: Hi Nicole

: You don't mention whether you have
: managed to keep any steps in place
: or whether you have just gone back
: to your previous way of eating.
: Although I have gone back to sugar
: in the past three years since
: detox, due to problems I didn't
: know I had, I never went
: completely back onto just sugar,
: there were usually 5 of the steps
: in place.

: If you are still managing to keep
: some of the steps in, then just
: continue where you are a while
: longer, and if you have stopped
: the steps altogether, I would go
: back to the lowest step that you
: felt was automatic to you, as this
: is how far your brain chemistry
: will have caught up, I think.

: I never stayed on sugar for long at
: any point after detox, as I felt
: far better off sugar and the non
: sugar way of eating just seemed to
: lead me back all on it's own.

: Hope that helps

: Love

: Jane
: xx

Thanks Jane :)
I worked up to Steps 6 and was blissfully there for 8 weeks with no error. Sugar crept back in over the course of 2 weeks and now another 2 weeks from there, I'm back to square one and skipping breakfast and having a very hard time putting on the brakes. But I think I see some light now thanks to family support, this forum (including a little tough love from Kathleen) and reflecting on the happiness indicated in my food journal. I'm going to boil and refrigerate a couple dozen eggs tonight and from now on I'm putting aside time on Sundays to have my breakfasts made for the week. I think even as horrible as I am in the mornings, installing a grab and go regimen will make it possible for me to stay on track with Step 1 indefinitely.

Experiencing that kind of food-journal-documented calm makes it really hard to not want to get back there somehow, so I am finding a little braking function there. There were many benefits I hadn't remembered until last night-- my home office got cleaned for the first time in four years when I was off sugar, all my relationships were better, I was much more "available" to the needs of others around me which made me very happy inside. It was really a great place so now instead of focusing on my "failure", I'm focusing on how good it was to be free and how I can't accept giving that up just so I can feel guilty and crappy for another week. There's no winning in that so I'm gonna get over myself and "do the food." When I failed, I let myself believe that I didn't want it bad enough, but now I realize that if I didn't want it bad enough, I wouldn't be so upset when I defaulted-- in the future I intend to use that energy to get back up and go back to the drawing board :)