Oof, this may have been the hardest moment of the Sugar Challenge so far.
My partner (Alex) and I flew into Manchester, and stopped on our drive to his family to get some coffee, and I found a BOSH! chocolate bar 😭 BOSH! is one of my favourite vegan brands/YouTube accounts, and I was SO EXCITED to find their food in the wild. (We don’t have any in the Netherlands.)
I was very tempted, and Alex promised he wouldn’t tell if I cheated with this chocolate heaven, but I didn’t do it, and I’m so proud!
I love the idea of it, but I like feeling good even more. (Dang, I really said that.)
At the house, Alex’s family got me vegan versions of everything they had, including chocolate. (Fully restoring my faith in humanity – some people are just really really wonderful.)
It was late, so Alex laughingly explained my abnormally strong response to sugar late at night (“it’s a cheap way to have fun though”) which bought me some time.
I’m considering eating it, because it’s so kind of them to buy me vegan chocolate, but I also want to finish my challenge and prove to myself that I can do this.
Most of all, I’m not really craving sugar right now. I could eat it if it’s there, but I’m no longer looking for it. Feels like progress.
The next day, we went to a small cafe by the beach and they had vegan Magnums. Can you believe it?
I ordered fries.
Willpower is finite, y’all.
It’s so much easier to stick to anything if the environment is right.
Here, two things are happening:
- I’m out of the house, which gives me more opportunities for unexpected temptations (and there were MANY)
- I did not sufficiently communicate my intentions with the people around me (I am with my partner’s family and they are already going above and beyond, so I didn’t want to ask for anything else)
At night, I had a massive headache, I was exhausted (thanks, jet lag), and my partner’s amazing family had bought a vegan chocolate cake for me.
I was all out of willpower.
I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow. For now, here’s what happened:
- I wasn’t craving sugar at all, so I thought I’d just have a small slice and move on
- Once I had the small slice, the second one looked So Much More Tempting (I’ve been told alcohol works like this too)
- I had a major burst of energy and started writing things at F1-speed in the kitchen at 10:30pm
- My body crashed way before my mind did, so now I’m hysterically tired, and also violently tapping my keyboard like I’m trying to stay ahead in a competitive video game
Now it’s well past my bedtime, but I’m nauseous and wired and I can’t sleep. (I guess we now know where the ‘tired and wired’ thing comes from! Now that I think about it – I have been sleeping a bit better in the past week or so, despite the jet lag! Maybe not eating sugar does have an impact on my sleep.)
Anyway, I just practised yoga on the carpet on the bedroom floor and my clothes are covered in carpet hairs, and I’m ruminating on the next step. I briefly contemplated pretending that the chocolate cake didn’t happen, but y’all know I care about being honest here.
(I was trained in the Social Sciences – I can’t just leave out critical pieces of the experiment because they don’t fit my hypothesis or expectations!)
What do I do now?
A. Forgive and forget (just keep going)
B. Restart the clock (do another thirty days)
C. Take out the ‘failed’ days (and add two days at the end of the month)
(Let me know what you think!)
Wishing you the strength to make hard decisions about chocolate cake,
Flora
Change Your Mind with Flora 