Anyways, I mentioned a few weeks ago possibly posting about body image. I promise I'll get to that post one day, but that's not where I'm going today.
Instead, I'm going to post a quasi-success story. In an effort to start getting healthier, I gave up soda back in December. This was no small feat for me. Soda was one of my favorite beverages. I have fond memories of grabbing an ice-cold can of Canada Dry Ginger Ale from the garage and enjoying it with my after-school snack (one of the perks of growing up in Rochester is that during the winter, your garage can basically act as a refrigerator). I would get refill after refill of soda in restaurants, sometimes diet soda, sometimes not. Drinking soda would satisfy a deep craving in me that few other foods/things could. I basically couldn't get enough of the stuff.
Anyways, I was able to be soda-free for a month and a couple of weeks and I fell off the wagon, so to speak, a couple of times. Each time though, something similar has happened. Here's the story of how it happened today.
I didn't get very much sleep at all last night. I didn't fall asleep until 2am (which is WAY past this grumpy old man's bed time these days) and I had to be at work by 9 this morning (meaning I had to be awake around 7). Anyways, I overslept and wound up having to rush through my shower, get dressed, and run out the door to catch an 8:30 shuttle from my apartment (it's better to catch the 8:05 shuttle to get to Wesley by 9).
However, as I was sitting on the shuttle, it hit me just how damn tired I was. So I really started hoping and praying that when I got to the bus station there would be an N2 that I could get on that would take me past a Starbucks to get some coffee. Of course, when I got to the bus station, there were only N4s (which drop me off outside of the seminary but I wouldn't get the caffeine fix I desperately needed).
So I got on the N4, but as I was sitting there, I just couldn't stay awake. I knew that I would have to do something to get caffeine in me, otherwise I'd be a zombie at work all day. Unfortunately, the only option that was available at Wesley was caffeinated soda from the vending machine. So I chose Mountain Dew because I knew that it has a ton of caffeine in it for a soda. Mountain Dew was also like one of my favorite sodas in high school and was the only redeeming thing about restaurants/institutions that serve Pepsi products over Coke products. But when I opened the bottle today and had a drink, I couldn't help but be repulsed by how overly sweet and generally disgusting it was. I was forcing myself to drink it to stay awake, but when all was said and done I couldn't finish the whole bottle during my shift and I wound up throwing it out.
Now, while this is an extreme case, it's definitely not isolated and whenever I've broken down and had a soda since December (either because it was the only option at a place or because I was just craving one) I've had a similar experience. It just doesn't taste as good anymore. Taking a sip is no longer as satisfying or refreshing as it used to be (sometimes it's even downright revolting). I'm no longer bound by the grasp of an addiction to soda. I'll take that as progress.
Today, I saw God in a disgusting bottle of Mountain Dew.
No comments:
Post a Comment