back on the wagon?

So I guess I need to figure out what I am doing, whether it’s taking things one day at a time, re-committing to this diet, blowing it off and eating what I want, or, having cut my sugar cravings, moving forward with my new lifestyle, which includes eating small amounts of sugar once in a great while.
The last one here is my favorite, but it’s the “once in a while” bit that throws me. Does “once in a while” mean special occasions? And if so, how are those defined? Does it mean once a week? Birthday parties? Tuedays?
With the holidays approaching, I feel like I need to at least have some kind of game plan in place, and then if I choose to deviate from that fine, but right now things feel sort of like a free-for-all.
Sometimes, I have felt as if I could go on following the diet as I have been for a long time. I’ve gotten somewhat used to it, the sugar cravings have subsided a great deal, and I’m getting back into the habit of cooking, which is a huge part of it. And sometimes I really did think, maybe I just won’t eat sugar at all anymore. But then it was my birthday and I found that I wanted to eat a piece of the molten chocolate cake my sister-in-law made. And have a glass of wine. And I felt okay about doing that at the time.
So then I thought, well, I can go along like this, as long as I can make exceptions now and then. But the holidays are coming up, and let’s face it, there’s a “special occasion” every other day. So then what? Decide in the moment? That doesn’t feel safe to me. Do what I can until after the first of the year and then get serious again? Decide that I’m just not going to eat any sugar, period?
Would I feel too desolate, like I’m denying myself too much?
I try not to live in a black-and-white manner, but maybe I need to.
I recently read a post on this subject that I found very enlightening. Reading Mama Dharma’s thoughts on sugar consumption made me think that maybe, as she says, the most compassionate thing for me to do for myself is to just not eat sugar, at all. The back-and-forth cravings swing is just too hard.
I’m still thinking about it.
Meanwhile, I’ve been in denial about my really “needing” to do this diet/detox program. I thought that if I did actually have candida, it was a mild case and could be eradicated with a fairly modified version of the diet. I really felt like I was doing this whole thing more for spiritual or energetic reasons than for physical ones. I thought that I could do it for a month and then move on. I thought that I could pick and choose the parts I liked of the many versions of the diet, and/or that not eating sugar and wheat would be enough of a shift in my eating habits to kill the candida.
Well, I still have it, so now what? And, as I said in my last post, it wasn’t a surprise that I still had it, but still, having it confirmed with an actual test makes it hard to kid myself any more.
Then again, why am I doing this exactly? Does it really matter if I have candida? Depending on whom you ask, 30% or 80% of people are walking around with candida and don’t know it. So what’s the big deal. It’s not like I feel like I need to be totally pure and clean to be okay. I live in a city, after all. There is no totally pure and clean here.
And let’s face it – it’s not like I have felt that great on the diet. I lost ten pounds (or seven, depending on the day), which is nice, but I’ve been tired as hell, crabby, and, as I said, so damn constipated I could scream. Until today. Now I have the other problem, the one I can never spell.
Anyway. Lots of unanswered questions for the time being.
While swimming in uncertainty about so many things, I have decided to take up the challenge and try to post something for which I am grateful (almost)everyday for November. This much I know:
I am grateful that I have a choice to either eat sugar or not. That I live in a place and time and culture of abundance (excess perhaps, but I’m being grateful), so that I can choose how and when and what to eat.
I’m grateful that I don’t have diabetes or another disease that makes the consequences of these choices potentially much more dire.
This will sound strange, but I’m actually grateful I have diarrhea at the moment. After feeling so completely blocked for a month, this latest “symptom” is a welcome relief! And I’m grateful, again that I live a life where this is actually welcome and not life-threatening.
I’m grateful for you, reading this.