Me. Apparently. me.
It took sheer will to get to the end of Day 1 and a healthful dinner.
I know what triggered the collapse after only a day and a half of no sugar, and while it was a brutally emotional week last week, it’s not all bad.
Let me tell you how it went…
Day 1 (Last Tuesday):
I violated a dead chicken in ways that might possibly be illegal.
A bag of nuts was the only sustenance in a long day at the Jeep dealership
I started the detox without having gotten my planning and shopping done, so I woke up to a full day of errands and only the scrapings of a tub of almond butter and a ziploc baggie of walnuts. (I told you about all this last Tuesday.)
My plan was to get all the groceries after I got the Jeep inspected. I’ve tried having it inspected twice before – once the machine was down and the second time they found something new which I couldn’t afford to fix right then. Since I had been mostly spending time in Ohio, where there are no inspection stickers, I decided to wait until I would be back in PA a lot.
I’m back in PA a lot.
So with nothing but a baggie of walnuts and my Best American Travel Writing (2011 edition) I went to get the Jeep inspected. I thought worst case scenario I might have to leave it there and rent a car for a day or two if it needed something to pass inspection.
It needed EVERYTHING to pass inspection. BUT it would be done same day. So after confirming with Kurt that we could still invest in poor Henry, I sat in the lounge and waited. I waited all afternoon at the dealership with nothing but one book, a bottle of water and a baggie of walnuts, having eaten nothing for breakfast but almond butter.
Shopping for veggies is more appealing when you are so hungry you could eat your shoe.
The lounge was buried in boxes of free donuts for visitors. And the snack machine was just around the corner. And I was “starving!” I had done a good hard hour on the treadmill, moving up to a sustained 20 incline twice. Everything looked like food. I sat as far away from the donuts as I could, hoping not to smell them or see people getting them out and eating them in front of me. I kept peeing to a minimum and tried to focus on my book.
The book wasn’t working so I started distracting myself by adding up things with Henry (my Jeep). The fixes needed for inspection were $1600. We had already put out $1500 after we brought him back, because he needed all four shocks, rear rotors and brake pads and a fix on the rear right axle.
Between thinking about Henry and reading essays from the book, I did it! Somehow I managed to not eat any donuts or attack the snack machine.
My violated rotisserie chicken. Thankfully I hate chicken skin or I’m sure I would have eaten that, too.
By the time I went shopping and left the grocery store it was 8pm. I bought a rotisserie chicken in the store and could hardly wait to tear off the skin and attack when I got home. As my broccoli was cooking I ripped off skin and pulled out chunks of breast meat with my bare hands, eating it right over the stove. I then put more onto a plate with the broccoli and tried to pretend I wasn’t completely overreacting to my first world “starvation” day.
I finished my broccoli and chicken and despite my better intentions, went to bed on a full stomach, and was happy to call Day 1 a success.
Tomorrow I will tell you how one wonderful moment led to epic failure.
Love, Marla
P.S. Despite my difficulties altering my eating habits, my fitness regimen has continued to be amazeballs! I alternated treadmill and elliptical on last week’s cardio (one hour a day, 6 days a week) and did weight training 3 days.
On Friday I bench pressed 70 pounds for 10 reps which was a new record for me. My goal on the bench press is to regularly do 100 pounds for 3 sets of 10 reps each. I also made it to 10 reps of 100 pounds on lats.
OOoooo, a cliffhanger! =D
I’ve tried giving up sugar. (I’m a substance abuse counselor, so I’ve had the thought that i should try giving it up just to understand a TINY SLICE of the difficulty my clients are facing). But I can’t do it. Totally addicted. That stuff’s worse than crack.
I think calling that chicken violated would be an understatement! LOL
You could go to the periodontist and get a full mouth root scaling and planing done like I just did! Trust me when I say NOTHING with any hint of sugar will even tempt you in the least!! OUCH! Pretty much anything, for that matter.
Expensive, but guarantee 10 day start on sugar detox!!
First of all you are hilarious and gave me a good laugh! Secondly, it’s better to fail on day 2 than day 8 or so. The earlier you fail, the earlier you get back up, dust your shoulders off, strengthen your resolve and march on to your goal!! You can so do it! All the best!
thinking of it as a “fail” can only make it harder – think of it as a bump in the road or a wake up call to plan better for the future. Any effort to change for the better is to be commended, and is a big part of the process. Hang in there
still impressive though Marla, don’t be so hard on yourself