Friday, April 29, 2011

The Lent Experience

So this year for Lent (40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday) I decided to give up my most favorite thing ever - sugar.  I LOVE sweets.  Love love love.  Can't get enough...seriously.  It's almost like a problem, lol!  So it was the perfect thing to sacrifice for me.  It would be challenging and little did I know it would be very rewarding!

So it's started out badly.  I ended up eating cake like the first weekend.  Okay, not the end of the world of course.  Just stop, try again.  A another week goes by, slipped again.  And again.  And again.  Yes, I had a lot of slip ups.  Majority of the time on weekends or at get togethers with family and friends.  It's one thing when I am at home with nothing in the house, no temptation, more willpower.  But out of my comfort zone, surrounded by others, yeah, definitely hard.

But you know what?  It's okay.  I tried.  I failed.  I tried again.  And overall I would say I succeeded.  Over the course of this forty days something a couple things happened.

1.  I lost 10 pounds.  TEN pounds....by doing nothing!  Just NOT eating sweets.  No sugar in the coffee, no quick trips to the mall to get a smoothie, or ice cream cone through the McDonald's drive-thru.  Didn't have to lift a finger and 10 pounds of apparently "sugar weight" came tumbling off.  Awesome!

2.  I am now determined to make this a lifestyle change.  Very limited amounts of sweets for me.  A teaspoon at MOST of sugar in the coffee is fine now....especially after drinking it with NONE for that long.  I never really got used to it, but I can now enjoy it with a lot less.  No more drive through ice creams, smoothies, iced coffees, etc during the week.  We can have some fun, get a fun drink or dessert on the weekend.  It's all amount moderation right?

So it was a tough but great experience this year.  And probably the first time I actually made it through the whole season really putting the effort and thinking about it everyday.  Usually in years past I would easily just forget about it or not do anything at all.

So what will it be next year???


0 comments: