Sugar Addict

A while ago, after talking to my mom and a nurse, I decided that I have a sugar addiction. Like, for real. Did you know that sugar affects the same part of the brain that heroin affects? So yeah...I'm basically addicted to heroin.

Awesome.

After several weeks of being a chicken shit, I decided to call a nutritionist. She is in another state, so all of our correspondence will be either through the phone or computer.  She started asking questions, and I filled out a health history. Which included a list of the foods I generally eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And wow. I mean, WOW. I'd say that sugar is the number one ingredient in every single food I eat. If you can even call those foods "food", because they are so processed the nutritional value can't be very high.

What sucks about sugar is that you don't realize it is in EVERYTHING. Well, at least everything good. And everything that is readily available. Think...bread (no matter what kind), all dairy, and pretty much anything with preservatives. And that is a problem. You see, I am NOT a "foodie". (This too was a revelation to me. I always thought I loved food because I ate so much of it.) But I dislike preparing it. I abhor preparing to prepare for it. Lots of the times I hate the actual act of eating, there is no way to not look awkward when you are eating unless you are Lady Mary. If I could pop a pill that gave me all of my nutrition and satisfied any cravings or hunger, I'd be on it like white on rice.

In general, this hating of food sucks for members of my household. They are developing the same eating habits as me...fast food and already made frozen entrees. One serving of vegetables a day, if you are lucky. Fruit? Yes...but generally it comes in a cup in light syrup. This eating habit I've had for all of my adult life makes me feel like crap. I've tried all kinds of drugs (legal of course!) to make myself feel better, and they have motivated me just enough to call a nutritionist. And that is where I am at now. 

The problem with talking to a nutritionist who is also a RN is that they know the ABSOLUTE BEST way of doing things. Which is great, right? She is totally an expert in her field. This also means a whole foods diet. Organic? Yes please. (duh) And that is just too overwhelming for me to ever even contemplate. Organic is more expensive, having fresh food in the house all the time requires a trip to the grocery store more than once a month. And to really do it right, you make everything from scratch. Every. Single. Meal. Have you met me? To be fair, Gina (my expert) is trying to work with me in baby steps. Baby step one, eat a healthy breakfast. She gave suggestions, which I have only given one recipe one chance, and this morning I had cold pizza and a Coke. And it was delicious. So it is going really well.

I've also started taking some different vitamins and some thick red liquid that is supposed to heal my gut. I don't really know much about guts, and neither does MODG, but she did write a post about it that makes some sort of sense. Vitamins-check. Bloody syrup-check. Healthy breakfast....isn't there just a pill I can pop???

I'm trying to keep in mind that eating healthier is my goal for two reasons. I want more energy to play with my kids and I want to lose weight. I'm assuming that if I am skinnier and have more energy then a better mood in general comes with it. I could be wrong, but let's hope. All I know now is that sugar is ruling my life. Not just in Coke addiction, but in carbs too. And I'm going with sugar as one of the primary reasons I have so many high and low periods every day.

I am even contemplating doing a meal replacement program for a month. Actually, it is less than that. Three to four weeks. Shakes and bars and probably some other crap for during the day and a "healthy" dinner at night. Let's be real...me cooking and not eating take out or something straight from a box will be considered healthy. Gina has assured weight loss and the breaking of the sugar addiction. Apparently it only takes three days. I am lucky to get through one morning without it. But I know me. I'll cheat. And do I really want to cheat when I am paying money for food that is supposed to help me and be as easy as it can be without straight up being a pill?

I hate all this. I hate that it is something I have to think about and worry about and I am trying super duper fucking hard not to give it my all-or-nothing mentality. (Why even start something you know you won't do 100%? If you are going to fail, why even try?) Today has not exactly gone well with that, considering once I ate the pizza and drank the Coke I decided the day was shot and I've since eaten almost an entire sleeve of thin mints. And three packages of fruit snacks. And I skipped lunch.

Speaking of lunch, I am notorious (in my own mind) of not preparing for it. Not that I really prepare for any meal. But I can remember walking into the lunchroom in high school and being starving, and realizing that I had nothing to eat and no money. I would scrounge up a dollar and get fruit punch and a Little Debbie snack from the snack bar. And then I wondered why I was so tired all the time. Even now, the days where I don't bring lunch to work greatly outnumber the ones that I do. At least now I have a car and money. Panera Bread thanks me for my business with a free bagel.

Here is where I am. Sitting at home after work, starving, not really feeling all the great, kinda tired and yawning, and craving nothing in particular. It is nights like this after a day like today that remind me why I called Gina in the first place. Maybe I can make my second 35 years a little more peppy than the first.