Day Zero

We're going down down in an earlier round, but sugar we're going down swinging...

My earliest memories are about age 8 - 10. I have a bad memory as it is, but a combination of teens & early twenties spent drinking heavily, a scattershot attention span, and decades to forget leave my childhood fragmented in my mind. But I remember the sugar. I'd wangle together a pound every day. Be it pocket money or however I'd obtain it (read between the lines here, I can't incriminate myself) I'd get that pound in the evening. I'd walk over to the Limetree newsagent and buy two packs of Sherbet Cola for 20p, and then pop next door to Dunnes and pick up a mint aero for 40p and a can of coke for another 40p. I did this every day. And guess what? I never really changed. 

Chupa Chups were a big office favourite for me!

Fast forward two decades. I am a habitual, compulsive, addictive person. There is nothing I hold a mild interest in. I am obsessed with MMA. Obsessed with pro wrestling. Obsessed with football. I have no interest in anything else. Actually, I would say passionate. But let's call a spade a spade, passion and obsession are two sides of the same coin. So I guess that makes me a spade. You name it, I can and have been addicted to it at some point. I don't gamble because we all know what would happen. 

I have always been able to get a handle on my addictions. Because I'm aware. The handy thing about having such a compulsive problem with booze so young was I learned a lot about myself and my relationship with substances and other things that can help me escape myself. Everyone has their vices, but some are more moderate. Not me. Passion, obsession - you know the drill. If you can be addicted, I'll be addicted. But generally speaking, I am aware enough to know when to say when.

Except with one thing. Sugar. Sugar is an insidious and clever mistress. She is everywhere in everything. Because I have consumed so much of it from such a young age, and I have such a sweet tooth, you would genuinely be hard pressed to find many things I consume that don't have sugar in. I have never openly discussed my eatings and drinking habits because they embarrass me. But warts and all...

I drink 2 - 3 coffees a day, laced with sweetener. Sweetener not sugar but don't think it's not all related.

I drink about 1.5 litres of diet coke a day.

I usually nibble on something sweet during the afternoon, be it a biscuit or some sweets or an ice cream if I'm out with the kids.

My core food - breakfast, lunch and dinner - are actually relatively normal. Porridge for breakfast, meat and carbs for lunch, meat and veg for dinner. Of course I pig out on weekends but trust me, that's the least of my problems. 

Then we have the capper, the coupe de grace - my evening snacking. It would be fair to say that in my entire life, the decisions I make after 9pm have always led me down the wrong path. I binge on sugar at night. Sweets, chocolate, ice cream...you name it. Some nights it's sweets and ice cream, others it's sweets and chocolate. It might be all 3. But trust me, I binge. 

There have been times I have 'cut back' on sugar over the years to a greater or lesser degree. What I have never done is made a mental break. Plenty of times I will go a week without sugar. However I will eat products filled with sweetener, and I'll still drink my sweet coffee & diet coke. What happens, then, is I experience the misery that comes with giving up sugar (google it, I promise you, it is horrific) however I do not break my psychological reliance on it. Ergo, when I reach the other side and try and slowly reintroduce sugar, nothing has changed and moderation never comes.

So what to do? The scariest idea of all is to give up all of it. No diet coke. No coffee. No ice cream. No sweets. No chocolate. No sugar laced mayo or sugar filled bread. Sugar is everywhere. It is so hard to avoid, it would take an exceptional effort to escape it altogether, particularly for someone who consumes so much. Which means...it's my only option. 

Disclaimer: I am petrified. I am plagued by self doubt. Thoughts of "come on, are you really going to give up sugar". Because I'm human. But. But. But...fuck you self doubt. Yes I can fucking do this. 

To remove sugar from your diet completely is not healthy in the long run. Your body needs it. But to detox from it, it's fine. So how long? I discussed this with a number of people - friends, the missus, my therapist Erin - and people tended to see 2 or 3 weeks as a nice round number. But I know me and the addiction runs deep. So I felt like longer was necessary. 

How about a month? In the process of researching the best ways and means of giving up sugar entirely and what exactly to expect, physically, in terms of withdrawal, I came across the Whole30. 2nd Disclaimer: I am not a fan of radical or hardcore diets. I don't advocate them. However I react very well to structure. Left to my own devices, I will make the softer choice. "Oh I can have X, it's not THAT sugary" etc. When I read the detail on this thing, it was hardcore. I felt it challenged me and I wanted that challenge. I discussed it with MT who was similarly motivated. You can feel free to read up on the details - basically you can eat meat, veg, spuds and not much else - but they are unimportant. The diet is a vessel to get me to the other side, a means to an end, so that I can remove sugar from my body for 30 days and see if I can't, one day, have a take it or leave it relationship, moderation, much like those of you reading this. I managed this with alcohol amongst other things. I believe in myself. I know how low I have been at times in my life and how hard I have worked to come back from there, so I trust that while it may be hard, I have the mental fortitude to tough it out and make a break. 

My diet for the next month

As I go, I know I will feel irritated and hungry and I will have lots of time to fill when I would be snacking, eating or drinking, so I am going to blog every day. I'm going to monitor my mood and energy all the while. And when I get to the end of July, I am going to keep it up and document the impact that various foods I will have given up have on me when reintroduced. That way, I can make informed choices about what I put into my body. Escaping this decades long habit of just compulsively pulling in whatever is nearest, easiest and sweetest is paramount to me. And I'm talking about it because a problem shared is a problem halved, and if there is something in your life you find you do compulsively, maybe reading this will help.

The fear is not in any one thing I'll be missing, it's the sheer volume. While I don't get any sugar from my coke or coffee, I get the sweet taste and psychologically I rely on it. So cutting out not just all sugar, but all fake sugar too feels like such a leap for me. I am compulsive, habitual. The idea that I won't have my 7am coffee, my 10am coke, my 1pm coffee, my 3pm coke, my evening coke, my sugar binge...these are tentpoles in my day. Unless you've ever been addicted it's hard to understand. It's like a smoker. That first fag in the morning, the one just before work, the 11am sneak out of the office, the lunchtime ciggie etc. Removing all of these signposts that get me through the day is scary.

The physiological issues are of more immediate concern though. The list is long but the most common side effects are cravings, headaches, aches & pains, and mood swings. Having been here before, I can attest to them. For me specifically, the mood swings were BRUTAL. I can never remember being more irritable in my entire life. I was just ANGRY with everyone. But if nothing else, the side effects make you aware of why you're doing what you're doing. After all, if your body and mind reacts this badly to removing what you were putting in it, just what kind of impact was all that stuff having on your long term health?

Sounds like fun huh?

Which brings me nicely home. That is why I am doing this. I am somewhat fatalistic by my nature, I think about death more than is necessary. My father & grandfather died at 45 & 65 of heart attacks, and on the other side my mother, aunt and grandfather have all had cancer. Point being that I can see my own mortality in all of that and I realise as the years tick by that I need to look after myself. Lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, less weight & pressure on my knees and back, less work for my heart to get through...these are all things that should come with changing my lifestyle so drastically. Anyone who knows me will be aware that the most important thing in the world to me is being a good Dad to my girls. When you lose a parent at a relatively young age, it leaves a mark, and the mark it left on me was the desire to make sure that my children have their Dad for a long, long time. I hope that what I'm doing now will ensure that.

Bayley

Carra

Along the way I know this will be an emotional journey. Anyone who acts as compulsively as me does so because they fundamentally can't sit still, can't just be. They're avoiding something. I'm avoiding something. Who knows what? I guess I'll find out soon.