry and fridge (all of which had been cleaned out in anticipation of the Challenge). Finally finding some sweet crackers and a half-full bag of chocolate chips, I turned on the grill and melted chocolate chips all over the crackers while simultaneously pouring the chocolate into my mouth.

I wish I were joking, and that my need for sugar was a joke. But after looking back at how I've been eating I started to get a little a lot scared. I realised that I have a sugary drink with most meals (usually fruit juice or iced tea), and that there are most often baked goods lying around in the staff room at work for morning and afternoon tea. I also will tend to grab a muesli bar as a snack at Uni. So basically, without realizing it, I have been feeding myself a constant stream of sugar for most of my adult life.

So my new goal is: break the addiction! Have any of you tried to break a sugar addiction? How did you do it / how did you go?

- H