Sweet As a Peach

Intuitive Eating

This is an issue I don’t really like to talk about anymore. If I don’t talk about my eating disorder then maybe it will go away. I’m tired of facing it and now I just want to turn around and say rude things about it behind it’s back. I’m going to get all my friends to snub it too and maybe it will figure out that it’s never going to belong to the popular crowd and it will run home crying.

What eating disorder you ask? The one where I eat too much food and it makes me fat. The one where I eat too much sugar and it makes me cranky. I might as well admit to everyone that I haven’t eaten sugar for over three weeks now. I don’t count carbs or eat food with pretend sugar in it. I haven't given up fruit or white bread or anything stupid like that. No sugar means no refined sugar. No brownies, no chocolate, no candy, no anything of the sort. Peaches yes, ice cream on the peaches, no.

I talked my kids into doing this with me. I decided that my family should be more supportive of my sugar problem. If they didn’t want to be more supportive then I would “help” them be more supportive. If I were an alcoholic would they be drinking margaritas in front of me? Then why is it ok for them to eat twinkies in front of a sugar addict? It’s not and I have put an end to it. I always thought that this was my problem and I needed to deal with it myself. Well what are families for if they can’t help each other with their problems and be supportive? I’m doing this for them anyway, to be a better Mother. When I was single I could be as depressed and grumpy as I wanted and no one cared but me!

Here are my new rules: I will not be buying or making sweets. There will be no sweets in the house. No one will eat sweets in front of me. Unless it’s something I don’t like. Like soda, suckers and hard candy. That’s basically it since I like everything else. Heck! If it’s got sugar in it, what’s not to like!

Both of the kids were all set to do this with me. We hit our first snag on the morning of the first day when Persistence figured out that not eating sugar meant we weren’t going to be eating any sugar. She spent the next three hours in her room crying.

After she emerged we discussed the whole thing again. I explained that she didn’t have to do this with us but that all the same rules applied. “Well I can’t have treats in front of you but I’m always with you so then you are FORCING me to do it too!” That’s pretty much it little girl! I’m glad we’re all clear on that now.

Victor will do anything to please me. He went sweet-less for five days but that five days was enough to get me going strong and I’ve done well on my own ever since.

When Stranger was here we went to the Chinese Buffet. Everyone took turns getting their desserts and eating them on the other side of the restaurant. Except Persistence who hid behind Stranger, eating her ice cream and giggling. That was as far away from me as she could force herself to go. I appreciated the sentiment.

The most amazing thing is how sweet everything tastes to me now. I don’t like carrots in my pot pie because they make it too sweet. I tried the kids’ Pringles and couldn’t eat them because they were too sweet. We have been eating a LOT of fresh fruit to make up for our deprivation. I picked up a 25 pound box of peaches last Thursday and we ate the whole thing in five days so I bought another box today. We are in peach Heaven!