6 Days Down, All of Them to Go

Day six, sugar free. I almost caved today, 17 times, but I didn't, and I feel pretty proud of myself.

I went over to my parent's house to walk the dogs and hang out with my kid brother--it is fair to say that he is obsessed with me, which is totally endearing, and inspiring, because I fully feel like it's my responsibility to live a long, healthy life so I can be there for him when our parents are gone (...morbid...). That's a heckuva good motivator to lose this weight, though.

So I get over there, and in a moment of rare pre-teen kindness, he went in the kitchen to get himself a snack, and brought me one, as well, without me even asking. He delivered to me a giant pretzel, coated in white chocolate, with a swirly red and green icing pattern. Chocolate-covered pretzels are literally only my favorite snack in existence, a perfect marriage of sweet and savory. The synapses in my brain were firing so hard in the presence of chocolate that I put my hand out for it for a split second before I pulled my hand back like that pretzel was red-hot, and could only shake my head 'no'; I literally couldn't make the words, 'no thanks' come out of my mouth at that moment. He actually looked surprised. I certainly was. All I know is that if I had held it, I would have eaten it. And then licked the remaining sugar crumbs off of my sweaty palm. Sugar addiction is some serious shit, y'all.

Later, when I had to run out to get some packing tape (another exciting Saturday night for me!), the Xmas candy on sale at Walgreens was literally singing to me. I had to just avert my eyes and make fists in my jacket pockets. Again, if I had so much as touched the shiny, red packaging, I would have purchased it, and sat in my car in the parking lot, scarfing down those bizarre red Peeps, hardly breathing as I did so. I walked out of Walgreens with only my intended purchase, and so feeling victorious, I thought I should reward myself with a sugar-free treat.

I headed down the street to Lowes Foods, where I remembered there were diabetic cookies hiding amongst the Pecan Sandies and the E.L. Fudge Factory offerings. The peanut butter cremes sounded good to me, until I read the ingredients and saw the bold print at the bottom of the list that said: Excess consumption may have a laxative effect. Not only do I not like the notion of getting the shits from eating some cookies, I realized then that, even in light of that warning in bold, I would likely take that box of peanut butter cremes home, and engage in excess consumption. It was a harsh realization to have in the grocery store, at 10:30 on a Saturday night, that I can't trust myself to eat a single serving.

I don't know why I can't just eat a single serving of cookies. It's truly a mystery to me. And so I have to avoid them, entirely. Probably forever.

I put the cookies back on the shelf, and I left, instead, with a sleeve of Skinny Cow sugar-free ice cream sandwiches. The packaging is clear, and I figured that, if nothing else, knowing that my mom would see that I had eaten three instead of one (in a sitting) would be a good deterrent. It was. I ate one, she ate one, they were surprisingly good, and I won't even look at them until three days from now, when I simply have to taste something sweet or rip my fingernails out. Ice cream never has been the monkey on my back.