Allow me to go back 36 years.
The day went on, and later we gals were back in our cabin ready for bed. As girls might do we all circled up on the floor gabbed and gabbed about our day while sharing and eating our sweet treats. My mom was very generous in shopping. Making sure I had enough to share with others. The conversation turned to our simple addictions to sweets or salty treats. We even did a poll of who liked sweets and who liked salty treats. I of course was two hands up for sweets. Then the challenge. The unexpected challenge.
One of the gals asked if any one of us could go three weeks without sweets? Funny the saltier treat challenge was never presented. Well I was pretty sure I was not addicted to sweets, preferably chocolate so I opened my big mouth and said, "Oh that would be easy." And that night ten girls challenged to NOT eat sweets for their entire time at camp. Three full weeks starting the minute our feet hit the floor the next day. I was up for the challenge as I finished another handful of peanut m&m's. And then took another handful. Oh yes I was up for the challenge.
Now let me explain something. If you have never been to a Young Life camp you should know one thing. All, as in ALL the desserts are homemade. The biggest and yummiest home made chocolate chip cookies, cakes, pastries and might I also mention that the ice-cream shop is another sugar house of yum. What on earth was I thinking?
As we gathered the second night in our bunk room, with an entire day under our belts, we went around and asked who had had a successful no sugar kind of day. There were only four of us left after one day. I was one of them. But with a box full of all kinds of candy my mom had bought I was ready to throw in the towel and start the bedtime routine of gabbing away while snacking away. Instead I put my box in the middle of the room and said, "I am surrendering". We all laughed and I watched my sweet treats be divided up among the other gals.
The four of us who were left decided to pair up and become accountability partners during every meal. Often we four would sit together, but never alone a table. Mealtime was family style with many tables. I was always tempted to get lost in the crowd and go to a table where no one knew me. It was no easy task cutting sugar out of my diet. What eighteen year old does this? It consumed me. All I could think of were ways to sneak, cheat or surrender. I did none of these. I remember praying and crying out to God that something must be wrong with me to put so much through and angst into just giving up sugar.
After the first week I noticed that my shorts were getting loose. Each day we gals would check in with each other. And each day we were one day closer to success. One afternoon, during free time we all decided to go out the outer dock which was removed from camp. It would take the temptation of getting ice-cream, or snacks. As we lay in the sunshine we began to share just how hard this was. We shared deep and sorted feelings which quite honestly angered us to think we were so addicted to sweets. We shared how each of us were sooooooo tempted to go to the bunk room and sample someone's treats. It's not like they were hidden, but the temptation was there. It was during this time on the outer dock that we all realized our straight up addiction to sugar. (Coffee had not yet been introduced to my system). We talked about how much we ate at home on a day to day basis. I admitted that I ate an entire big bag of M&M's almost monthly and that it was nothing to go into the pantry and snack away on sweets. I shared how my friend and I went into the pantry and ate an entire box ( 10 pounds) of chocolate. Only to learn my mom had bought it for a party. So I quickly replaced it without her knowing. I shared how this same friend and I would return from tennis practices and make HUGE bowls of ice-cream. I was not aloud sweets after school but if my mom was not home she and I would indulge. One day my mom came home and we went running hid our bowls of ice-cream in the living-room fireplace.
We all shared from our hearts just how hard it is to give up sweets. Here I was with girlfriends with the first week behind me and my shorts getting loser by the day. A true success and still could not stop thinking of chocolate m&m's calling my name. Call our names.
By the end of three weeks I had lost nine pounds. My friends lost similar amounts and we were finishing our success with a big bowl of homemade ice-cream. And later that day I was sicker than a dog. Having purged my body of sugar the ice-cream was a really bad idea. Yet we did it. We actually did it. And to this day I remember those three weeks. I was working in the laundry room and I would pray, read my Bible and journal begging God to take this stupid desire from me. And back then I knew nothing of cravings and really how sugar is like a drug. Anyone ever have kids of their own will know this when you tell your child they can not have a piece of candy.
Every since that summer in 1984 I have tried to be mindful of food like addictions. And yes sweets in the form and taste of chocolate are my guilty pleasure. That is until I go three weeks and cut myself off. For the past 36 years at least once a year I will go without sweets and sugar for three weeks. Just to remind myself that I can and to ensure I own the addiction and it does not own me.
Well ladies and gentlemen, it is much harder today than it was 36 years ago. Especially with teenage boys here at home. I was doing great as I finished my first week. And I decided that tonight for our dinner out with friends, which I was bringing desserts, that I would buy prepackaged sweets so I would not be tempted in baking. However I baked these brownies last week and low and behold they jumped out of the fridge. I took the lid off and the smell of chocolate had me. So today I licked a brownie. I was reminded of a "Will & Grace" episode where Grace and Jack were on a diet and trying to keep each other from licking a crouton. Here is that clip. I cannot believe it was on youtube. So funny, and how many of us have faced this at one time or another?
Oh my goodness I could have used those guys today to keep me from licking a brownie. But I licked one.
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