I think I really touched a nerve in my last post on ADD-Friendly Tips for Healthy Eating: Veggies, Butter and Self-medicating with Food - Am I the only one?
The comments have been very intriguing and thoughtful. But this one - really struck me.
"i wish i had the self-discipline of you."
"self-discipline"? Me? My husband would laugh. I wish I had self-discipline, too! I have such a hard time controlling my impulses sometimes. For me, it requires constantly educating myself and reminding myself of the truth about foods like sugar and gluten.
I'm a recovering addict in every sense of the word. And it took much more than "self-discipline" to even get me to consider quitting, and it still takes much more than that to keep getting myself back on track. What exactly is self-discipline? I like this definition from Wikipedia
"Self-discipline refers to the training that one gives one's self to accomplish a certain task or to adopt a particular pattern of behaviour, even though one would really rather be doing something else. For example, denying oneself of an extravagant pleasure in order to accomplish a more demanding charitable deed. Thus, self-discipline is the assertion of willpower over more base desires, and is usually understood to be a synonym of 'self control'. Self-discipline is to some extent a substitute for motivation, when one uses reason to determine a best course of action that opposes one's desires."
I did give myself "training," but I went way further. Willpower doesn't work for me. I had to create internal motivation powered by core beliefs. I had to convince myself that sugar is truly a CLUTTER FOOD. Not only does it have no nutritional power, it attacks your immune system and causes inflammation throughout your body. I had to prove these beliefs to myself - over and over again.
Eating sugar is as addicitive as shooting up heroin. At least for me. Yes, it feels divine, but it's really not. Look what it does to you! The more you have, the more you want. It doesn't kill you, but the more you consume, the more it weakens you. (Especially when you are over 40 and have been eating toxins like sugar your whole life.) It's a vicious cycle. The worse you feel because you ate the sugar, the more you crave the pleasure you get from sugar.
It is incredibly hard to quit sugar. Most people can't even imagine quitting! Think about it, could you stop tomorrow? The pleasure of eating sugar is stronger than even sex for many people. Stopping is like trying to stop breathing!
The Acceptance Stage
The first stage in addiction recovery is to accept that you might have a problem. You have to at least comtemplate that the addictive substance or activity might be the cause of your other problems. Most people won't even consider it. That's how I was. I laughed at the very thought of quitting.
If I wasn't struggling with weight, PMS, depression, and serious pain in my joints, I never would have even though about quitting sugar. I had to first connect my sugar consumption with all of these problems I was experiencing. My PMS was out of control. My doctor said it was menopause...but I now KNOW with all my heart it wasn't. I don't have PMS at all since I quit sugar. My ADD symptoms get worse when I eat sugar as well. I didn't "know" that then, I just knew I had to consider the possibility that all the articles I read about how bad sugar is just might be true.
So once I thought about it, what did it really take for me to quit sugar? Just like with learning to let go of clutter you've had your whole life, there are no easy "tips" and "tools" for this one. There is no magical "self-discipline". I had to go really deep into some really scary places for me. It took nearly 3 months of getting REAL. I had be honest with myself and "notice" how my addiction really worked. It took intensive soul searching as well as education. This is a case where my ability to hyperfocus and observe patterns worked out well for me. I focused on sugar like a laser beam to figure out why it had so much power over me. I asked questions like.
Why couldn't I stop putting 4 heaping spoonfuls in my coffee every morning?
Why do I get such INTENSE cravings for ice cream?
Why do I go to the grocery store and HAVE to buy gum and Snicker's bars while waiting in live?
Why can't I just stop eating sugar?
But then I had an AHA moment. Trying to answer "why" GETS YOU NOWHERE.
I made up all kinds of stories about how I grew up poor, how I was abused and grew up in stress and clutter and needed the comfort, yadda, yadda, yadda. None of it helped me get over the addiction.The kinds of questions that got me moving in the direction of serious change were What and How questions. The kinds of non-judgemental questions I use with my clients.
What was I really thinking, feeling and believing before, during and after these behaviors?
What did I truly want for myself? What did I need to be eating to have what I wanted? How could I comfort myself without sugar? How could I give up the false notion that sugar foods were comforting?
