Day Four4: No sweets for my sweets; sugar for my honey.

The first real hurdle of my Dukan experience is drawing near. In about twenty minutes, I will be attending the birthday lunch of one of my friends.

And there will be cake.

I think I need to run away and hide!

So far, this Dukan experience hasn’t been too awful; I’m really enjoying finding elaborate ways to make tasty meals out of a very limited number of ingredients centring around protein and cottage cheese (you leave out the cottage cheese – that’s the key!), and I feel very positive that I can at least lose a few kilos before I fall off the band wagon. I’ve even switched back to having milk and not soy in my coffee, because I did kind of get used to it in soy-free Europe, and skinny milk is so unbelievably less in fat than the soy most cafes use (the full fat stuff) that I figure, if I want my coffee, which I do, I’ll have to make that small sacrifice. I tried to give up coffee altogether but between the caffeine deprivation headaches, and the carb withdrawal headaches, I felt like I was circling the energy drain all day. I figure caffeine is a better alternative than popping ibuprofen four times a day.

 But there’s one thing I’m not coping with. Not at all. It haunts my dreams. My brain wants it all day long.

Sugar.

Oh my good lord! I miss SUGAR!

I love sugar. If you’d asked me before do I have a sweet tooth, I would have said no – I’ve always been a savoury girl. Give me chips, give me Arnotts shapes, give me those little English sandwiches with the crusts cut off. And cheese. But, though also depriving myself of those goodies, I’m not missing them. Much. But I am CRAVING sugar! It’s the one thing that I believe is going to knock me off this descent into dieting madness. I don’t normally even eat that much cake, or put that much sugar in my tea, or have it in my coffee at all, but now all I want is any food that has at least 30 grams of pure, processed goodness. Stat.

I want to bathe in it. I want to exfoliate myself in it. I want it to sink into my very pores.

But through my mouth; because otherwise, what is the point?

I saw an ad for Mars Bars last night, and I nearly cried. And I don’t even like Mars Bars usually! And now this call for cake has me considering the option that I could cheat, and then go for a run for a really, really long time.

That would work right? If I didn’t fall right off the treadmill in a dizzying  heap because I haven’t consumed enough energy to run for even thirty-five seconds?

Has anyone else been through this? How long before the sugar cravings fade? Before I stop looking at people’s faces and imagining their heads are gigantic lollipops? Because otherwise, this diet is working out really well. Otherwise I feel I could go this next five and a half weeks until I reach the utterly ridiculous goal that Mr Dukan has set for me.

But can I do it without cheating on sugar?

God give me strength!!!