Walk like a champion Thursday

Today's five:

1) I've been meaning to mention this one for ages. On my walk to the bus stop from my apartment there is a video game arcade. Outside on the street are a couple of strength testing games. If you walk close enough to them, they play music. I walk close to them every morning just so I can go to work feeling like a champion as the theme from 'Rocky' plays. It's like my life has a sound track for 30 seconds :D

2) I can feel actual muscles in my arms. Parts of my arm are a little bit hard with muscle now. Mainly biceps and forearm - I need to work those triceps harder!

3) In my recent dietary experiments (aka not eating grains or sugar), it's become a little bit frightening to observe the effects of, what I think is, actual sugar addiction. I don't think I have it bad, but boy is it weird. And explains a lot. 

So, sugar stimulates part of your brain that makes you feel good. Whenever you read this in any anti-sugar literature they are always very quick to point out that it's the same part of your brain that responds to heroin and cocaine, as if by merely stimulating the same area as hard drugs, sugar is somehow evil also. Now, I'm starting to think it probably is, but that this is implied annoys me a bit. Anywho, sugar addiction. I always thought it a myth. Like internet addiction, or computer game addiction -  real enough, but probably more of a behavioural problem than a chemical addiction, right? Well, I put sugar (read: chocolate bars, sweets, etc.) in the same category. Well, now I don't. I've been going sugar free and grain free for over a month and a half now. Grain, for me, is easy. Sugar, not so much. I can go a goodish length of time and behave rationally and consciously with my food choices, so it's not habit. But very occasionally, maybe once every two weeks and possibly decreasing in frequency, something else takes over. 

This is the scary part. 

I'm consciously aware I want a chocolate bar, and I make a decision not to have one. "I'm hungry so I'll buy some nuts", I think, "or have a bit of cheese and fruit when I get home". Then, without knowing quite how, I'm actually kind of manically ripping of the wrapping of something containing sugar and stuffing it feverishly into my mouth. Seriously, no exaggeration. The whole time my conscious mind is going "what the heck? What's going on? I didn't approve this". This could be interpreted two ways. One, it's an addiction to a probably not so good substance that I should try to wean off. Or two, it's like those people who eat the walls of their house because they're missing some important nutrient and their subconscious knows it's in the wall material. I'm pretty sure it's the first one. Not convinced a crappy chocolate bar has anything in it I 'need'.

Why is this in today's five? Because if I know about it, I can fix it.

4) I did a taste testing lesson today with the after school kids. I taught them some food words, then had them close their eyes and eat what I put in their hand and tell me what it tasted like and felt like. It was heaps of fun. One of the things was some processed cheese. haha, it must have felt gross in their hands because they were so apprehensive about eating it! It was really funny! They've chosen to do 'music' next week, so I'll have to see what I can come up with. Maybe music bingo or something.

5) Steak salad for dinner, it was delicious!