I was doing so well.  I ate clean, didn’t drink alcohol and cut out processed sugar in January.  I did yoga for 28 straight days in February, while I continued to eat clean 80% of the time, maybe more; and though I did drink a couple of times, it was not a big deal.  Then March arrived and I didn’t have a planned challenge set up for myself.  Big mistake.  I fell off the sugar wagon in a HUGE way.  I know I’ve written about my addiction to sugar in the past, but for the life of me, I cannot find that post.  If I repeat myself, please forgive me.

So, the first week or so of March, I did okay.  Not doing yoga every single day meant that I could finally get more walking in, which I love and is necessary for my overall health and well-being.  I continued to do Bikram on Wednesdays, mainly because my Groupon was good for two months and I figured, why not use it?  I am definitely not crazy about the class, though the sweating is a good thing.  As it turned out, today was my last day at Coronado Hot Yoga,  unless I wish to buy a class card, which I don’t.  I have another class in mind for Wednesdays, starting next week.  But enough of what I did right.  It was the stupid sweet-tart jelly beans that knocked me off the sugar wagon, which resulted in me going waaay wrong.

Easter is a big problem for me.  Halloween I can get through without too much of a problem, simply because there are no jelly beans, at least not ones that call to me, to have to contend with.  Easter, though, is a whole other story.  And as I was innocently walking past Rite Aid, I went in and, lo and behold, Easter candy.  And not just any candy, but SWEET-TART JELLY BEANS.  So I accidentally bought a bag.  I took it home, opened it up and ate a handful.  ‘Yuck,’ I thought, ‘these aren’t even that good.’  I then proceeded to throw the rest of the bag into the garbage, and just for good measure, I made sure there was no way I could retrieve them from said garbage.  I then thought, ‘well, this is good.  I ate them, they didn’t taste good, so I’ll be fine.’  Wishful thinking!  A few days later, I bought another bag.  I went through the exact same process, ending with me dumping them into the garbage.  Again.  I did this, oh, three more times until I developed a taste for them again.  What a dumb thing to do!  And my hot flashes came back with a vengeance.  Lovely, just lovely.

So, I’d go through a bag in a few days.  I decided that maybe this wasn’t horrible, not great, but not so bad.  Oh, I wish this was the case.  Then the day came when I bought a bag and ate the ENTIRE thing in one day.  Well, crap!  Again, I told myself, NO MORE.  And I’d go, maybe a day or two, if I was really lucky, and then those stupid jelly beans would somehow get in my shopping cart and come home with me.  Not wanting to be impolite, I would, of course, eat them all, yet again.  Then I decided that I would just have to get through Easter.  At this point, it was less than a week away, and once Easter is finished, the stupid Easter candy in the stores is gone.  Thank God!  But wouldn’t you know it, the day after Easter, all Easter candy is half-price!  Are you kidding me?  How am I to resist half-price sweet-tart jelly beans?  I did my best to stay out of the store where they lay in wait for me.  You can guess how well that worked.  Not so well, unfortunately.

I will say that even though there were four bags of those pretty jelly beans, I only bought two of them.  I almost bought them all, but I somehow had some sense left and just got two bags.  In the end, I ate three-quarters of them before throwing the rest away.  Again, I made sure that fishing them out of the trash was not an option, because I’m pretty sure I would have otherwise.

Now, I have to get off sugar again.  Really?  Didn’t I just do this?  Why is it so hard for me to not eat processed sugar?  Why do I seem powerless over jelly beans?  Even when eating them makes me feel like crap?  Sugar truly is a drug to me, and my body reacts accordingly.  Maybe it’s like rehab, and how it sometimes takes more than one or two or three, or more, times for it to stick.  Dang!  I guess there are worse thing s to be addicted to, but, for me, this is pretty bad.  As I sit here writing this post, I keep having hot flashes.  They suck!  A lot!!

I have my work cut out for me, yet again.  I also realized that as much as I love yoga, and practicing it five days a week is much more doable than every day, I am still not getting the exercise I really need.  Other than my ashtanga class with the fabulous Steve Hubbard in Pacific Beach on Saturdays, I really do not get much of a workout.  I decided I need to give up my Tuesday and Thursday beach yoga classes so that I can walk more.  This means I will be cutting my yoga down to 3 days a week.  Hey, if I didn’t have to work, then I could do both.  The reality is I do have to work and the relatively late start times of these yoga classes is making it impossible for me to keep doing them.  I can leave to walk much earlier, which means I’ll be home earlier and can get to work before 10 or 11 each morning.

I know that these problems I am experiencing are, as my friend Stephanie Spence calls them, Prada problems.  Still, figuring out how to make my life work for me is an ongoing challenge.  Fortunately, I am up to it.