Still Crazy After All These Years.

OK, so I was trying to give up sugar. I was doing quite well for a few days. I swapped the 30% sugar muesli bar in my lunchbox for a banana. Joe (my man) managed to find me some zero sugar yogurt that was edible, if a little grainy. Things trundled along for a couple of days until yesterday.

I tend to eat lunch huddled against a computer screen, trying to get things done in the limited time available. It also stops me eating the biscuits that are always available in the staffroom. Anyway, I don't pay a lot of attention to what I'm eating. Time is short. I did get to the end of my lunchbox yesterday feeling "Was that it?" but in the absence of anything left to eat, I just got on with the lessons and thought no more about it.

Oh dear. After work there was a meeting. By 4pm my stomach was starting to hurt, but I couldn't understand why. By 4.45pm I was nearly doubled over with the pain and couldn't wait to get out of there.

I cancelled meeting my friend for an exercise class, scoffed several of the staffroom biscuits and drove straight to the supermarket. OK, I'm not proud of it, but the pain was so bad. Sandwich, muesli bar, banana, malt loaf, orange juice and still the pain hadn't gone. My stomach was bloated full of wind and swollen like a beach ball. The food helped, but it didn't make it go away. It had gone too far for that.

When I got home I drank half a litre of water and ate some Cheerios.

I couldn't understand it. Was the pain hunger, or gall stones, or was my skirt was too tight or hadn't I drunk enough all day or had I eaten the wrong things? Six hours later I was still suffering. I shouldn't be that hungry, I'd eaten the same the day before and not had any bad effects.

Finally Joe came home and told me he had just put salad in my sandwich, instead of chicken or cheese (stupid me, hadn't noticed).

So I'd missed out on my usual muesli bar, the calories in the yogurt and to top it all I'd had no filling in my sandwich. Add to that a long meeting and you have a recipe for disaster.

This is why I don't stick to diets.

They hurt.

The bad news is, the progress I had made in cutting out sugar has all been undone because today I am still sore and wanting to put nice things into my abused body (like ice-cream and Jaffa cakes) to make sure it doesn't have to deal with the pain of hunger again.

One step forwards, two steps back. :o(