The Motivation Phase
Essentially, what finally helped me actually quit and not just keep "trying" to quit was:
- To use intense cognitive behavorial therapy on myself to change my core beliefs that enabled this addiction.
- To identify and deal with my innermost thought, belief, and emotional patterns.
- To shine a spotlight on my unconscious habits and become aware.
- I had to physically interrupt my behavior. I had to re-organize my physical environment, re-organize all my routines that had food connected with them (basically my whole life!.
- Most of all, I needed outside support. I am 100% sure I could never have done this alone.
It became clear to me, I had to get my husband Alan on board. It took weeks of intense conversation with him about what I needed from him. He agreed to attend educational classes with me just to "think about" the possibility of quitting sugar. I promised him I wouldn't force him to quit with me, but we both knew that if he ate sugar, I would too. So we attended 8 - 12 weeks of teleclasses with many experts on "sugar shock" led by Connie Bennett. We read books. And luckily for me he became just as motivated as I was to quit sugar!
The Testing Phase
It took all that effort just for us to TRY an EXPERIMENT! What would happen if we only ate whole sugar-free foods for 4 weeks? Just 4 weeks. We needed the personal experience to validate everything we learned. So we focused on our goals of wanting to feel better, stop having PMS, stop having sinus headaches, etc. Instead of thinking about quitting sugar, we focused on what we COULD eat instead. Alan was my knight in shining armor. He helped me empty our entire house of sugar. He had to pull the chocolate sauce out of my hand. Once I picked it up, I couldn't throw it away. I wanted to eat it so badly. I needed him to talk be down and remind me why I was doing this. What did I want more? Health or Chocolate?
After 4 weeks, my husband and I were stunned. We both felt so much better! It was really true!!! All the beliefs we "tried on" were becoming more ingrained in us. Not eating sugar makes us both feel a thousand times better.
It's been a few years, but I still "test" now and then to see if "maybe I can have just a little?" Like when I go to a restaurant, and they sit me near the bakery display section, and by the end of the meal I must have a dessert. Then I suffer for a few days. And develop a stronger resolve to never have sugar again.
Or like when I travelled to the NSGCD conference in September to take my Level 2 ADD Specialist Exam (which I passed : ) I was doing fine. Then they brought out 6 tables FULL of cakes, pies, torts, etc. They had chocolate and candy dishes everywhere. It was PURE HELL! I was strong for a while, but they left them out for what seemed like hours. Eventually, I had one piece, and then all hell broke loose. I had some of everything. I felt sick afterwards for days...but have only had sugar once since then. It's a vicious cycle. n my mind, I won't be "cured" until I can effortlessly resist sugar even when exposed at that obscene level, even while under the stress of travelling.
The Final Integration Phase
I went through a similar process with cigarettes. I guess you could say it took me almost 10 years to truly quit. But it wasn't until they banned smoking in all indoor places in NJ that I could go everywhere and be okay. Today, I never even think about smoking. There are no more ads for it. None of my friends smoke. Now, even when I am exposed to it, I don't want it. I gagged so many times during my last year of "testing" episodes that I finally even threw away the "emergency" pack I kept in my freezer.
I went through a similar process with releasing clutter. It happened in waves and spirals. I went through this process with overcoming "overcommitment." Saying "yes" to every new project is a lot like an addictive impulse. It's such a high in the moment, and then later you suffer. And now, I'm doing it with butter and cheese!
This is how you create lasting change.
It's not a perfect straight line. I must say though, with every habit I change, it gets easier. I develop more confidence that I can do it. It's not discipline. It's the power of your core beliefs and acceptance of the reality of how things really work. It's is the power of education and self-understanding. It changes your relationship with the world.
It was the same way with learning to let go of clutter for me. The impulse to acquire and keep is always in the background...and stress often makes the impulse stronger, but now, I have developed an even stronger automatic thought and belief process that kicks in and helps me make better decisions in response to my impulses.
So what do you think? Was I self-disciplined? Or was I self-discovering? Self-Persuading, maybe?
The creative side of me knows I can't make myself do things just by giving myself "consequences" or even by thinking about the consequences. It has to go way deeper than that.
