My last day without sugar

I never thought in a million years that the last day without sugar would be the absolute hardest of the entire month. I’m just so close, and scared to ruin everything. The past week I have been having dreams (or perhaps they even qualify as nightmares) about eating sugar a day too soon. In my dream we are stuffing our faces with everything that is sweet and bad knowing full well that we were supposed to wait another day. And in my dream, I feel like a total failure. I don’t want to give in. When I wake up, it’s hard to shake the feeling, and so, the last day seems like the ultimate test. Part of my brain is telling me “you’ve made it this far, if you want to eat that donut that bad, what’s a day in this entire month. You did it, you went a month without sugar, now eat that donut.” But the other part of my brain knows that if I give in to the temptation, I will feel like the entire month has been a waste, like that one day, made everything a failure. And so, I have been dreading the last day of my challenge for the entire week. Please, be over. This is torture. 

The sound of my neighbours wakes me up at about 9am. I decided it’s too soon to get up, the shorter the day, the less temptation. My phone keeps vibrating, a group conversation. Fuck. Let me sleep. I turn my phone to silent mode and try to ignore my neighbours. Are they dancing Irish jigs up there? I fall back asleep. It is almost noon when I wake up and I check my phone for messages. Whatsapp. Not many people contact me through Whatsapp, curiosity strikes me. A friend from university wants to have some coffee this afternoon. YES. I jump out of bed, suddenly I feel energetic. Surely a walk downtown will make time pass. We decide to meet up around 5pm. In the meantime, my flatmate wakes up and we have breakfast. This is getting dull, bananas and yoghurt for an entire month is what I have been having and I just can’t tolerate any more of it. I decide to have a slice of sugar-free bread instead, with some cheese. I’m not satisfied, so I eat the banana anyway, continuously thinking about what I would rather be eating. Three days ago, I went shopping, and knowing that the challenge was almost over, I bought a whole bunch of stuff that in a couple of days, I could eat it again. I wanted to buy the entire store, the entire universe of everything that contains a shitton of sugar. I bought that day: sweet popcorn, chocolate chip cookies, Nesquik bars and Cheetos. These were just a few of the things that I had craved in this last week of the challenge. I regretted not having bought donuts. Yesterday, a friend suggested I drink soda and eat chocolate at the end of the challenge. I don’t crave chocolate, but it sure would be good to drink something else. So this morning I decide to run downstairs and buy donuts and cola (diet, because I never liked regular coke to begin with). My kitchen is packed with stuff that is torturing the living … out of me. Over breakfast, me and my flatmate (although, admittedly, mostly me) talk about everything we want to eat at midnight when our challenge is over. It’s bothering me beyond imagination, I never thought I could want to eat sugar this much.  I hold my head in my hands, and slowly rock the craving out of me. The afternoon progresses slowly, and I count down the hours. By lunchtime, I make fresh Bolognese sauce and cook some pasta. Cheese on top and it’s actually pretty satisfying. A couple of hours later, it’s time to head downtown and meet up with my friend. I feel satisfied, my cravings are gone. The million cake shops I pass can’t bother me. I can honestly say, I don’t want cake right now. My friend is late, so I wait, sitting in front of McDonald’s, watching people stuff their faces with burgers and I don’t want one. Someone passes with ice cream, and I don’t care. My friend arrives and I tell her about all the good restaurants I know in the area, and I don’t crave any of the delicious foods I am describing to her. Something has clicked, I flipped the switch, I’m no longer scared I won’t make it to midnight. We take a tram and go the most famous coffee house in Lisbon. I order a latte without sugar, she orders a coffee… and a cake. I tell her it’s my last day of the challenge and she apologises for ordering the cake. I say it’s ok, that I am not bothered by it. And I’m not. A couple of hours later it’s getting cold, and we return home. I leave her at her tram stop and walk to the metro station. I realize that although it is dinner time, I am not hungry. Ever since I have stopped eating added sugars, my food satisfies me for a lot longer, and I don’t start stuffing my face in the middle of the afternoon. I can simply drink a cup of coffee and make it all the way to dinner. When I get home I see the donuts, and the craving returns a little. But not as much as this morning. I have pasta again, because I am too lazy to make something else at this point. After dinner I have an orange for dessert. We talk about how many hours it is until midnight, and by this point, I’m not even sure I want to eat the donut anymore tonight. We agreed to watch a movie and I will eat some popcorn, but I will probably leave the donut. Tomorrow we will have breakfast in one of Lisbon’s many cake shops before going out to visit some museums and a botanic garden, a little treat to start the new month. At midnight we will do a taste test. Bread with added sugar, and without. I wonder which one we will prefer after a month…

It’s now about an hour and a half until midnight. And for the first time today, I had to check the clock to find out.