The Power of ...

I have found my commitment to calorie counting and diet restriction fleeting at best when I don't have my partner in crime on board. It's easy enough to not buy something when you live alone, but if there is someone else around, it gets complicated. Sometimes the temptation of chocolate is just too much!

Luckily, I have finally convinced him to join me in a return to our Lent diet of the past two years. We gave up refined sugar and refined flours for 40 days, which leads to about 5lbs easy weight loss in that time. Just not filling your body with as many wasted calories, and substituting useful stuff, like yogurt, berries, celery, and almonds, really makes a difference.

Gearing up for the start of the diet did lead to some last-minute sugar binges on both our parts. However, my inherent sweet tooth probably took the cake. I grabbed a big bag of sour gummy worms from Target, some leftover Halloween gummies (not so great - I ended up tossing half of them), and a box of cherry cordials (delicious, even considering the super sugar headache afterward!). During this weekend's sugar fiasco, however, I realized something: I physically can't handle such intense sugar anymore. Mentally, though, the battle still rages.

When we were kids, candy was associated with reward. Once every so often, my mom would let us go to Walgreen's to get a selection of our favorite goodies. (Quick Aside: Walgreen's still has the best selection of candy in my opinion, at least here in Atlanta) So, the expected good feelings from eating candy now - that reward center of the brain - really fall short with the reviling sugar crash that comes with it. It just doesn't do it for me anymore. But I still mentally crave that reward.

So the goal - until I reach my goal weight especially - is to focus on retraining my mental habits. Disassociating the "reward" from the pleasure center will take some serious effort, but in the long run I know it will all be worth it.