Battling the Mental Part of Addictions

I have mentioned many times that I am fighting my addictions, carbs, nicotine, artificial sweetener, caffeine.  Take your pick, they are all my addictions, my crutches,my go to emotional and mental fixes.  When I am happy, when I am sad, I go for a plate of toast, I reach for my biggest mug and make a huge cup of tea or coffee with sweetener, I smoke cigarettes.   I am an addict.

I am fighting the mental part of my addictions right now.  The physical part is easy because as long as I don’t have carbs or cigarettes or caffeinated beverages or sweetener in the cupboard/fridge, I can’t eat, drink or smoke them.  The physical part is so much harder to deal with.  Lying in bed, reading and I roll over, reach out to grab a smoke and realize there are none there.  I wake up in the morning, yawning and needing a quick hit of caffeine, open the cupboard and there is nothing there except for decaf or no caffeine beverages. 

My mind keeps playing tricks on me, telling me I need bread, I need a cigarette, I need a tea or coffee, I need sweetness.  My body is telling me, “Damn it, NO.  You are no longer using those as crutches.  Go for a walk, have a glass of ice water. Do something besides breaking down and having that.”.  So far, I have been able to fight back and not give in.  However, to be totally honest, which I always strive to be, I did break down and have a couple of cigarettes the other day.  But, being strong, I did NOT buy any yesterday or today when I had money in my pocket.  

I look forward to the day when I can say that I no longer have any active addictions or crutches to deal with emotional and mental issues, whether they are good or bad.  One day, I will stand and say with a strong voice “Hi, my name is Elizabeth.  I have fought hard from being super obese to what I am today. I have fought my addictions and I no longer use caffeine, nicotine, carbs or sweetener to handle my emotions or mental breakdowns.”  Oh what a wonderful day that will be.

 

Midnight Cravings and Other Mundane Things

It has been a week since I last had a taste of nicotine and last night the cravings were bad.  I tried the tried and true method of eating carrots sticks and drinking ice cold water but to no avail.  I then decided I would have a can of tomato soup with crackers and that seemed to do the trick.  Unfortunately, I ended up having a simple carbohydrate, which I have been avoiding for nearly 2 months. Today my goal is to find good, healthy alternatives to simple carbs and nicotine to get me through the worst of the worst cravings.

It is a gorgeous, sunny day here in The Annapolis Valley, in Nova Scotia.  The sun is high and shining, but it deceives even the most experienced of our citizens.  It is a cold morning.  I went for a walk nearly an hour ago and the temperature was a balmy -10 C, but feels more like -15 C with the wind chill.  It is still a nice day out, the calm before the storm.  I will have to get up early again tomorrow morning to get out for a walk, if I can.  If I can’t, then I will shovel my walkway, since we are on the verge of yet another Wednesday blizzard. I don’t know about you, but I am pretty damn sick and tired of snow.

Well, time to get some work done around here.  Until next time, think of a way to kill those midnight cravings.  There must be a healthy way of going about it without having to always eat carrot sticks.  Ciao.

 

 

Diabetes Words to Live by

Definitely something to remember.

I am fat

Yes, you read that right, I am fat.  I can and do admit it.  What is harder to admit are the reasons why I am fat.  When I was a teenager, I was pudgy but because I was in army cadets (got 2444 RCACC) so I was active and pudgy didn’t get out of hand.  When  I was 18 I quit army cadets and that I think is where all of my problems started.

I guess I thought I could eat all I wanted and it would not get out of hand, but it did.  I am now more than twice the size I was when I was 18 and hate looking in the mirror.  I shove the hatred down in my soul with salty food.  I am a salty food person.  I don’t mind a chocolate bar every now and then, or ice cream but give me a large bag of potato chips and we will be friends forever.  Cereal is another one of my addictions.  If I bring even one box of cereal in the house with a carton of milk, I can guarantee the box of cereal will be gone by bed time.

I can admit that I am addicted to simple carbohydrates. When I was first diagnosed as a type 1 insulin dependent diabetic at 23, I was told I could have carbs and again, my addiction took over.  I ate pasta, bread, cereal, chips, popcorn, whatever I wanted but didn’t think or care about what they were doing to my body.  Now I know and care about what they have done to my body.

I am fat.  I am morbidly obese.  But, there is one significant difference between and most of the other morbidly obese, I own my addictions, I own the fact that I have done this to myself and I am working on changing it.  I have been working on it since September 2013 and within the next 4 months or so, I will be having weight loss surgery.  WLS is NOT the cure, it is simply a tool in the process of changing my  lifestyle to a much healthier and happier one.

From one carb addict to another, do something about it before you begin to wreck your body and soul.