Sugar
I didn’t go to yoga again today. Instead I ate ice cream. A lot of it. Cow’s ice cream I might add.* We went to the Sugar Bowl in Old Town Scottsdale when I should have been practicing yoga and the girls should have been with my brother. Sugar Bowl is this ancient ice cream parlor, the extorior is pink and the interior is like the same as it was in the 50’s. It’s actually part quaint, part creepy. It’s a tourist trap so the owners don;t have to do much to maintain business. Looks like they rarely even clean the place. But the ice cream is damn good so who cares. I had peanut butter cup ice cream with chocolate fudge. Mia had pink peppermint ice cream. I ate all of mine and half of hers.
That’s not the beginning, but I am hoping that was the end of my sugar binge. Sugar is my drug. I am either on it or off it and when I am on it it’s never just a little bit. It’s like binge-o-rama with me. It’s like jonsing, craving, whole body take-over addiction. Mood swings and temper fits if I am coming down from it. It’s no fun, plus it does a number on my digestive track and wakes up the candid monster that lives within.
My friend Brooke had a great little easter idea. As a Spring tradition she grows real Easter grass with her son in a basket. Once the grass grows it’s a great place to hide treats for the little ones. So we got our basket, lined it with foil, filled it with soil and planted some wheat berries. The next day we had grass and it’s been growing like crazy ever since. I told Mia and that magic lives in that grass and that perhaps if she really wanted something, it might appear in her Easter grass. “I want chocolate”, she told me.
I know I should have started out with something better, like stickers or carrots, or some barettes. But I bought the chocolate covered eggs. Those Cadbury ones…milk chocolate* on the inside, a thin layer of crunchy coating on the outside. Simply divine. Your teeth gently crack open the coating and sink into relatively low quality yet delicious milk chocolate. Yum. So I hid the bag in my closet and a couple times a day I would hide a little egg in her Easter grass. She was tickled pink. I was beaming watching her search her grass, gently seperating the blades looking for the eggs. When she would find one her eyes would widen, her moth turned into a big O and she’d look at me, holding her egg, “Can I eat it, mama? Can Mia eat it?” So cute. I even lied to her.
“Mama, magic gives me eggs?”
“Well it’s your goddess magic. Ostara is a goddess inside your heart and she has a little friend or a firmiliar who is a bunny. I think it’s the bunny who brings us eggs. The egg is telling us all the hope their is for life”
I can’t believe I said it. I am like the anti-santa/not-lying-to-kids- nazi and here I was. Lying. But in my defense it all seemed to magical. We grew the grass, we blessed it. She asked for chocolate. It appeared. What else was a mother to do?
So this week I statred with a pound of those eggs. Mia found a total of 10 eggs in 6 days. Yet today the bag is empty.
The sick thing is I eat them in the morning. I crawl out of bed, stand right by my closet, grounding my feet in Mountain Pose, getting ready to do some morning breathing and a short Yin practice. And then I’ll think to myself, “Chocolate.” The hell with yoga. And by 6am I am sneaking into my closet, quietly digging m hand into the crinkly plastic target bag, soming out with a handful of my own special crack.
The other night I woke up around 2am. I couldn’t sleep (gee could it be all the sugar?). I got my latest The Sun mag out, a glass of water….and a big handful of chocolate eggs. Yuck. Just thinking about it makes my teeth hurt.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Usually I eat my yogurt in the morning with nothing real sweet. Plain yogurt, walnuts, maybe a handful of blueberries or banana and some sunflower seeds. This week I had to have it sweeter. Huge spoonfuls of raw, sweet honey. When I have coffee, I have it black. Not this week. Sugar in it.
White bread. I bought white flat bread at Trader Joes this week. The only bread we ever have in our house is like dark as night spelt flour bread. White flour. Had to have it. Had to have it turn into sugar inside.
At dinnertime I craved sugar, so every meal I made revolved around sweetness. Indonesian noodles with creamy sunflowerseed butter and coconut milk. Chinese beans with tons of Hoison sauce and honey added to that. It’s like I couldn’t get enough. Old Hot Tamale candy that I found at the bottom of my purse from the last time I went to the movies (around 3 months ago) went straight to my mouth. Didn’t even want water…only wanted juice or beer all week long. Everything I put in my mouth was either sugared or dipped into something sugary. I could’t stop.
Until now. I am drinking my last sweet thing–licoricec tea with honey and rice milk. Tomorrow I am on a total and utter sugar fast. As I type my leg is seriously bouncing in that addict-type way, shaking up and and down at the mere thought of detox. I hope that I can get out of bed and be a good mama. Somethings got to give. Mia catches on to me quickly. Today I watched her get the big jug of maple syrup out of the fridge and pour a bowl of it for herself. She obviously was on the same vibe as me.
Besides eating lots of protein, does anybody have any good sugar-rid systems or food combos that help the craving? it’s that serious with me. I can feel my body screaming at me for more. Oh I thank god I never got heavy into drugs. I would be doomed.
*Sula has shown severe reactions to cow dairy that she received through my breast milk. I cut out all cow dairy. Today I had a relapse. She threw up a 1/2 days worth of milk in the bath tonight. A large dried leaf came up with the puke, so I am not sure if it was the dairy or he leaf. I’ll have to wait and see if she breaks out in hives. If not, she may be growing out of it. Which would be a relief. But I do think that I won’t go back to cow again. Unless it’s an occasionaly ice cream treat.
*She didn’t seem to react to the pound of milk chocolate I ate all week…so perhaps she really is outgrowing it!
