The Stupid Diet Wagon

I swear there is something wrong with me. Actually I know there is, that’s well established both clinically and socially but when it comes to food there is ABSOLUTELY without doubt a very large and significant defect.

Anyone who knows me or who follows my Facebook page will know that I start a new diet every couple of months or so. Sugar free, gluten-free, meat only, no carbs, calorie counting .. I’ve tried them all and they always fail. I start off really hardcore and then fall off the wagon in a spectacular way somewhere within the following six weeks. Who am I kidding, three weeks. Pffft .. two weeks. Less even.

I’m not overweight at the moment but since I had my daughter in 2003 my weight has at its lowest been 54kg and at its heighest 100kg. Admittedly that was when I was pregnant but my baby only weighed 3kg. The rest was cake and prawn dumplings. Losing two or three kilos would be nice but the main reason for dieting at the moment is my desperation to quit sugar. I just can’t do it.

The only reason I’m not overweight at the moment is because I do so much running. I should be losing weight given how many calories I burn but because of the amount of dodgy food I eat it just plateaus. If I didn’t run and ate what I do I would steadily gain weight very easily.

That plus the fact that my weight has fluctuated so ridiculously over the past decade that they should cart me off and do studies on me. Just because I weigh what I weigh now does not mean I won’t get fat again. It has happened before. Several times. Usually because I get pregnant but even so it has happened.

Anyway this morning at breakfast I had 20 freckles. A couple of days last week it was a handful of Jaffas.

I mean, who does that? Thankfully I don’t usually eat the entire packet and I don’t eat a proper breakfast on top of it but it’s not normal. If it’s in the house I’ll eat it and my sugar cravings are their worst as soon as I wake up. For a while I ate lamingtons every single morning. I could live on Fruit Loops and Coco Pops and sugary cereals alone.

And of course anyone who has been reading my blog for a while will know about my Nutella problems (you can read about it here, here, here and here). I’m pleased to say I’m sober of Nutella and have been clean for quite a while now.

However despite my nutty sugar issues I do take my running very seriously. I analyse all my running data, I subscribe to every running magazine you can buy, I value my running family nearly as much as my own, I can talk running to anyone who will listen for hours and hours. I read studies on running and all sorts of weird running data and I do all the proper stretches and anything to protect my body from injury and to keep it moving ..

Yet I fuel it with sugar and cake and Jaffas and everything that I shouldn’t. WTF?

Refined carbs and sugar are the big no-nos of long distance running fuel. Yet they are my favourite foods of all time. You can have your pies and burgers and chips, but when it comes to sugar I am totally under its spell.

Weirdly enough I never used to eat sugar. Period. I am married to a dreadful sweet tooth and I used to buy him his chocolate each week and quiz him about it, I just didn’t understand how he could eat it.

Then almost two years ago I gave up alcohol and haven’t touched a drop since. Shortly afterwards I developed a massive addiction to crispy M&M’s and had the sudden realisation that just because I wasn’t eating chocolate didn’t mean I wasn’t consuming mountains of sugar in the form of wine. And lots of it. So I must have been a sugar addict my whole life.

Four weeks ago I committed to a metabolic jumpstart diet and tailored exercise plan. I am still following the exercise plan but the diet lasted exactly seven days before I fell off the wagon and into a giant cheesecake.

It’s actually my brother’s fault. He had a birthday and I offered to make a cake. So obviously when I said ‘bake’ I meant I would go to The Cheesecake Shop and invest in a caramel baked cheesecake that could feed eighty. The next day my brother and his family arrived and we sang happy birthday and they all ate cake and I sat there like a smug hero with my skinny coffee talking about how amazing this new diet was and how I was going to do it for eight weeks.

And then they left and I ate the rest of the cake.

With a plastic cooking spoon. Again, WTF.

I know I have a problem with excess but in most areas I control it and it actually works for me in others because when I get into things like running I get obsessive about it and do it to excess. It’s the doing it a lot when food is involved that’s the problem. Or drinking. So I can and have quit drinking and be a complete teetotaler but obviously I can’t quit food and have to learn to moderate it.

So fess up peoples. Am I alone? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve eaten for breakfast?