A week after my 5K, I weighed myself and I was down 90 pounds from when I started this journey four years ago. Four years ago seems like a lifetime ago at this point. When I started this journey, I was never honest with anyone about just how much I weighed. I think that was always part of the problem for me. I was insecure about my weight loss because I always would think people would see me and think I should be a lot thinner than I really am after losing 90 pounds. Instead of being thrilled about the weight loss, I worried about what other people would think, which is weird for me. It started to bog me down, in a major way.
In the midst of that mental and emotional turmoil, I stopped losing weight. That in and of itself, is not the biggest deal in the world. However, I also felt like I stopped trying because I had hit a plateau. Getting up at 4:15 in the morning to work out was starting to have an adverse affect on my teaching day, and on my personal life, as I would have to be in bed before 8:30 at night. Yet, I was not eating enough to have the energy to work out after I got home from work either. It led to an incredibly awful February. I am pretty sure I was no fun to be around. I needed something to jolt my system.
This led to the best/worst idea ever.
In December of last year Martina embarked on a 21 Day Sugar Detox. Here is the link to the Detox:
Martina had great success with the Detox (which is unsurprising because my fiancée is a BOSS.) I sort of, kind of, in a way, joined her, but not really. I ate all of the delicious food she cooked, and I cooked some of the delicious food, but outside of the house, I was still consuming my regular amount of sugar.
Martina reported that she felt better, slept better lost some weight and learned things about her body. Well, I wanted to feel better, sleep better, lose weight and learn things about my body, so I posed the question to her about me undertaking the detox. Because Martina believes in me for reasons passing understanding, she was totally enthusiastic about it. She was going to join me, and our friend Megan was going to do it for the first time as well. I have to say, I am fairly certain I never would have made it through this if I was doing it alone. Having Megan around to share in my irrational rage, was comforting in every way.
What follows is a recap of the detox:
First off, I made it. I went 21 days without the sugars/sweeteners to which I am so accustomed. I lost 9 pounds in 21 days, and for the most part, felt better, slept better and learned a ton about myself.
The hardest part of the detox was not what I thought it would be. I thought that I would have an unbearable time not eating ice cream, or fruit, or drinking a sweetened iced tea from Starbucks. But that was not the case. The hardest part of the detox was that I had to have a plan for every meal of every day. SUGAR IS IN EVERYTHING! If you want to go out to eat, you need to know the menu ahead of time, and you need to know about food. I did not know about food. Embarking on a 21 Day Sugar Detox requires precise planning of meals. Some days I was in the kitchen for three or four hours cooking two different meals. Then I would have to clean the dishes to get prepared for the next meal. Most meals required way more prep work than I was accustomed to. If I was tired after a long day of teaching, I could not simply order pizza and call it a day.
Over the years I have eliminated soda, energy drinks, and fast food from my diet. There was a time when I was eating 2 or 3 meals a day from fast food, and consuming gallons of soda a week, and downing two energy drinks before 9 am. I have will power. However, I also have a job that requires an insane amount of energy, and I have limited amounts of time to put food in my system during the day, and most snack foods go against the detox, so I could not have an apple, or pretzels to munch on while I taught. I had to have small meal portions during the small breaks of my day. I was microwaving leftovers during the passing period, and eating a few bites while I took roll and my students were doing their bell work. Leftovers are essential. Make enough for two or even three meals.
You find ways to manage. We had a birthday party for Martina during the detox, and I avoided all of the usual snack foods. I cooked chicken wings for the party, and made sweet potato fries. Martina made buffalo chicken egg muffins for on-the-go breakfasts. I ate more things with carrots in them than I ever had in my entire life. The food was good. The detox was hard, but all of the elements of the detox were tasty.
I learned that foods I figured would be safe, were not. I learned to read labels on everything, and I learned that there are roughly 5,000 words that mean sugar. I learned to pay better attention to what I was putting in my body. It is so unbelievably simple. Really it is. The entire detox was simple. Except, it was also hard because of what my body is used to me putting in it. Before the detox I was eating healthier than I ever had in my lifetime. Still, I put tons of crap in my body because I like the ease of it, and I crave the sweetness. I crave sweetness after every single meal. Though, I am in month four of not eating candy, and only miss it when I think about Jelly Belly jelly beans. So, I know that I can best my cravings. The ultimate goal of the sugar detox was to tweak my taste buds and maybe, just maybe curb some of those cravings.
This left me with conflict. I wanted it to work. Seriously, I did. Except, I totally did not want it to work. I want to crave ice cream because I have an emotional reaction to ice cream (read ALL FOOD). I am an emotional eater, and have been for as long as I can remember. When something great happens, I want to eat the foods of my people (my people= fat people). When I have a stressful day, my immediate reaction is to eat nachos, or pizza, or ice cream to calm those emotions down. All of the food of my people is excluded in the detox. I had to learn how to deal with emotional situations without the crutch of food.
This was, by far, the most revealing aspect of the detox. It is not like I did not know that I am an emotional eater, but it revealed to me, how often I went to those foods. It was not even only in times of extreme emotions. If I had a bad part of a day, I thought about ice cream. I associate any emotional up or down with food. I talk about food tons. I think about food all of the time. These issues were always there. The detox flushed them to the forefront of my mind. I was forced to confront why I am an emotional eater. I am still wrestling with the why. Who knows if I will ever figure it out, but the fact that I am able to have that look inside myself is helpful. By the way, emotional toxins are even worse than actual toxins. My sugar detox was also a nice emotional toxin cleanse.
Yesterday I went to Starbucks for my usual sweetened black iced tea, and opted to have half the pumps of sweetener that I usually get. It was enough. Yesterday my baker student brought me a cupcake to eat after lunch. I had to eat half of it later because it was slightly too sweet. Last night I got frozen yogurt and I got the tiniest bit I have ever had, and got the least amount of toppings I have ever put on it, and it was enough. My desire for sweet things has not deteriorated at all, but I need less of it to have that craving quenched.
I am not sure this is going to jump start my system back to losing weight, but it definitely has got me thinking about trying to eat even cleaner than I was before. It also reminded me how much I enjoy cooking. I get tired of cooking the same things over and over, and the detox got me out of that rut. Martina has two books of recipes full of healthier foods and it time I stop talking about it and start being about it.
I have no idea if I will ever meet my goal weight. I have no idea what that goal weight will look like, so who know if that is even the right goal weight for me. I do know that the journey has been monumental in helping me figure out who the hell I am. This journey, while far from over, is already the most important thing I have done in my life. I wish I did not need it. Seriously, I wish that this was not something I had to undertake, but I got myself into this, and it is up to me to get myself out of it.
Over the last 4 years I have accomplished so many things I never would have thought possible. I can add this 21 Day Sugar Detox to that list. I am proud that I did it. I am proud that I found a way through 21 days without the things I have grown to love, and feel like I needed. Of course, I never loved those things, I thought I did. The ultimate goal to remember that I do not love ice cream, I feel like I need it. It is something from which I need to break free. I am getting there. It would be much easier if Phish Food did not exist.
