MMmmmmm... Sugar Free Candy!

My co-workers have started cringing when I send this email out to them before 11 AM!

Let me explain.... I have been doing Weight Watchers for about a year now. Well, I started June 1, 2007. I was losing weight really well and had gotten down 40 pounds! Awesome! Then, in March, I started talking to the Dude formerly known as George. I am being polite and not putting his current name on the blog, but quite a few of you know what he is now referred to as these days. But again, I digress... As things went downhill with him, there was a direct correlation to my increased snacking. In fact, the snacking got down right nasty!

A sample dialogue that went on in my head:

• "Vegetables? Who needs vegetables? Slid on over there and get some of that cake... It looks goooo-ood!"
• "Why are you goin' for that middle piece with hardly any icing? Be a wo-man! Get the corner piece with all those yummy flowers!"
• "There's water in Cherry Coke! Have another glass of Cherry Coke flavored water!"
  

Yeah, it was bad. Downright ugly! I was hiding food from my fellow WW co-workers which is surprisingly easy to do with the wall that people can't see over unless they come all the way into my office. Well, except they can come in and walk past the wall since we are all girlfriends.

I have since found out that there is a direct correlation between the increased snacking/decreased vegetable intake and the number creeping slowly upward on the scale. Last week, after gaining an overall total of 6 pounds back, I decided that I had enough and I started journaling again. It was rough, let me tell ya! If I wasn't eating something, I was chewing gum and then my jaws started getting really sore from chewing gum 7 hours a day.

One afternoon, a group of ladies came into my office after making a snack run. They had Sugar Free Reese cups. One of the ladies called them chocolate covered laxatives because they can have a laxative effect when too many are eaten. I remember thinking that it must only be if you ate the entire bag in one sitting and I definitely wasn't going to be doing that. So off I went to the grocery store to pick up some different varieties of candies to suck on.



I got the Wint-o-Green Life savers and left the store thinking, these will definitely help me lose this week!

The next day, I had about 5 candies by about 3 in the afternoon. They were helping with the craving and all was well. I had my veggies for lunch and things were looking good! Then, I had to run around the department to deliver some papers and I was having trouble walking at my normal pace without tooting a bit in a quiet hallway. I ended up going into Joanne's cube and leaving my rear out in the open and, well, you should be able to get the idea from this.

After that, my stomach was just churning and while it was slightly uncomfortable, it was very loud! It took me a couple of hours to realize that it was the sugar free candy. Instead of acting like a laxative, it gave me very bad gas. Only calling it gas was polite. I had flatulence! Loud, churning, sometimes stinky flatulence!

I told my buddies so that I wouldn't be embarrassed if I was talking to one and something slipped out, but they all knew it was not normal and it was from the candy. It has become a big joke as to whose cubicle I will visit after having a few pieces. And another co-worker upon hearing about the flatulence ran right over to my office and got a few pieces for herself!

I guess that is just a part of weight loss. Mmmm sugar-free candy! :)