April 22, 2017 - Alex
Day 0
Mimi’s Cafe, Chesterfield, Missouri
Day 0. The day when my plans to kick sugar to the curb – again – seem so attainable.
This day has been coming. My last post was almost two years ago. Why? Well, there’s probably no secret there. When sugar addicts stop talking about their successes, there’s usually trouble on the ranch. (Or, there’s trouble dipped in Ranch.)
Another fact that should shock nobody is the fact that I’ve actually been kicked the sugar habits quite a few times in the past two years. I’m starting to feel like the smoker or the drinker who proudly proclaims, “I’ve been [vice]-free for 16 years. Well, except for the time that I fell off last May.” Sorry fella, you’ve either been clean and sober or you haven’t. You don’t get to have it both ways. My new proclamation should simply be, “I haven’t had sugar since… the last time I had sugar!”
So, technically, it’s Day 1 today. But I had a whole speech for Day 0 that was floating around in my head yesterday, and I’m jumping into the terror of Day 1 just doesn’t feel right without what got me here.
So… Day 0. Lots to say.
First off, Day 0 this time was much like previous versions. Lots of trepidation about setting unreasonable or unattainable goals. Lots of pre-planning my responses to the usual host of supportive [sic] comments that follow:
“Again?”
“Why do you do this to yourself?”
“You just need to eat in moderation.”
“Yo-yo dieting is worse for you than if you just ate what you wanted.”
“You suck. Nobody’s going to want to have you join them for dinner if you’re not eating anything.”
“You just need to learn to say no.”
Well, I’ll give you the last one.
In fact, I’ve spent countless hours trying to make sense of this never-ending pattern: How in the world do we end up failing when success felt so good?