Nothing much to say about the past week. Haven’t written food logs. One of my biggest binge triggers is the promise of things being better tomorrow, and I keep mentally misreading this path as a path to some kind of ascetic starvation. That’s not the case.
So chill, Coldrun.
Work the system. Quest: seven
days of food logs.
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#3) Eat Your Calories, Don’t Drink Them
Eliminate liquid calories. This includes the expected stuff
(frappuccinos, Coke), as well as things like juice. Diet sodas aren’t “liquid calories,” and not
good, but less not good than other things.
Diet soda is kind of the least of my current problems.
NFA suggests more water, which I’ve been working on and
doing pretty well with.
Less caffeine.
New quest! “That’s
What I Call High Quality H2O.” Drink 3
liters/13 cups of water during a day, at least 5 days in a given 7 day
stretch. I have plastic ½ liter water
bottles. Drink the equivalent of 6.
#4) Break Your Sugar Addiction
Sugar is for energy or fat storage, and way more commonly
for the latter than the former. It also
is self-reinforcing. You get a rush, you
crash, and you want the rush feeling back again.
NFA emphasizes that sugar is frigging everywhere. Coke, juice (even the “all natural” juices),
everywhere. Fruit can be okay to eat,
but apparently concentrates the bad stuff when in juice form.
I won’t spend too much time on this, but high-fructose corn
syrup is also bad. As you might
imagine.
The short of it: sugar is plentiful, ubiquitous, and
addictive.
So how to break it?
Cold turkey or ramp down. Some
actions to take:
--
A) Create a new identity.
I think I’m already building this into my new goals.
B) Be aware of your cravings. The food log will help work on this
(necessary, but not sufficient).
C) Decide why you have sugar cravings. For me, it’s procrastination. When I want to put things off, or put things out of my line of sight, I eat, and usually eat sugar. It’s harder for me to do this just water or non-sugary foods.
D) Identify rules for yourself that require minimal willpower. Makes sense, and the slow ramp of the logs is a good starting point.
E) Increase the difficulty to continue your bad habit. A bit of repetition in these from earlier on, but repetition rarely hurts. Especially at the beginning of things.
--
Some other tips that jump out at me:
-Dark chocolate or fruit are good substitutes.
-Don’t do it alone, when possible.
-Exercise!
--
There are three levels of beating sugar addition. I’m clearly on level one:
“Regularly consume unhealthy amounts of sugar. Cravings get the best of me.” Usually in the form of ice cream,
frappuccinos, candy at work, fruit juices in the morning.
NEW QUEST! “Sugar,
Sugar – Level 1”: Stock fridge with
favorite fruit. Whenever I feel like a
sugar craving for chocolate, candy, etc., have a fruit instead. Defeat five cravings in this way.
#5) “I Can’t Live Without Caffeine”
Caffeine isn’t necessarily BAD, the way sugar seems to be,
but should be used with control. It does
run the danger of ramp-up, or building a tolerance and needing more and
more.
I’ve heard that when God wants a laugh, he listens for
certainty, so I’ll be cautious here, but I expect this will be one of the
easier modules for me. My main caffeine
intake is in two forms: bottled frappuccinos and Diet Coke/Coke Zero. A substitute for those is the diet, caffeine
free Coke, though not a great substitute.
Tea is another substitute, but man do I hate tea. But I’ll try.
Coffee I like even less.
Like with sugar, there are three levels. I’ll start at level
one. I regularly consume caffeine
outside of black coffee or tea.
First: find my alternative.
(Done!)
Second: Two days per week, only drink from my
alternative. Do this for 3-4 weeks.
Third: Then for a few weeks, step this up to 3-4 times per
week.
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Next time: the mindset
and nutrition modules are done, so the last core module is left. Exercise.
