This morning I woke up feeling invigorated. I feel excited to start a new day, even a new life. For about 15 years I was addicted to Mountain Dew. I tried numerous times but failed miserably. An old friend once told me that she was addicted to both Mountain Dew and Cigarettes, she was able to quit smoking, but the mountain dew she wasn't able to kick. I have never been addicted to smoking myself , but that was a pretty powerful statement.
Most days I had no less than 64 ounces of my drug, some days I drank more. I couldn't function without it, I NEEDED it to be the first thing in my system each day. I worked at a furniture company, moving furniture around the store, loading and unloading trucks, delivering furniture to customers' homes. While on the road I would eat fast food, because we kinda sorta, had to. Or at least that was my excuse. Because of how active I was, I never gained an ounce. I was muscular, very healthy, and happy.
Over the years I damaged by back multiple times, there came a point that I knew I had to get a job that didn't require me to break my back every day for a living. The down side, which I learned many years later is that when you go from a very active lifestyle to a desk job, you absolutely have to adjust your diet! I knew I was "gaining some weight" but I didn't realize how much until I stepped on the scale one day and it was almost 300 pounds. According to most charts, I was obese once I hit 160 pounds. What the charts fail to point out is that every one's muscle mass is different, so my ideal weight is closer to 180-200 pounds. This still means that I need to lose 100 pounds!
Over the last year or so, I have been asked how I've done it. I haven't lost a ton of weight, so I know they're not talking about that, but they're talking about the whole diet change. I have simply balanced my food intake. Before I could do anything, I had to give up my true love. I had to walk away from the one thing that helped me get through the day for 15+ years, my one and only, the one that made me happy all those years, Mountain Dew. That was the biggest challenge I have ever faced. I quit cold turkey one day. It's one thing to turn something down for one day, the first day is always the easiest. I took it one day at a time. I knew that my body would crave sugar, so whenever I had a sugar craving, I ate skittles. Lots and LOTS of skittles. I would buy them by the big Costco sized bags. I know this sounds bad, but it was absolutely necessary for me. If you don't trade your addiction for something similar, you will FAIL. Miserably! My body also craved a sweet drink, so I chose Powerade, which is not ideal I know, but I knew that I needed to replace the drink aspect of my addiction with another drink that I would enjoy. After a few weeks of successfully staying off the Dew, I switched to Powerade zero, which has no calories. There are ingredients in zero calorie drinks that are harmful to your health, but as a way to ween yourself off of something, it worked very well for me. Now I drink mostly water, I rarely if ever drink anything with carbonation, and if we go out, I stick with the lemonade.
Sometimes I feel like I have so much on my mind, I can't spit it all out. If I did, I would be sitting at the computer 28 hours a day. My wife often asks me "what are you thinking about"? I laugh a little inside. If only she knew what was going through my mind. I run 4 small businesses from home while taking care of our 3 amazing growing boys. I also work as a freelance consultant for several local small businesses. My mind is always being pulled in 130 directions, I ask myself constantly all day long, what is the smartest way to spend my time right now? My "job" is not a 40 hour job where I get to walk away from at the end of a work day, but because I have the benefit of "working from home" it also means that I "work all the time" but it it's my job to figure out how to spend my time wisely, which is much more difficult than anyone thinks.
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