I’m nearly two weeks into this raw food experiment and I’m feeling pretty hopeful. This is the longest I’ve ever gone without eating a significant amount of sugar each and every day. I went to the grocery store this afternoon. I was in a bit of a hurry because Makai was at home with a big headache (too much brown sugar in his Grape Nuts) and we were out of ibuprofen. It wasn’t until I got back into my car that I realized that something was different.
Walking through the bakery section before was stressful. I would peruse the isles and force myself to look at the whole wheat bread for as long as I had stared, longingly, at all the goodies. The cupcake devil and the broccoli angel debated loudly and continuously in my head until I wanted to put them both in a time out. But I would keep on walking, pushing the cart, acting as though there was no internal struggle going on. Who me? Pondering the consequences of a donut as though it was the answer to world peace? Naaaaah. I’m just an average joe grocery shopper, thank you very much. In reality, I was a die hard sugar junkie pretending to be something else.
It used to be that I would hear my name being called out by my old buddy Bismark. Then the french bread, cookies and cupcakes would chime right in with a veritable symphony of temptation. Even after leaving the bakery section I could still hear their little high-pitched voices following me around the store. “I’m fresh baked. Just one bite won’t hurt you. I’ll get you a sugar rush in no time flat. I’m cheaper than spinach. You can eat me in the car on the way home like usual. I have cream filling and chocolate on top, oozing down the sides.” The voices know I love most things ooey and goey. And they are relentless. The farther away I walk from said bakery section the more insistent they would get so that I can’t even concentrate on ready labels or comparing prices.
So as I sat in the car today on the way home from the grocery store I realized that no one was talking to me that day. In fact, I don’t think I even went near the bakery section. Wow. I have no illusions of being cured. I do understand that just one or two days of partaking will land me right back where I started: running from the bakery section, drool on chin, hands cupped over my ears and begging the unseen voices to PLEASE stop beckoning me.
But today, after eating mostly raw for two weeks, the voices have been silenced. And that, my friends, is what I call freedom.