After meeting with the nutritionist last week, I was advised that a good ol’ detox would be beneficial for boosting my weight loss. With any challenge I face, I am pretty jazzed on the idea … at first. Then I read the detox included giving up coffee. I literally think I could give up anything in large doses, sugar, sweets, bread, dairy, alcohol, all of it. But take away my coffee? It just seems wrong.
Coffee is the first thing that makes me happy when I open my eyes every morning. I am sure I will feel differently when I have children or something; they’ll probably be my first joy. And OK, before I open my eyes I do always look forward to my boyfriend kissing me and telling me he loves me before he leaves for work. He does it every morning and even in partial sleep as I am usually ignoring my multiple alarms, I can sense it’s coming and love the gesture. But see, that is before I open my eyes.
Once I am fully awake I all but run to my coffee maker, grab my favorite mug. Then I stand staring in a groggy daze in the kitchen watching the coffee drip into the cup, waiting.
Once it is ready, I blissfully place the warm cup between my hands, sit down on the couch and slowly sip and contemplate. Besides coffee being delicious and savoring the scalding burn when I take a swig letting the hot liquid fly down my throat warming up my insides, it’s not just the taste of coffee that does it for me. It is the whole act that I adore.
Not having my favorite ritual to greet the day made this morning seem piss poor. I felt cranky and agitated, especially when I realized I didn’t wash any of my gym clothes and would have to wear shorts and a regular bra to the gym, as all my workout pants, capris and sports bras were conveniently sitting in the washer that hadn’t been started.
And though I tried to weasel out of my workout on account of my entire lack of planning, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So why then, when I whipped up a spinach smoothie and made it to my Alpha class to do one of my favorite things—Olympic weightlifting—did I finish the class and feel vacant and a little blue instead of riding my usual endorphin high?
I realized after I got in my car to go and figure out a healthy option for lunch that I was already feeling the keen edge of deprivation and that panicked me and quite frankly made me a little sad. Like if I didn’t have cheese or Greek yogurt or coffee (for a mere two weeks) that my life was going to be a grim affair.
Why can’t I eat a cupcake everyday and not gain weight, I pouted internally.
The funny thing is, I don’t even crave cupcakes everyday … err, I mean, I probably crave them every other day. But if I have one as a treat, I am usually pretty satisfied for a nice long while before feeling like I need another one. But it’s the saying no to me that really does me in.
But why?
Why not?
What’s so wrong with refined sugar anyway?
I know the answers to all of these. If I didn’t then maybe, just maybe, it would be OK to squeak by oblivious to what my body truly needs. The nutritionist from the Ranch, Rachel Beller said it best:
“Ignorance is bliss. But now that you’ve been informed, you can never go back to being ignorant.”
Ignorance is bliss! I have never appreciated that statement more than I do now. I could turn my back on what I’ve learned. I could ignore the fact I’m only supposed to have two servings of fruit in a day, not 5 because that’s too much sugar, apparently. I could pretend I didn’t know that too many carbohydrates can ruin an otherwise great workout, even if the carbs were from a day prior. I could pretend two tablespoons of almond butter was actually two teaspoons. But then what? I am knowingly sabotaging myself. I can’t feign ignorance because I know better and isn’t that just the sad state of adulthood? Childhood can allow for that kind of unknowing, but alas, those days are gone.
So as much as I want to feel really badly for myself that I can’t have cupcakes everyday and still be healthy, it’s a whole lot of crying over spilled milk. And I recently printed off several stacks of pictures where my muscles looked grand and I felt really top-notch. I am probably going to plaster those puppies all over the cupboards in my house for when I want to eat nonsense as a reminder that cupcakes aren’t my ultimate fulfillment; feeling really great in my own skin is.
Oh and being able to do whatever it is I am doing below (some sort of upside down crunch, nonetheless it was hard) again:
I’ve got to admit, I am pretty impressed with fit me.
-Cassandra