This is big.

In the interest of health, I have decided to stop eating sweets. (I don't like saying 'cut out sweets' 'cause that makes it sound like more of a diet-type thing, which it isn't. I don't think.)

This is really big for me. It's probably something I should've done years ago, but just never could stomach the idea. (Heh.) Sweets have always equaled life for me. I've craved sweets form a very young age. Sometimes, my rebellion as a child even took this form - I'd sneak sweets instead of other, more in-your-face transgressions.

But it got to be too much. Over the past few months, I've noticed my willpower wearing down at an alarmingly rapid pace. I used to be able to go a few days without a dessert, but no more. Now I was eating ice cream every day, sometimes a piece of cake for lunch, and having multiple servings of dessert, all the time feeling like I couldn't stop. It got kinda scary.

A few years ago, I gave up sweets for Lent. I'd never done anything for Lent before, and it isn't really something I observe carefully, but it ended up being really good for me. The problem was, I didn't hold onto healthier habits after Lent was over. This time, I've decided not to put a determined end to my sweets-fast. We're going to Florida for our 5th anniversary at the beginning of July, and had already planned to go to several AMAZING restaurants while we're there, so I will have a controlled fast-break for a day or two. Only one or two desserts, though, total - and we've made an "Only when we're sitting down for a meal" rule, so we can't just walk around and get ice cream or a funnel cake on a whim. But after our trip, I'm going back to the no-sweets lifestyle.

From what I know of myself, if I put an end date on this, I'll look forward to it too much, and find life in the fact that I don't have to give up sweets forever. This isn't going to do anything for me, emotional-health-wise. The point isn't just to go without sweets for a while. The point is to break my dependence on them. Right now, I feel like I deserve sweets. I look to something sweet to either finish out a good day or to redeem a bad one. I eat something sweet when I'm hungry, for a snack. I feel like dinner isn't complete if it isn't finished up by something sweet. I don't want to have this attitude anymore, so for the past week, I haven't eaten anything sweet.

Let me clarify: I'm still eating fruit. Things that are naturally sweet are totally on the table. But no pastries, no chocolate, no ice cream, no sorbet, no candy. I'm defining it pretty broadly, 'cause I don't want to let myself cheat by just holding to the letter of the law.

I've been toying with this idea for a while now, but for a very long time it was just too scary to contemplate. (That alone should've been a huge red flag.) Then, a few weeks ago, I found the blog of a woman who had become an alcoholic, and while I know this is in some ways completely different (please don't send me hate mail because you think I am 1) comparing sweets to alcohol or 2) making this into a bigger, more dramatic problem than it actually is), there were a few things about the way she spoke of her addiction that reminded me of my relationship with sweets. And that scared me.

So far, I've gone one week. The hardest things this past week were going to Amelie's with some good friends. We had already planned to take them there, or I would've saved myself the misery, but it went okay - I just didn't look at the pastry case. I ordered a sandwich and didn't pay attention to what everyone else was eating. The other thing was the next night, when a friend brought some cookies when she came over for dinner. I stupidly picked one up to take it back to Brandon, and it made it a good bit harder to resist when I had actually touched it, but once that was over, I was fine again.

It's already made me so much more intentional about my food. It's as if once I started practicing self-control in one area, it made all the other areas come to my attention. I've started paying attention to portion sizes, and bringing healthy snacks to work so I don't have to eat such a big lunch every day. (Baby carrots, apples, slices of cheddar cheese, oatmeal, and yogurt are my daily staples right now.) I'm actually excited about eating more healthily, about not feeling sick and guilty about my eating habits all the time.

One thing that is also helping is that my sweet friend Megan is doing this with me. I didn't even coerce her - she volunteered! Both of our husbands are participating as well (though Brandon isn't holding himself to it when he's not around me - he's just trying to make things easier for me when we're together). Megan even wrote about our exercise on her blog - check it out!

I am hoping that this will be an instrument of sanctification in my life. I need to remember not to find hope and righteousness in the fact that I haven't had a bowl of ice cream today, but in what Jesus has done for me. And when I really, really want that bowl of ice cream, I can't just encourage myself with some other delicious snack - I need to let myself sit in that craving for a little while and try to figure out what it is that I'm really wanting. Security? Comfort? Pleasure? Are any of these things worth bending over backwards for, ultimately possibly destroying my health for? Of course not. But beyond that, I want my hunger for sweets to lead me to Jesus, for my longings to be transferred into longings for Him.