So I still keep wanting to use this phrase:
“I’m like a kid in a candy store.”
I know it sounds impossible, as I think I just used it anyway. An addiction reformer with a current emphasis on sugar still mentally prompted to use that phrase….
Ingrained. Habit.
It’s like autopilot from years of using it.
It tells a story quickly but strangely has a very eerie link to the discussions at hand.
Please, if you know another well-used phrase that delivers the same message please leave it in the comments below.
The message being that I’m very happy.
Extraordinarily happy.
I’ve been interviewing the MD’s, PhD’s and just average folks for the Kick Sugar Summit coming on January 23rd and it’s like gaining an entire new family.
When we do our interviews it’s like we’ve know each other for years. We finish each other’s sentences, fill in the blanks when one forgets a book or a study. It’s just fun.
For years I talked about this stuff and people just tuned me out. Little did I know I was looking in the wrong places. There were folks doing the exact same thing as me…
Helping folks quit or control sugar in their lives.
Like the well-worn phrase above in my brain, habits can be good, and habits can be bad.
Once you do something repeatedly for a long enough time, it’s basically unconscious at that point. You don’t have to think about and it just happens.
Saving money comes to mind. If you’ve got yourself in the habit of paying yourself first – then that ten percent goes right into the savings account and it’s like you never saw it, never miss it and don’t think about using it for anything but growing interest.
Well according to a lot of our speakers our sugar habit is no different.
It’s just that – a habit. A repetitive process ingrained in us as children (or before) that we just continue unconsciously.
If you’ve ever tried to change any ingrained habit you know what I’m talking about. The brain has dug grooves, built connections in the synapses that are literally hard wiring you to repeat the process over and over.
Feel bad? Reach for sugar.
Feel good? Reach for sugar.
Spouse pissed? Reach for sugar.
You get the idea.
The good news is that we can change all this.
The medical term is neuroplasticity.
The simplified version is: until you’re dead the brain has the capability to re-wire those synapses and create new habits – good and bad.
Lot’s of our speakers were experts on this. The even better part was they had all done it personally!
They showed us the science and stood as examples that it worked. Three of our experts have lost over 100 pounds and kept it off for over 20 years!
But there is one thing they all said about the process of learning these new habits that fueled their successes.
They said they needed support.
That they had tried many times alone – only to fail again and again.
And it took time.
“Anything worth doing takes some time.”
It took time to “feel normal” again without using sugar. It took time for the habit of being a sugar-free person to take root.
The “what do I tell the family?” question.
The saying NO.
The well-meaning folks who say: “Go ahead you can have just one.”
One of the MD’s on the Summit has authored a book and her partner says in the book that this quest, for folks who have tried everything else, “takes an inordinate amount of support.”
Lots. of. extra. support.
Support above and beyond a simple diet or food plan. It takes people who are willing to listen. People – who’ve been there before – to help talk you down off the 7-11 parking lot at 11 PM on a rainy Wednesday. Real support.
I’m going to blow your mind next Monday at the level of support we’re going to be giving you.
It’s going to be unprecedented.
We always handle the tough cases.
It’s our specialty.
Through blending the web, email, Facebook, Twitter, teleconferences, phones, online meetings, forums, webinars and just plain old caring more we have re-invented the processes of quitting and controlling sugar in your life.
