 |
| Need this to stay awake? Cadbury's Boost Bar |
Today, I arose from my bed and stumbled towards the light-switch by my door at 11:01 am. It wasn't always this way. Before meeting Laura, I was an early morning riser. I used to wake up at 7 or 8 o'clock and go out to do my duties for the day as soon as I possibly could, but now I am stuck in a late-morning, early-afternoon routine where I get up on time when I have school, but doze in when I have the morning off.
Don't get me wrong, I don't attribute this to Laura! Instead I attribute it to sugar.
Every Tuesday and Thursday for the last 6 months I have driven to school, sat through a lesson until break at 10:20, and then walked to Morrison's down the road. In Morrison's I have usually bought some kind of chocolate, maybe cookies or a chocolate bar, and also a type of energy drink, maybe Lucozade Revive or a can of Monster. Every morning I have taken these items to the self-checkout and paid for them with money meant for a proper lunch, and eaten and drank them before 12 o'clock. Every morning I have had a huge sugar rush, and every evening I go to bed late from the energy pumping around my system.
For the past two weeks, I have been on a diet which focuses on ignoring sugary foods in favour of fruits and sandwiches. My main concern is not to cut out natural sugars, fats, or salts, but to cut out only the refined sugars found in chocolate and other sweets. I have successfully so far turned down unhealthy foods for two weeks, and I already feel the difference. Here's a tip: The more chocolate bars and fizzy drinks you consider, and then walk away from, the easier it gets to walk away each time. So if you are on a diet like I am, or thinking of going on one, take a walk down the sweets aisle of the supermarket, or open your biscuit cupboard in the kitchen - pick up a chocolate bar, take a look at the GDA and percentages of sugar contained within - and then put it down. The more often you walk away from something, the easier it gets to walk away. It's called cognitive restraint, and the more you train your brain to restrain, the easier it gets to say no.
Another tactic I use is telling everybody around me that I am cutting out sugar in my diet as much as I can. The support I received from everyone was great - my family started buying more fruit and less chocolate bars and healthier meals were on the menu straight away - but it wasn't support I was after, it was fear. The reason I told everybody around me, was so that if I ever start cheating and sneaking biscuits, I would be told off by someone. Nobody would sympathise with me for cheating on my self-imposed diet, they would just think me as weak-willed, something I don't want them to think. This kind of motivation to not end up in somebody's bad books is what keeps me going at 9 o'clock most nights when all I want is a Boost bar.
So using these techniques (and a few others which I might include in another blog post this weekend), I have successfully abstained from sugar for a good fortnight now, and I already feel more alert and awake in the mornings. I know for sure that this change in my diet is going to last a lot longer than I originally thought because of these tips.
You can follow me on Twitter here, and help support my blog financially by shopping on Amazon.com through this link, note you can only shop through the US site currently, I am working on getting the UK version enabled.
