October, Month of Candy

October, month of candy.

I love chocolate and caramel. LOVE IT! I bet a lot of you don’t know that, huh? I just happen to be a stubborn cuss and I want to look ripped (or as ripped as possible) year round so I generally refrain from it.

When I buy chocolate for myself I have a couple favorites (just in case you ere wondering):

Affordable and available:  Jo’s Dark Chocolate Salted Caramels. 2 come in a package at Peet’s Coffee and they cost $1.79.

Extravagant and not as easy to obtain: Recchiuti Confections Fleur de Sel Caramels. 16 to a box at the Ferry Plaza Market in San Francisco and they cost $23.00. (oh and each one is a ¼ the size of a Jo’s).

But it’s October and that means Halloween. Monica has a HUGE bowl of chocolates by her desk, and I really have no reason to even walk over by her desk, but I found myself there 6 times the other day.

6 friggin times. Here is the bowl and it’s not a small one!

Fun size

Who the hell came up with that stupid name? When you are feeling fat do think of yourself as “Fun Sized” ???!!

NO!

Sugar messes with me big time. Chocolate, alcohol, white processed foods, they are all sugar and they all make me look puffy, loose skinned and generally tired. Sugar is probably the most deadly thing you can put into your body (besides smoking).

Give me a big fatty steak, or a pile of yams or a bucket of vegetables and I look great the next day. Feed me sugar and all hell breaks loose- in a matter of hours. Not only do I feel awful but I start to look it too.

I think that I have a pretty good eye for health- I can look at someone and tell if they are a generally healthy person just by the state of their skin and eyes, (do they have big puffy bags or dark circles under their eyes?, is their skin red and blotchy or dry and flakey?); the way they carry themselves, how they sound, how they move.  

If you paid attention, you could probably do the same, but you probably don’t even look at people like that, I do all the time because it’s a quirky little habit of mine. 

Take a look at a heavy drinker, and by that I mean anyone who drinks alcohol on a daily basis. Or look at someone who is obese due to the garbage they ingest day in and day out, they cannot even move right. Someone who doesn’t drink much water, their skin is not springy and the color is off.

None of them look so hot do they? Pained is what I see.

Sugar makes me feel like that, so I try to avoid it, but it tastes so darn good!

I made this sign and posted it in my office door, I had to so I could keep the sugar out! There are a few well meaning people in my office who drop by with candy for me, they know what I like and they save it for me. Sometimes, if I don’t shut my door and leave, I come back to several on the desk…dammit!

I find that my biggest challenges are overcome when I keep them in the forefront of my mind, like writing down my food in a journal, recording my training, using my Gymboss on the spin bike to make sure I go long and hard enough.

So avoiding candy will be easier when I see my sign and others do too. it's on my door and here on the window next to the door, right below the football schedule for San Jose State University.

Wish me strength and willpower- and I will do the same for you.

I don’t have a program (or the knowledge) to make the red circle over the words, so my sign is not as sophisticated as it could be, but it does the trick and I have a link here if you want to print one out for your work area or home. If you happen to be a graphic whiz, I would love to have a proper one, send it my way!

Below is a little video about sugar (Email subscribers will need to navigate directly to the blog to view this video).