Wanna know what’s funny? Last night I was getting ready to do a similiar blog about eating almost an entire box of donuts yesterday and being all sugar crazy and mad at myself. But I was too damn tired due to crashing from my sugar high/low! Seriously, MB, I think I could rival you with this sugar thing and for that, I am not proud. I made a big ol’ batch of chocolate chip cookies tonight because of my craving. When I get on sugar, I’m like a train that can’t stop - luckily I don’t keep sweets in my house, but then it makes me look more patetic when I’m at the grocery checkout line with twinkies, OJ, cookie dough, and donuts. And my husband always, always make the comment the next day “Did you REALLY eat all those donuts?”. I just hang my head and shake it. I have been talking outloud to myself about the need to detox. Sometimes, I’m really good. But when I’m bad, I’m awfully bad. Let’s help each other! Let’s commit! Let’s shake this thing…and then celebrate with a teeny, tiny bit of dark chocolate (see, I’m hopeless).
Comment by Leigh — April 7, 2006 @ 5:34 am
Protein, lots of water, and desire to do better. Get it out of the house and hide your wallet. I know exactly how you feel; sugar is my drug too.
Comment by Melinda — April 7, 2006 @ 1:59 pm
God MB, I don’t even try to cut out sugar! I don’t think I could. How bad is THAT?
For me, I’m too reactionary to cut a particular food out. I’ve tried many, many times to do this - you name it, I have cut it out. Including food altogether, doing 30 day cleansing fasts without a bit of food.
At this point in my life, after so many efforts to deny my innate cravings, I have decided to stop trying to fight biology. Nature wins every time. My body gravitates to a certain weight - more than I’d like but given my particular motherline, I’m doing good right where I am!
With Satchel, I limit sugar and tv and crap food, but all of these things are definitely part of his world. I watch him and his body wisdom, his self-regulation, is an amazing thing. If he has a whole chocolate bunny, it might take him days to eat it. Even if it is sitting out open for him to graze on as he chooses. With tv, after 30 minutes or so, he will ask me to turn it off so he can play.
Having breastfed on demand, let him sleep where he felt safe (with us, though I tried other options), listening to his cues from birth forward, I find his sense of internal knowing is very strong. I am trying to hone this for him in ways that my own body wisdom was not.
My innate knowing of myself was obliterated through family habits and training. It has been a lifelong struggle. Your comment about wanting to do yoga and then standing in your closet desperate for the chocolate instead sent shivers of recognition through me.
Partly I am rebelling against limiting my appetite, because I feel in so many ways our culture has villianized a woman’s appetites - of all senses. Food, sex, desire, success, creativity. And so, this is one area that mothering has made me stronger. I cannot let myself be a role model of denial and reaction and addiction - for my son or my future daughters. I am the archtype of woman that they first embody and learn from. Even if I am inclined to torment myself, I cannot promote self-deprivation, sacrifice and cultural values that limit women. My children will be watching.
Further, on a personal level, my addiction is to food itself…in any form. Not just sugar. Denial breeds frenzy and obsession for me. My best bet is to learn to live with food, in peaceful loving acceptance of food. Even foods that trigger me to go wild. I am trying to relearn my body cues so I can hear myself - my inner self with appetites and desires and all of it - the way Satchel seems able to do. I am reparenting myself I guess to hear what I am truly hungry for.
But this is just my struggle…not necessarily yours. (Sorry, your post asked for help with limiting sugar and I ramble on about feminism and body image issues, arrrrgh.) For some people, sugar truly is a problem. I know many people who treat sugar like alcohol, tobacco or any other drug. They have reactions to it and must limit it. I support this too. If this is your situation, and you want or need to go cold-turkey, then you know yourself and know what you need to do.
If I were going cold-turkey on sugar. Here are a few things I would do:
*Give myself lots of non-sugar sweetness in the first three days or so; the hardest part. For me, non-sugary sweetness would be a hot bath with my kids or my honey. Music that makes my body shiver with movement. Foot or body massages if you can find someone to give you one.
Since sugar is a search for pleasure, endorphins, mother love, primal sweetness, make sure you get lots of it in every alternate form you can while you wean off.
*Eat balanced, nutritional meals & snacks every 3-4 hours to keep your blood sugar balanced.
*Take naps with the girls so you don’t yearn for a sugar rush from pure sleepiness and exhaustion.
*Make an altar or add something to your altar devoted to a healthier, non-sugared you, a concrete commitment to your journey.
*Since words are your thing, write about the process. Let it be your muse, let the beauty of your journey - even if ugly - show.
*Choose one asana that you will do every time you crave sugar. A pose you can do easily for about 60 seconds while you collect yourself. This will be your body memory of sugar-free.
Well, I hope this helps. I love your honesty about the craving and the urgency. There is something powerful in there - the roots of which you will probably discover as you move through the process. Listen to the difference between body hunger and soul hunger.
But you know all of this. I guess it is just a loving reminder and support from afar.
Let me know how it goes.
be ital.
give thanks.
Comment by Brooke — April 7, 2006 @ 7:35 pm
The Sugar Bowl! The vanilla malt with the marshmallow cream around the glass…yummy!
Comment by Karen — April 8, 2006 @ 12:06 am
Why not try to trick yourself and eat gooey, gummy candy stuff sugar FREE? you know, like DEcaf coffee? I’m sure it won’t taste nearly as good but hey, you’ll get the craving taken care of! xx
Comment by rebecca love — April 18, 2006 @ 3:30 am