Recently, mainly on the advice of a
very special friend, I have decided to slowly eliminate sugar from my diet.
After 7 months on my arse watching TV shows I have what could politely be
described as a soggy midsection, and need to get back to the washboard of a
year or so back.
My friend's advice is that once you
cut out sugar, you notice the real taste of foods that you would normally drown
in sweet overkill. So candy, chocolate and popcorn are no-no's. Also all yogurt
bar Greek. Slowly I've been turning away from saccharine heaven and letting my
taste buds adjust to the actual flavour of my favourite foods
It hasn't been easy.
I knew cold turkey was a bad idea,
so instead I decided to gently wean myself away from the euphoria of Demerera.
The biggest pleasure involving sugar that I had was a cup of coffee with three
teaspoons
Now I'm not talking about Nescafe.
I'm talking specially purchased beans from a friend's cafe just over the road.
Concocted in Belgium
and shipped over here, these beans are to die for. I have my own coffee grinder
and every morning, plus once in the afternoon I will lovingly place two shovel
fulls in the mouth of the machine and then hand grind them into grains. Then
I'll get out the caffetiere and wait the requisite three minutes before gently
activating the plunger.
I'd then put in three brown sugars
and gently sip at my mug while checking emails or watching a TV show.
Lovely.
Getting used to the taste of coffee
on its own has proved a challenge. Coffee without three sugars, has quite
frankly been utterly minging for about a week. Now however I'm used to it and
can enjoy the flavours much more as my protesting tongue has settled into a
routine and my pleasure glands no longer crave the brown stuff.
Sometimes you need to change in
order to accept something new.
Tonight at Krav I was partnered
with a guy who has excellent footwork. A few minutes into punching practice and
he asked me with a chuckle "Do you always do that thing with your foot
before you punch?" It was only then that I realised why people who can
fight well tend to see my movements before I throw them. I am advertising the
fact. Before a jab I would stutter forward with my left foot. In 5 years I'd
never realised this. My partner also pointed out that my face gave away that I
was about to attack, as did my shoulders when it came to telegraphing punches
or elbow strikes. Crucially I would drop my arm in order to sweep in with a
hook punch, and on top of that, didn't move my hip to emphasise the punch. That
plus my fighting stance (left leg too far forward so it could be swept away).
I tried to not do these things and,
like sugar in coffee, it proved to be a bit of an arse ache. I would still do
them, as sub consciously my body thought the movements were "normal".
So I reduced the sugar from three to two, not three to zero. I concentrated o
the footwork and focussed on not moving my feet as I threw punches. As the
class progressed I could feel some improvement in these mistakes but know that
it will take a lot of practice to get this knocked into shape.
I needed to retrain my taste buds
to like coffee without sugar.
I need to unlearn in order to get
better.