Shopping.... Sugar..... Sh**!

My daughter and I spent several hours in the car together this weekend. In the early evening, with still a few hours to drive, we got off at an exit for coffee and gas. There was a big shopping mall between those two points. “I’m feeling lately like I want to go shopping,” I admitted to her as I drove past the mall entrance. We marveled that we are in month 8 of our commitment to not shop, and to date neither of us has cheated. And I won’t, despite those recent yearnings, which will be ignored.

We talked about “the end” of this commitment in four months, and what that might be like. I told her that I fully expect to stay on the shopping diet even when the year is over; she agrees. We both like zero balance on our credit cards, and we like not accumulating. Honestly, there is not one thing I need or that I anticipate needing. I got through the fall and winter without a single day of panic over what I should wear – there were always plenty of options for whatever my mood, the occasion, or the weather brought. My recent yearnings to shop are surely due to the sneak peaks I’ve taken into the few spring catalogs that have been in my mailbox of late. However, I also believe that resisting shopping has been made easier because every free moment of time I might have had to shop is consumed with school work. If I were truly free during my non-working hours, it surely would be harder. I really just have no time to wander about in stores, peruse catalogs, or browse the internet. My busyness has been a blessing. But I wonder what will happen when the excuse of school work evaporates.

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The last time I entered the pharmacy at Grand Central Terminal, I ran into an immense rainbow-colored wall of marshmallow Peeps. My heart rate increased, my taste buds went into overdrive, and my willpower …. well, it won but mostly due to the immutable timetable of a commuter train and a very long checkout line. But those bunnies (no chicks for me -  the beheading of a bird even when it’s made of marshmallow is just too Ozzy O for me) will be taunting me for the next six weeks. Once Easter is behind me, the confection torture that started in October with candy corn will lighten until Halloween is upon us again. 

My daughter and I recently attended a three-week lecture series at The Open Center in NY. It was about gluten allergies (which she has) and sugar addiction (which we both have). I was hoping that there would be some magic or  at least ideas that I hadn’t already heard about to try to lessen my cravings and make this easier. I’m sorry to report there are none. The best the speaker could offer was a shrug of his shoulders and the suggestion that we eat some fruit instead or go exercise. I mean really. When I’m frantically scouring the cupboards and the refrigerator in search of something that will satisfy me, somehow the prospect of a banana just doesn’t do it. And the likelihood of my either heading to the gym or dropping to the floor and doing 50 crunches (even if I could make it to 50) in that moment of angst seems pretty remote.

I have been pretty “good” – managing to resist most extra sugar that comes in the form of baked goods, candy and the like. My sister and I made a pact. She won’t buy me any peeps or jelly beans at Easter. I can buy her one box of peeps but not the whole rainbow, which my usual compulsivity would dictate; if I buy her maple-cream filled eggs – her personal weakness, I’ll limit those to two. She rationalizes that the calorie count of the eggs is relatively low plus the chocolate around them is dark. We all know dark chocolate is a “good” thing.   My daughter and I have a similar pact except that it’s exception-less. I must get through this holiday without additional stress on my pancreas.

But despite these agreements, there is still a plethora of sugar in my diet. I need my coffee light and sweet. Two cups a day, occasionally three. My lunchtime yogurt has sugar a.k.a high fructose corn syrup as its second ingredient. I haven’t been able to eschew that in favor of plain (gag, gag) yogurt even if I put in my own fruit. My excuse? I don’t feel like getting out the blender every morning to create it. And then I don’t feel like washing the blender. My dinnertime salad dressing has the same thinly disguised sugar product as my yogurt does. And when I boil some water for a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows in the evening instead of some ice cream, I wonder who I think I’m kidding. Marshmallows are sugar no matter their form. And liquid sugar is no better than solid sugar.

Some decision-points are easier than others. It definitely helps to have someone supportive in my presence when there’s a choice to be made. If my daughter is with me, between the two of us, we’ll do the right thing - food-wise and shopping-wise. My secretary no longer brings me pieces of cake or a couple of cookies when she notices food in our suite. But being alone at home is hard, especially during long weekend days or evenings when I’m writing and feel stuck or weary. Restlessness sets in and I start seeking solutions for those feelings in the form of sugar. I’ve thought about that a lot lately. When my mind is occupied and interested, and I am not feeling restless or uneasy, sugar doesn’t compete for my attention. But when I start to feel like I need a break or I’d rather do anything but what I’m doing at the moment, sugar surges to mind as the perfect antidote for my malaise. A snickers bar is sure to make me feel better although in my saner moments, I’m not sure what better is, really. Sated? Soothed? Stimulated? Or just temporarily distracted from something more painful than an unwritten paragraph?