It wasn’t until I was a few months into my BLE journey that I realized this. Long before I started to seriously consider cutting sugar out of my life, I knew something was wrong with how I ate. But the thought of never eating sugar again scared the bee-jeesus out of me.
And that’s because the thought of living the rest of my life without sugar and flour seemed to me totally unimaginable. My life was BUILT around sugar and flour. I knew all the best stops around town to get my favorite cookies and doughnuts and cake. Car trips were all about where I could stop to buy great food (OMG there’s a Culver’s here!). Visits with family members and friends were planned around restaurants and what we were going to eat. Vacations were excuses to eat everything I wanted. Holidays were all about eating certain favorites. I would drive miles out of the way to get a favorite food fix. The list went on and on and on.
Sure, I despised what it was doing to my body, my self-esteem, my time, my mental health, my emotional balance. I literally hated it. But living without it seemed like the end of the world. The thought of giving up the “good parts” of sugar/flour seemed unacceptable.
So I did what most people do. I tried to prove to myself that I could indulge moderately. I tried to limit my “fixes” to weekends or one cheat day a week, so I could keep sugar/flour in my life. Or I’d give up sugar/flour for a week or ten days. I’d try to limit the number of NMFs I’d eat in a day (“only 3 Oreos” or “only 5 of those tiny tea cookies I adore”). I even tried switching it up – eating “healthy” versions of my favorites so the sugar/flour would be diluted. None of this ever worked. Ever. Inevitably, I’d end up making exceptions or just throwing up my hands and going off the deep end.
No wonder some of the big weight-loss commercial plans appealed to me sooooo much. They’d say things like, “You can eat anything you want – just in moderation.” Yes! I didn’t have to give anything up. I just needed to learn how to moderate it.
The problem was, I’d already been trying to moderate my eating of crap for a long time. I’d spent years trying to “moderate” it and failing.
This is what has been so transforming about BLE for me – showing me that the only way to be free of my mess is to give it up entirely. The only way to eliminate the things I HATE about what sugar/flour does to me, is to give up the things I LOVE about sugar/flour. It’s that simple.
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