I talked elsewhere, in very vague terms, about Project Liz, but I’m feeling the need to talk about this some more … or maybe, given my overwhelming nausea in just thinking about posting this in a forum where someone else might actually READ it, perhaps I’m just feeling the need to write about it. I’m not sure. We’ll see how long this survives public airing…!
I had a moment yesterday, perhaps the first time in years (or, hell, maybe *ever*), where I wandered by the mirror at some point, glanced at myself, and thought, “Huh. I look cute today.” In case you’re confused, as you’ve heard me say “I look cute today!” … the thought I had yesterday wasn’t, “Other people would say I look cute today,” but rather that *I* saw it. WOOT!
There are no outwardly visible changes in me, in how I look or who I am or any of that, but there has been a shift, possibly fleeting and certainly tenuous, in how I am starting to talk to myself about myself.
This is something for which genuine consciousness about my inner dialogue is required to affect change. But it would seem that I’m starting to make very minor, but no less important, steps toward that goal. And that — THAT?! — demands some self-congratulations.
So, Liz: Way To Go! 🙂
I’m at the library as I write this. I came here today mostly because I finally watched a dvr’d PBS special yesterday on the relationship between food choices and brain health, and I wanted to check out the speaker’s book. Some of what he said rang so personally true for me, particularly when he talked about the biochemical reaction that the body has to sugar. Anyone who’s been around consistently since 2004 knows that this has been one of my bigger struggles. I am — THANK GOD! — not remotely at risk of diabetes or anything like that, but it is nevertheless the case that sugar and I have a deeply love-hate relationship. In other words: I love it, but my body hates it.
Well, it turns out, sugar actually produces a neurochemical reaction that is not altogether different from the one that heroin or cocaine produces. In other words, it fucks with your brain chemistry, decreases blood flow to the brain, and actually leads to addiction. I’ve sugar-detoxed a handful of times, and I know that it generally takes me one (REALLY hard) week to wean myself off the cravings and headaches, and then I feel like a bazillion bucks. Dude on the PBS program yesterday said it takes the body two weeks to exorcise all the sugar out of your body and fully get rid of the cravings. I believe him!
The last time I gave up sugar (and other white stuff), I remember saying to my best friend that “every cell in my body is crying out for gravy.” Ha! It was totally true, and it points out that this stuff — the sugars and white stuff — genuinely generates addiction-like impulses. This is probably true for everyone, but I don’t have any firsthand experience with how any of y’all feel. I just know that I’ve found it’s definitely true of me.
I don’t want to stand (or, rather, sit) here and say that Project Liz is just the third incarnation of my serious attempts to exorcise this crap from my diet. It’s about so, so much more than that… but, that’s certainly a part of it. I need to feel in control again, and one of the ways I can do this is to go through the detox and let my biochemistry settle back into something that works better for me. I can’t tee-total this, as I do occasionally want to have some sugar-y stuff. But I can certainly make some changes that will make me feel better.
Anyway. These are just some thoughts about Project Liz, for now.
I generally prefer to give the illusion that I take an ostrich approach to things of this sort, and it makes me deeply — deeply — uncomfortable to think you (or anyone else) just read this. For the record.