I Quit Sugar.

I am tired of never feeling well. My diabetes is not under control. I feel ill most of the time. Lack of energy. Hard to sleep. My joints ache. The headaches are unbearable.

It is time to take my life in hand.

I've been reading a Year Without Sugar, and as I read it, death is on my mind. Not my own hopefully.

My DH's friend killed himself a week ago on Tuesday. The third anniversary of my brother drowning is on 25th. When someone hangs themselves, after getting their affairs in order, everyone who knew them, or knew of them, asks why? The shock of suicide is very much the same as the shock of a sudden unexpected death.

I find myself lying awake in the night, aching, and wonder if my uncontrolled diabetes is just a slower form of suicide.

I have had sugar cravings for as long as I can remember. I have a scar on my chin that I got when I was about 3 years old. I wanted sugar. Not any sugar, it had to be my mum's homemade raspberry jam. So I pulled the stool over, piled some cushions on top, climbed up, reached the top shelf in the cupboard, grasped the jar of raspberry jam and of course, everything, the jam, the cushions, the stool and I came tumbling down. Luckily, it was a better experience for me than for Humpty Dumpty... I just ended up with a scar from the broken jam jar.

I have a second scar on the side of my chin. I got that when I was 9, I went into the sweetshop to buy a milky way and fainted, hitting my chin on the edge of the glass counter.

My mum tried to keep me away from sugary stuff. She never bought sweets for us. But, I would search the cupboards for anything sweet. Dried fruit - raisons, those little packs of compressed dates for baking, packets of cherries... all would end up being sneaked up to my bedroom and eaten.

As a teenager it got worse. I could eat 6 mars bars one after the other and still want a mars bar.

Fast forward 30 years and I am still fighting the constant cravings for sugar and sweet stuff. But quite honestly, if I cannot control the sugar consumption, and I have to keep upping my insulin intake, and my blood glucose levels are not controlled - where exactly is this going to lead me? I have heard all the horror stories, I have known of people who have died in their 50's due to poor diabetic control, after loss of parts of their limbs, heart attacks and strokes. But even though I know about the terrible end that could be ahead of me... I still struggle on a daily basis with the sugar cravings.

Of course, the other problem with sugar cravings and bingeing on sweet stuff... is weight gain... I really don't like what I see when I look into the mirror.

I have tried doing like my mother in law and putting a few chocolates in a dish so if I have a craving I can eat one and leave the rest. This did not work for me... I ate them all and then had to go and buy another packet so that my DH would not realise I had eaten them all. I literally could not stop myself.

It isn't as simple as weak willpower. I know my mum and sister feel that I have weak willpower but they can take a bite out of a chocolate bar, then put the rest in the fridge, until they throw it out one day. I cannot do that. I have never been able to do that. My mind would be on the fact that the chocolate bar was in the fridge. I would not be able to take my mind off the chocolate bar being in the fridge. I would be thinking about the chocolate bar all day, into the evening. I would wake in the night thinking about the chocolate bar. I have dreamed about eating chocolate. So vividly that I wake up in the morning and I can taste the chocolate, smell the chocolate.

So how does someone like me quit sugar?

This really is a major dilemma for me. I am not quite sure what to do about it. But I have to find a way to stop. I think that for me, it will be like an alcoholic giving up drinking. I will have to take it moment by moment, day by day...

I will start tomorrow, by going through all my cupboards and removing everything that contains sugar, fructose, honey, etc. If it is there... I will eat it... because I won't be able to stop thinking about it until I do.

Anyway, I'm going to use this space to work through my sugar addiction and find a way to beat it.

Why?

Because I want to feel well, I don't want to have headaches anymore, I want to be able to go for a walk without limping most of the way their and back again because my joints ache constantly. I want my blood glucose levels to normalise so I don't have to inject insulin 4 times a day and take cholesterol and blood pressure medication. I want to be able to think clearly without losing words and  feeling like I have a head full of cotton wool. I want to have energy and I would like to lose 3 stone in weight.

I just need to work out how.