Wow. What a 40 days it has been. A lot has happened in my life since 2/22/23 outside of the challenge that made the challenge seem extra challenging and inopportune. But that’s kinda the point, right?
As a reminder, my 40 day challenge was giving up dessert and alcohol. I gave myself 6 free passes and still didn’t hit all of the other 40 days perfectly. I ended up about 93% successful, which is 37 days better than I would’ve done otherwise! So I’m proud of the progress I made during that time.
However, during my reflection and evaluating – which I encourage all of you to do – there were a couple themes that really stood out that I figured I’d share.
My Final Evaluation
WHAT WENT WELL
★ 37 days where I significantly reduced my sugar intake!
★ 40 days without alcohol (and I didn’t go over my passes)
WHAT DIDN’T GO WELL
★ Felt super deprived, made me feel angry and annoyed and resentful, resulted in I didn’t enjoy the challenge and felt super negative about it
★ More passes than I would’ve like to have given myself
★ Over indulged when I gave myself passes
WHERE TO IMPROVE
★ Better prepare with alternatives. Especially when facing discomfort – sit with the discomfort and look for other ways to comfort yourself.
★ Be more mindful, intentional, and moderate
★ Don’t restrict and deprive, but perhaps find other ways to comfort and nurture myself that are “healthier”
I think that one of the reasons this challenge was extra challenging is because of so many things going on in my life outside of the challenge that were chaotic and stressful. Therefore, I wanted to comfort myself with sweet treats.
It’s my belief that I can comfort myself with sweet treats and work those treats into my dietary allowance. I still want to reduce my sugar consumption. I did realize I don’t need sugar every day. However, allowing myself a small treat, especially healthier alternatives that are low in chemicals, is what is going to work best for me so I don’t overindulge otherwise.
My Key Takeaways
Deprivation is for the Birds
This challenge reminded me of why I changed my wellness practices for myself a few years ago. The lesson I was reminded of is: deprivation for the sake of deprivation because it’s what you think you’re supposed to do, sucks.
A little backstory → When I was in my corporate job and gained my “Corporate 15” pounds (analogous with the Freshman 15) I realized I had to get myself back in check wellness wise because I no longer had my gym job where I was constantly moving to offset my eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I was in a cycle of moving less and eating more and it was on me to put in the work to get myself back on track.
So I did calorie and time restricted eating. I allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted as long as I didn’t surpass my calories for that day. That meant sometimes depriving myself of joyful experiences in the name of calorie restriction. Overall, it “worked” in that I was able to get the 15 pounds off, but it was very miserable and unsustainable. I could also see how it could lead to bad habits like binging and shaming yourself. We’ll save that rabbit hole around these topics for another day.
The point is, my challenge of no dessert for 40 days reminded me of that time. Honestly, the whole “if you cut sugar out you won’t crave it anymore” didn’t seem to apply to me during this challenge. I still craved it more so than when I was allowing myself a treat everyday.
I did allow myself a couple passes where I allowed myself to celebrate with others’ really joyful experiences with dessert foods. Of course, I didn’t need the dessert food to celebrate. I found, however, that for me it made the occasion and the treat all the more special.
I also found that during those free pass days I had a tendency to overdo it with the sugar consumption and typically felt worse after. Physically from the sugar overload, but also I noticed the negative thought patterns we can fall into shaming ourselves when we do indulge. This doesn’t work. Often shaming & blaming ourselves leads us to feeling worse about ourselves and usually causes even more destructive behaviors to comfort ourselves and cope with those lousy feelings.
Overall, this reinforced my belief that deprivation is unsustainable. Willpower and white knuckling can only last so long. In the short term, maybe some restriction is called for and the right choice. However, in the long term, I think moderation is key to keeping you from binging. Replacing “bad” habits with better alternatives does help, but learning to allow yourself some wiggle room – if you can afford to – and working with your cravings will take you farther in your goals.
Discomfort & Temptation
The second lesson I was reminded of during this challenge was sitting with discomfort.
Many of our bad habits at one point serve us as a way we can comfort ourselves. Part of breaking a bad habit is allowing the feeling of temptation, sitting with that discomfort, and learning to work with it. Maybe even finding alternative ways to comfort yourself. This is a huge part of behavior change: unlearning what we believed for so long to be a fundamental truth and learning new learned responses.
I admit, during the challenge I white knuckled through most of the temptations. I think moving forward I should continue to not indulge the temptations every time they pop up. I don’t need a dessert every night. Dessert isn’t the only way to bring joy & comfort into my life.
I was also reminded from watching Limitless with Chris Hemsworth that as a society we are so quick to comfort ourselves without even realizing we’re doing so. Again, making yourself miserable in deprivation isn’t the answer, but we can withstand more discomfort than we realize and it’s not always a bad thing to push yourself to resist temptations every once in a while.
How I’m Moving Forward with What Works for Me
When it comes to my sugar struggles I currently plan to move forward with the following:
★ Allow myself moderation so I don’t over indulge
★ Finding alternatives, especially to replace when it comes to how I typically comfort myself
★ Above all, be more mindful and intentional in my decisions. Being conscious of what I’m consuming. (This is important for me to do time to time to realize where I can improve)
★ Bonus points if I can notice when I’m over indulging or needing comfort and exploring that.
As far as another challenge, I do think I’ll continue experimenting with this. Next time, I plan to do the opposite of deprivation and try adding a healthy habit into my life and seeing how that goes. I’ll be sure to keep you posted. 😉
If you want to try the challenge for yourself & apply some of these techniques to your life, my free download is still available here.