Day 171

Big sigh. I have been eating sugar in large quantities for most of the days since my last post. I have gone berserk with that lethal white substance. Sweet sugary dessert foods allow me to escape from dealing with life. Then they become addictive and I crave them even when I no longer want to eat them. I went to the first session of a Mindful Eating group, got on track with my food with enormous relief for 8 days, then headed home for a vacation and went straight back into sugar. My next Mindful Eating group is in 3 days and I hope to fall back into the sugar-free zone again.

By the way, not only have I been eating sugar, but every other food I can get my hands on. I want to disappear into a cave until I can lose these extra pounds of chubbiness.

Sure, that baked brie dripping with honey and smothered with cranberries, blueberries, and toasted walnuts was exquisitely delicious, but couldn't I have enjoyed several bites and then stopped before it disappeared from the plate and reappeared on someone's waistline?

Day 112

What a shame that sugar is in everything. Who knew that Planter's would put it in their dry roasted peanuts. And dried cranberries -- they're supposed to be tart! What a scam on our health and taste buds to unnecessarily add refined white sugar to so many products. I am so outraged, that is all I can write for today.

Day 110

Last night after a meeting I ate a brownie. I wanted more but people were blocking the table so I finally left without a second one. Once I got home I felt safe and didn't really want to eat. I felt bad about my thoughts that were obsessing about the brownie, not so much about the fact that I ate one. So this morning in my journal I uncovered some of the feelings that were going on, the discomfort I wanted to escape from, the internal agony that was so hard to bear. How can I flood myself with love and kindness and tenderness and gentleness right now is the question to ask myself when I want to eat other than for hunger.

Day 108

I am settling down again. Expressing myself with the support of friends and journal writing. Getting back to my Year Without Sugar. It helps to address the question of "Who wants to eat?" when I am feeling compulsive about food. It is usually not my rational, mature self, but an aspect of me from childhood that has an emotional hurt. It also helps to laugh about all this with a good friend! I do love to poke fun at myself. And to keep myself in this present moment, which is the only place life is being lived. I have a sense of Presence that is totally unaffected by all the dramas my mind makes up. That is the place I want to return to again and again.

Day 102

With the best intentions and feeling safe around food, I headed out to my pet sits and promptly got into sweet and salty snacks at someone's house. At the next pet's house, I sat down with my journal and let my thoughts come pouring out. Surprisingly to me, tears came as I wrote the following: "What secrets do I have, even unto myself? I'm afraid of life. I'm afraid of living. I'm afraid of getting too happy because it will all be pulled out from under me like when I got diabetes. I'm afraid it will bring on sorrow. . . .I was trying to be good and never do anything wrong and make everyone happy and proud of me and I got slammed with diabetes. Look what happens when you try to be good. . . .I will take control this time around and ruin my own life before something else can do it to me." It gives me goose bumps to read that. Those are powerful beliefs that I didn't know I had. Those are clearly the thoughts of an 11-yr-old rather than a 47-yr-old who now has support and tools to help her through life. But the 11-yr-old beliefs are still sitting in me controlling my actions at times, like this past week of going crazy with eating.

Day 101

This has been a rough week. I've eaten sugar every day. Worse, I've done a lot of emotional overeating. Once started, it is hard to stop. Thank God for my friends who have been there with support and love for me. It is very hard for me to stay in the moment and just notice the urge to eat. The craving feels unstoppable at times. I have done more writing and am still learning about thoughts and beliefs that, unexpressed and unrecognized, translate into binges. I didn't ask for this eating challenge in my life, but I am going to turn it into a pathway to embracing my magnificence. Right now my goal is to experience the wonder of sights, sounds, smells, feelings, sensations that arise in each moment. The miracle of aliveness. That I can feel a craving for food. That I experience it somewhere in my body or mind. I want to just notice it and acknowledge it as a physical sensation or a thought, not a directive to head to the kitchen.....

Day 195

Oh boy. Today was a huge Easter candy binge. Unbelievable after all my efforts to avoid these seasonal sugary candies. But I used this experience to discover some deep beliefs I never knew I had about my role in relationships, and my heavy expectations of myself. When I eat other than when I am hungry, there is always a reason. I'd prefer to uncover old beliefs that need examining and changing without the overeating.....guess that means more regular journaling. I did enjoy those Cadbury eggs, although one would have been enough.