I am always the last to know. Sure,
I have been told a million times, but there is
such a huge gap between hearing and
understanding, and then actually knowing. Take,
for example, sugar. It cannot be healthy, the
amount of candy I eat in an average week. And do
not even get me started on caloric horror which
is the spike weeks. I understand that. I have
heard the message. But, darn it, those Almond
M&Ms are just too darned heavenly. I am helpless before them. I figured that I
allocate about 10% of my gross income for life
expenses like bills and entertainment and
everything non-mortgage/property tax related (a
number which struck me as delightfully low. But
then these last couple months have kind of
damaged that percentage, single-handedly bumping
it up to like 15%). And I figured that on
average, 25-50% of my calories are from junk
food, almost all of that candy. That is, even to
me, appalling. If my body were a food pyramid, I
would be Almond M&Ms to mid-thigh. Then a
thin little layer of vegetables, then
cheeseburgers and fries and ice cream the rest
of the way. Why on Earth have I not keeled over
dead? And then I wonder why I get nauseas
mid-way through exercising. Can I say mixed
messages? As I was leaving the CC this morning,
out of nowhere something clicked and right there
on the stairwell, I went from understanding to
knowing and from knowing to being frightened
about what I was doing to myself. Magnified, no
doubt, by my ignorance ? all the sudden I am
worrying about whether I can give myself
diabetes by eating nothing but candy for days on
end. I do not know, but what if you can? And as
I biked into work with a bag full of Halloween
candy in my satchel (more mixed messages!), I
reached a decision. Remembering that href="http://www.scottmcj.com/default.shtml?ID=000320"
target=_blank>I am only good in extremes, I
swore off (starting the moment that I finished
the stash of ReeseSticks in my satchel) candy
and cookies and all other straight-sugar-snacks
(and cola for good measure) through the end of
the year. It is a particularly bold and exciting
commitment for me because the next two months
encompass the evil Thanksgiving and Christmas
holidays, where there will surely be veritable
mountains of food that I would normally be
helpless to resist. I stopped eating candy once
on a sort of self-dare thing at work. That was
only for two weeks or so, though, and even then
it was a pretty miserable experience. I am a bit
worried about what will happen to me when I stop
eating empty calories. Is it going to be like
the first time I quit caffeine and felt like I
was going to die (and, the way I felt, death
could not arrive too soon) for the next three
days? Will it turn out that the only thing that
has kept me moving these last months has been
the candy? Has my body forgotten how to digest
real food? Will my stomach flee in terror,
possibly taking my liver and spleen with it,
when I start taking in regular food in place of
the missing candy? Anything could happen. But I
figure, heck, I am already sick to my stomach
(having made a real go at getting rid of all the
ReeseSticks today), already lethargic pretty
much every day, and already getting headaches
every other day. How could a heavy sugar
withdrawal be any worse? I dunno. But only five
more ReeseStick fingers stand between me and my
new candy-and-snack-food-free lifestyle. Scary.