The Hardest Change
Is usually the one that we most need to make.
Being home with my baby and toddler 25+ years ago was a hard and lonely time for me, and that is when I began to use sugar to cope. I ate cookies to combat the lonely feelings, and I not only bought cookies, but I had always loved to bake, and now I had plenty of time to bake, and enough time to eat what I baked.
This relationship started innocently enough, but like any toxic relationship, it became problematic and by the time I was in my mid 30’s this attachment to a sweet treat now and then had become an addiction. There is debate about whether or not sugar is addictive, but when I did not get a sugary snack in the afternoon I felt pissed off, shaky, agitated and filled with cravings. It was physically uncomfortable. And for sure, it contributed in a major way to the gradual weight gain I experienced over about 10 years.
But even after I was at my goal weight I still struggled:
To have just one or two cookies, not 10;
To be honest that the cookies I brought into the house were really for me, not my family - they did not really eat them or care whether or not we had them;
To resist the homemade baked goods that I had on hand all the time;
To go to the grocery store and resist buying particular items;
To avoid stopping at whatever bakery was around and get something.
This was, by far, the hardest change for me to make. And the struggle was not about the calories - it was about the power that I felt this stuff had over me.
It took YEARS - just chipping away at the habit. Not buying the cookies, finding an alternative snack, really embracing portion control. And finally, after about 8 years of that, it is not a problem anymore. Meaning simply that I no longer feel “driven” by cookies or cakes; now I am in the driver’s seat. What does that look like? That more often than not I control the amount of any sugary treat that I eat.
I learned to be really honest with myself, and to understand that the “cost” of this habit was too high and that the real “cost” was not weight gain, but mental energy and anguish. As I worked on this piece for myself, I realized that the cookies were not nearly as satisfying as exercising self control over them, nor were they worth the mental energy and sometimes upset stomach that came with them.
The change that is the hardest to make, and often takes the longest to internalize and become a habit, is usually the change that we most need, and will have a more significant impact than we realize. We often think that changing our decades long habits will happen quickly - it does not, and why do we even have that expectation? It only sets us up for frustration. As you think about your challenges, what is running you? Sugar? Alcohol? Social media? Sedentary behavior? Chips? Fast food?
The cliche’ is true - the only way to do it is to do it. Practice changing the behavior every day. Throw all of your mental games, self talk, and substitution hacks at it. Keep at it. You can do it.
