The Candy Bowl Trap
- JP | #Intangibl3
- Jun 16, 2017
- 3 min read
There is a candy bowl at work. It sits there every day, full of a variety of tasty chocolate candy bars. When it is emptied by the sugar starved masses it is promptly filled again by a faceless entity whose goal it seems is nothing more than to taunt those of us trying to do better than the other 90%.
I don't know who fills the bowl, and I don't really give a shit, because in the end, regardless of what is put in front of me, what I do is my choice. Whether I hold to my convictions or give in to that ever pestering inner brat is completely up to me. The same goes for you.
For the longest time, I snagged some candy every time I walked by. Once I got to 260lbs, that candy bowl became something of a symbol to me. It symbolized my inability to control myself. It may just be a bowl of chocolate to the overweight, unhappy people in the offices around it, but to me it had become something much more.
I don't know if it is this way for everyone, but I've found that symbolic gestures translate heavily to my own actualized abilities. I knew that if I could overcome the urge to take candy from that bowl when I passed by then I would be able to succeed in even bigger and more important areas in my life.
I'm not shitting you, the first day that I didn't grab a mini candy bar I felt the loss. It actually astounded me to find that these candies had become such a necessity for me. I almost went back to the bowl, but I forced myself to continue walking. The next day, I took some candy. It went this way for a couple of weeks, at least. I would succeed one day and fail the next. It may have been partly because my body was used to having that sugar and so by some underlying mechanic my mind "tricked" me into taking candy, but probably not. I was just weak minded. But that didn't continue for long.
I haven't touched that bowl of candy in months.
What has happened since then? My entire life has changed. I've lost 30 pounds, I've become significantly stronger physically, mentally and emotionally, and
I'm fucking happier.
I've drowned my self-hatred in shitty food and drinks for as long as I can remember. Now, I don't do that. I started with a symbolic gesture of not taking a candy bar a day from a bowl of candy at work - and now I'm closer to my goals than I have been in years. I don't depend on sugar to make my day for me - I make my day what it is.
I found the strength to overcome that tempting voice inside after I began the #MenofMarch challenge, now known as "31 Days to Masculinity" by Hunter Drew.
I still pass by that candy bowl and I no longer even feel the need to look at it. It's fucking awesome. I had already begun to lose weight by doing daily exercises and by changing my diet after beginning said challenge, but that candy bowl was a major mental roadblock that was holding me up from make the kind of progress that I wanted. The foods I eat are the best and healthiest that I can eat, yet adding outrageous levels of processed sugars to that daily kind of fucks up possible progress.
I want you to understand the importance of something that seems so small and simple, but can have a very significant ramifications in life should it be ignored. It was that candy bowl that symbolized my lack of dietary control and it was my lack of dietary control that made me 260lbs - a weight I never want to experience again. Superficially it looks to be nothing more than a simple desire for some chocolate, however it undeniably concealed a much darker weakness within me that was effectively killing me.
So, my advice to you, should you find yourself in a similar situation - don't eat from the fucking candy bowl.
Until next time,
JP
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