I’ve been struggling with chocolate lately. My nutrition is pretty good: I eat healthy balanced meals and can stay away from white carbs, crisps, pies etc etc. But until this week chocolate was my downfall. I live almost next door to a corner shop which is open daily until 10pm, and it’s been so hard to resist taking the few steps and a £1 coin to get myself a little “treat” in the evening. I did know that this was to do with sugar, as I can easily keep a bar of Green and Black’s 85% in my fridge and have a square or two after a meal. But give me Cadbury’s Dairy Milk or Galaxy and I can’t leave it alone. Until it’s all gone….
I’ve tried all sorts of approaches with myself, primarily attempting to think of my body as a temple and not wanting to put “poison” in it. After all, I don’t drink or smoke and I exercise most days. Somehow that wasn’t hitting the spot. I read “Women Food and God” and found it enlightening, I’ve used willpower, meditation, EFT and all sorts of other approaches which have worked for a bit but I have always felt drawn back to those purple packets, the feel-good of eating the chocolate bar (or biscuit or whatever else) and then the awful regret and sick feeling afterwards.
This week something has changed. On Monday I was lucky enough to see a video of Jason Vale, known as the Juicemaster. Now, I am not about to go on a seven day juice fast. I have a nutrition coach and have worked out my nutrition to support my recovery from ME, and I don’t need to change anything (apart from avoiding aforesaid junk!). But he did say something that really resonated. It was about the folly of eating something that makes us want more and more of it even though we are feeling sick and terrible. And what kind of food is it that, the more we eat, the more we want? After all, if we eat carrots, lamb or eggs, for example, after a while we think “I’ve had enough” and we have no problem stopping. Not so with junk.
Then Tuesday came and this article was in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jun/11/why-our-food-is-making-us-fat. Jacques Peretti exposes the cover up of the dangers of sugar, the myths about fat and the reasons why we eat how we do today. A lot of this is stuff I had already been told by my nutrition coach, Vicki (www.vickipt.com – by the way I am immortalised on the home page doing a deadlift!), but the article and then the programme on BBC2 on Thursday really clarified things for me.
This is what I now know, not just intellectually but in my heart: Sugar is addictive. The manufacturers of sugar products know this, and that’s why they market their products how they do. It’s not that different from booze or fags; enormous amounts of money are spent making sure everything is just right so that we buy these products, get our fix and then want more. Advertising and marketing are a form of control: the companies either find or create a market, persuading us that we really need this product. In some cases we do. We need the staples in our diet, for example. But junk food is a created market; we don’t need these products.
So now I know that I have been taken in by this very clever and very expensive form of control. And I don’t like it. Some things are important to me, like my health, how I look and how much money I have, and some things are very very important to me, like my rights and freedoms and not being controlled. Very important. Once I know I am being controlled or manipulated against my will I will do whatever I can to counteract it, and I will do this for others as well. My other job is very much concerned with protecting the rights of those who cannot do this for themselves. With this knowledge, I am now revolted by the thought of a Twix, KitKat or Snickers (my recent weakness). If I buy one of these and eat it I am allowing myself to be controlled, and, actually, I have a choice. This stuff is not necessary to life.
I guess my message here is that you have to find the approach that works for you. If your health is super important, then focus on that and you will find your place of choice and freedom. If it is how you look, then you will make sensible and responsible decisions because of that. If money is one of your highest priorities, then you will decide not to waste money on rubbish. I just needed to see clearly that I was allowing myself to be compromised, controlled (at worst, poisoned) to help Cadburys, Nestle and Rowntrees (not to mention McVities, Jacobs and Mr Kipling) to make a profit. Distasteful, isn’t it?
And the result? The result is that I feel as if Paul McKenna has worked his magic on me. I have seen him turn people off chocolate, and that’s how I feel now. Oh, I’ve got my Green and Blacks in the fridge and that’s a different matter altogether. But I value my freedom and integrity above a quick chocolate fix (much, I suppose, as my vegan friend values her principles above a cream cake) and I won’t give those precious things up lightly. As a bolt on extra, my health and my dress size should benefit. Hooray and happy weekend everyone!
