Secret weapon

Before getting to the details I'm going to share a story. 

  When I started 7th grade I weighed about 100 lbs. I was 5'5 ish. By the end of 7th grade I'm guessing I was in the 120's. I don't actually remember exact weights at certain times. We didn't have a scale at home. 8th grade was a rough year for me. Lots of family drama, adjusting to a new school (we moved to Clinton the end of 7th grade), and starting the awkward stage of puberty. Sometime during 8th grade my mom bought a scale. One day I got the courage to weigh myself. I remember we were about to go to a ward activity... So it probably was December. I hopped on and the scale said 144 lbs. I remember I didn't eat hardly anything that night. I was so so so sad. I was devastated. I had never been a "chubby" little girl. I was always active. I loved to play outside. I loved vegetables. I couldn't believe how out of control my weight got. 

I remember that evening I got in the bath. I looked at my body in disgust. I was not made up of muscle. I was pure fat. I didn't know what to do. With all the stress I had faced that year, I just comforted myself with my mom's home cooked meals. I have a gazillion sisters, each of which know how to mix up a scrumptious batch of homemade cookies and brownies. Every night of the week there was some fresh warm dessert available. I had no concept of portion control. We ate the desserts till they were gone. 

Although I was very sad about my weight, I just stayed away from the scale and continued to eat more and more. One day at school a boy said to me, "is it hard to move your legs when you're that fat?" I left class and called my mom. I told her I had cramps and I needed her to come get me. When I got home I went downstairs and tried to make myself throw up. I looked in the mirror after my unsuccessful attempt. I thought, "I'm not fat. I'm a daughter of God and he loves me. I'm not going to be mean to myself just because that boy was mean to me!" So the bulimia plan was thwarted... Thank heavens. 

In February my family went with my moms cousin's family to stay in a nice condo in park city. My darling, beautiful, skinny, sweet, gorgeous (you get the idea?) cousin was there. If I didn't love her and admire her so much I probably would have hated her... Ha ha. Seriously, she was the sweetest person, but being around her made me feel more like I really needed to lose weight. While we were there I overheard the parents talking about my other cousin. He had quit sugar. He didn't have desserts, treats, sodas, or anything like that. He asked his mom if she would pay him if he went off sugar for a certain amount of time. He said he had lost 10 lbs, I believe. 

When we got back from our trip I asked my mom if she would let me do the same thing. We agreed that if I didn't eat sugar for ONE YEAR, she would pay me $250. The first two weeks were torture! My sisters caved the first week, bless their hearts. Ha ha. My mentality was with each temptation I would say, "that cookie or $250?" Obviously no cookie was worth more than $250. I figured I'd lose a little weight, but I spent most of my time thinking about what I was going to do with the money. A couple weeks went by and my clothes were falling off me. Everyone noticed. One day I was getting ready for school and all my pants didn't fit. My confidence returned. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had control over myself. At dinner I would get full on the main course - pasta, vegetables, and meat. Sometimes still having two servings if I was hungry. Then after dinner if everyone was eating dessert I just listened to my body. If I felt hungry, I cut up an apple and ate it with peanut butter. If I wasn't hungry I didn't eat. It was that simple. The benefits I didn't expect were that reading my scriptures got better, I didn't waste as much time, my grades improved, and I gained the confidence to do track and try out for madrigals. I didn't spend my time at parties at the food table. I socialized and focused on having fun and getting to know people. I remember getting home one day from school and seeing the scale in the bathroom. I was excited to weigh myself. I jumped on and couldn't believe my eyes. I weighed 126 lbs. That was a minimum of 18 lbs weight loss. I think it was even more because I stopped weighing myself.

I spent the next year off sugar. When time came for me to eat sugar again, I worked out a deal with my mom to make a little more money and go a little longer. Finally, she realized I was making too much money off something I had mastered. Ha ha darnit! 

When I returned to sugar, I could hardly have two bites of a dessert before I felt like I had had enough. Slowly, I got to where I was having one serving with everyone else and I didn't struggle with my weight again until recently. 

Some other things I learned

Aside from the lessons of self mastery, I learned a lot about our culture surrounding eating. Sometimes it was mind boggling to me how upset people got when I couldn't eat a treat or drink a soda. They would say, "Did you know that isn't good for you?", " you're crazy!" , "sucks to be you", "that's not healthy, you need sugar" ... I would wonder why they cared so much. I was happy and I certainly was healthy. I didn't lack for food. I was in no way a broom stick. I still had what my sisters called, a "ghetto booty". I also was baffled at how much people just throw food at you. At mutual, school, family parties, friends houses, people just hand you food. I realized that just out of being nice I would have consumed so much junk that I otherwise never would have been tempted to eat. I'm a chocolate lover. Don't get me wrong. I am not a safe person to leave any chocolate treat with. But if it doesn't have chocolate in it, it wasn't worth the calories. Yet when a cute old lady handed me some pie, or a friend give me half her starbursts, I'd eat it out of being curteous. Why do we have a culture where someone is considered rude or they're up for taking shots at if they don't want to eat the junk everyone else is eating? Why is it a sign of manners for you to eat any treat you're offered? This is a problem people! 

The point

My point in saying this isn't to get everyone reading this to throw out all the sugar in their house. But sometimes we need to step back from whatever were consuming too much of. Maybe for you it's more salty stuff. Maybe you're just like me and can't go a day without a handful of chocolate chips (sometimes a cup of chocolate chips...I wish I was joking. Ha ha) Maybe the Catholics are onto something with Lent. Once in a while it's good to give up something you think you can't live without so that you can see how good life can be without it. 

Who wants to join me? You don't have to do sugar! It can be anything. I'm starting today and going till April 20th. Please let me know if you're in. Accountability is so much greater when you share it with someone! I'm excited to hear your stories. :)

*for me no sugar means no desserts, treats, soda, chocolate milk, sugar cereals, fake juice, etc. 

Ps. My fenugreek problem resolved and I was 154 yesterday :) progress! Yay!