Have you ever gone two months without eating sugar? Alcohol? Sugar and alcohol? Obviously not, it’s impossible. Alcohol’s not that bad, one time I went 18 years without drinking and I didn’t even miss it. I don’t think I’ve ever gone more than 12 hours without eating sugar in my life though. It’s terrible.
I’ve come to learn just how terrible it is in the last two weeks, since I joined the Skogg Gym’s 60 Day Challenge (formerly known as Spinach Gym). This is a challenge at the kettlebell gym I’ve been going to, where I have to do at least four kettlebell workouts a week, drink half my weight in ounces of water a day (so if I weighed 200 pounds I’d be drinking 100 ounces of water), and consume no sugar, alcohol, rice, most grains… and a bunch of other stuff. I’m allowed to eat sugar that’s in fruit and things like that, but no added sugar.
Week one wasn’t so bad, because the only rules were to drink a lot of water, and take in no sugar or alcohol. Knowing I would soon be far more restricted, I took this week as an opportunity to eat as much pizza and macaroni and cheese as possible. I missed sugar a little, but felt generally satisfied. Week two hasn’t been so good to me. Specifically Sunday night when I went to Alex and Megan’s for Megan’s birthday and there were about 25 giant cupcakes from Cupcake Jones, that they got for free. Cupcakes and free stuff are two of my favorite things, and my least favorite thing in the world was not eating any of them. I still feel sad I didn’t eat them. I suppose I would feel shameful and guilty if I had though.
I’ve pretty much stuck to the diet almost perfectly, give or take a few slip-ups, plus the fact that I went to Applebee’s last night. I don’t feel too guilty about that though, because it was to watch Alex’s comedy show, and I felt like I’d racked up a huge calorie deficit and mozzarella sticks plus a steak were the best way to take care of it. During week 1 I lost no weight (unless you count the one pound I lost by not wearing jeans during the second weigh-in), but in week 2 I lost 3 pounds. That’s pretty rapid speed loss for me, and I’m going for Ultimate Hard Body, not Ultimate Malnourished Body.
Aside from not getting to eat sugar, the worst part of this diet is explaining it to people. First, because people on diets are the worst. People like eating the same things at the same time, and if they’re eating something unhealthy, they want you to be doing it too. When you don’t, they get angry. They also maybe don’t like watching the inevitable puddle of drool I make when I’m watching them eat. Second, because I’m not fat, everyone acts extra suspicious of why I would be doing this diet until I give them a lengthy explanation about how I want an Ultimate Hard Body. This is sometimes helpful, because I need constant reminders myself of why I’m doing this. Right now I want sugar so bad it’s hard to focus on the why, because all I can think of is about how I’m not allowed to eat anything tasty for six more weeks.
For the most part, I’ve spent my whole life being active, and much of it trying to be in really good shape. While I consider myself to eat pretty healthy on my own, I’ve never focused on diet in particular, and all of my attempts to sculpt my body into perfection have been purely exercise-related. As much as I would like to have a UHB, right now I’m questioning whether or not it’s worth depriving myself of all the delicious things I like to eat. But because I’ve never done it before, I’m willing to try. Perhaps the exhiliration of finally attaining the UHB will overcome any desire for gustatory pleasures and it will all have been worth the effort. I kind of doubt it, but we’ll see.
One more thing I need to bring up before I sign off, is something that happened on Saturday night… once again, I woke up in the middle of the night experiencing the worst pain of my life – Charley Horse had returned. There are no words for me to explain how horrible this pain is, and how confusing it is to wake up with it. But to give you an idea, it was so bad that it actually tore my calf muscle a little, and I couldn’t run for a couple of days. Has anyone else ever pulled a muscle in their sleep? I hope not, it’s the stupidest thing that’s ever happened to me (maybe). I recommend you never do it, not even once.
Miles run in 2011: 85ish?
3 Comments
i used to get THE WORST CHARLEY HORSES OF LIFE pretty much every other night in college. it. is. terrible. sometimes i still get them when i wake up and stretch so i try to remember not to do that anymore. ugh. so painful.
i’m going to do it.
gustatory.