some progress

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Hi All,Thanks someone for asking how I am doing.I have made it through

breakfast again. And this time I finished with 20 minutes to spare.

I have started journaling although loosely. I hate writing and

especially journaling. I think I wrote too many essays in university and

have never recovered. I bought myself a little spiral bound hard cover

notebook with sparkles and fairies on the front. All I have been doing

is writing down what I eat for each meal and that is all. No amounts,

times or other details. This is all I can muster and I just want to

build the habit of journaling with out making myself hate it - and thus

quit.

Breakfast this morning was shredded wheat with unsweetened soy milk, a

whole wheat pita with hummus. Other days I have found myself eating a

handful of unsalted nuts as soon as I get up. Often I also like an apple

of other fruit to go with everything else.

I have been experimenting with being sugar free the rest of the day as

much as possible. I am discovering there are a lot of hidden sugars.

Yikes!

I really want to quit sugar completely and I feel better on sugar free

days and even better when I string a few of them together. When I do

string a few of them together I can quickly see the difference on the

scale. I weigh 253 and am 5 feet 2 inches tall. Over all I feel betrayed

by sugar and quite p*ssed off about it. One of the experiments I did was

to have a milkshake. I thoroughly enjoyed it of course, but when I got

to the bottom of it I wanted a second one. I realized how ridiculous

this was. Afterwards I felt a bit on top of the world. All was well and

I even felt like taking a walk at 11:30 at night. And then the crash

came...we all know about the crash. I have also noticed that sugar

affects my dreams. I have nerve pain in my right thigh that is cased by

being overweight. When I stay off the sugar for a few days it get

better. When I eat sugar it comes back. Pain is quite the motivator!

I now look at the candy selection at the check out and think about the

pain in my leg. " That stuff is poison " I tell myself as I glare

menacingly at it. Other things that help are that I want to become

totally vegan. I am pretty close but still have to work the kinks out.

As a teen I quit sugar and was very strong willed. At the time it was

more a form of rebellion, but in the long run it has served me well. By

wanting to become vegan and having been vegetarian for more than half of

my life, I am used to excluding foods and reading labels. For example,

if it has whey powder or dextrose I put it down. Some things just do not

register in my brain as food. To me animals are not food just as my own

arm or cardboard is not food.

I live in Seattle proper so I have lots of places to shop for healthy

whole foods. My favorite place is Trader Joe's as it is much more

affordable. We do have a few Whole Foods stores here but the nick name

for Whole Foods is Whole Paycheck. The other draw back is that Whole

Foods has the most beautiful pastry case. I was a Baker and so I love

confectionery art. Those cute $5 lemon tarts talk to me. I try not to

eat talking food. I know my brain is telling me lies. I know we are not

supposed to quit sugar until later in the steps but my body is having

none of it. There is more to this program than just quiting sugar. I

find eating 3 meals a day very challenging to the point that all I can

handle right now is breakfast. I do so-so at not letting myself get too

hungry before I eat but have a long way to go.

At one point I tried out a 12 step food related program. I was

overwhelmed and found the expectation to do it all at once was more than

I could handle so I quit. This may have been this one individual group's

sentiment and it may work brilliantly for others. For me I need the soft

warm fuzzy approach with lots of encouragement.

May all beings be happy and free from suffering!