Me Minus You, I mean, Sugar

On August 25, I promised myself that I would stay away from sugar. I don't have too many bad habits. I barely drink alcohol. I don't smoke. Barely drink soda. So my one vice was sugar. I could eat a whole bag of M&Ms (the BIG one) all by myself... and probably in one or two sittings. I can go shop at Sam's club (and we all know those are not small packages) and buy cupcakes and cakes and I would eat it all within the week. So, with all the working out and starting to eat healthier, I decided to also try cutting out sugar from my diet. So far, I do miss eating it. But, since August 25, I have lost 164.4 - 158.7 = 5.7 lbs!

I'm excited. I haven't been in the 150 range in a very long time. All the working out and the eating better wasn't allowing me to lose weight quick enough. Friends are saying that they are seeing the weight loss. But, I wasn't seeing it. You are your harshest critic. But, waking up and seeing that scale below 160 lbs has been a really good feeling. Unbelievable, almost.

After October 14, I will allow myself to have some sugar back into my diet. But, I do not want to allow myself to believe that it is ok for me to take in as much sugar as I did before.The more educated I become about what I am putting into my body... the more I realize that sugar really is not good for me. Cancer feeds off of the sugars in our body... and if I can help it, I want to not help that mutation start. (We have a family history of cancer.) I remember seeing a video on Facebook about how sugar makes your brain behave like it's on drugs. I'm sure a little sugar is needed in our bodies to function daily, but we are a generation of excess and we are abusing the sugar available to our bodies. Mine... I know I abused sugar.

Nowadays, I find my sugars in fruits. Grapes are so sweet tasting lately. And I drink water infused with various water flavors such as the Crystal Light water drops. These little droplets are sweet even though I don't put a lot in my water. I usually have a 32 oz water bottle at my desk and I squeeze some into the water to give it a boost. Not so boring going down. Because I do this, my mouth always has a sweet taste to it. This seems to be enough of a taste to squash my sugar cravings for now.

I am hoping to lose a little more weight this year. I am hoping that if I can stay away from the sugars I can reach my mid-point goal by the end of this year.

For Myself

"Getting back in shape" has been something that came and went with the seasons with me. My twenties were spent in rather good shape. Of course, in anyone's twenties, they never think they would gain weight. My thirties were a different story. I started gaining weight and refused to see what was happening to me. I stopped being active, stopped going to martial arts classes, no more sports. The extend of my "exercising" was walking at the beach or around a lake. Yes, this is still exercising. But, to go from a very active twenty-something to just walking wasn't going to cut it.

Then, one week, the week of June 15, 2014, my life changed. I went out on a date with someone (no details will be revealed) and the way I felt about myself after going out with him was just terrible. I felt I had gotten to the lowest point of my life (I'm still single, so dating was perfectly normal). Why would I, someone who's a pretty good catch, just 35-ish lbs overweight, need to involve myself with someone as the person I had gone out with?

 The feelings I was feeling about myself, along with my own family medical history, started a change in my inner most person. I needed to feel better about who I am. Not that I wasn't feeling good before. My confidence and my self-worth has always been with me. But, it was a deeper feeling. A mirror held up to myself to reflect back at me what I REALLY thought about myself when I am alone, when I am in the quiet of my own mind palace. My inner most self wasn't happy with the ongoing unhealthy lifestyle I have been living.

 This is all about me now. It's not about looking good for someone else. It's not about having to fit into a dress for a party. It's not about how the world sees me. It's about me and how I feel about myself when no one can see me. Maybe this "wisdom" came with age, maybe it is the result of the two life events I've had this year, I don't know. What I do know is that I am my worst critic and my own motivation. And this has helped me this far.

Since June, I've been working out harder. I'm sure I can spend more time and more energy working out to lose this weight faster. But, according to my doctor, 1 lb a month is the healthy way of doing this.... so that in the long run, I can keep this weight off. Losing weight too fast, of course I knew this, would only mean for a temporary weight loss and I mean to keep this weight off forever. I am nearing my fourties now, I want to go into my fourties healthy and agile and when fifty comes around, I want to still look like I am only in my thirties.

So far, I've gone from 172 in September, 2013 to 179 in March 2014 to 158 now. My goal will not be reached this year, I know that. But, I will reach my goal sooner or later and I am determined to stay at my goal when I get there.