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Day 10: Don't Call Me, Honey
Hard to believe it’s Day 10, with just 355 days to go without candy.How am I doing so far? I’ve been better.
Today I decided I just wasn’t going to make it another day without at least buying a jar of honey. They have great honey over here in France and it’s usually something I allow myself during a no candy, no-desserts regime.
I got as far as the honey shelf at the 8 à Huit this afternoon and stopped myself. The little jars of miel called me but I resisted. I’m afraid they would point me down a slippery slope. Or maybe I’m more ambitious this time. I’d like to be as sugar-free as possible.
I had a no-brainer revelation this week. Before I started this Year Without Candy, I’d have told you my problem is just that I have a major sweet tooth. But I’ve noticed that as long as things go smoothly during my day, I am not hounded by sugar cravings.
I can handle normal, everyday stresses with work, friends and family as well. A big trigger for me, however, is being around someone who directs bad energy at me in a way I feel is not warranted – especially if the person is someone I think of as a friend. That sounds New-Agey but I don’t know a better way to put it.
That happened and I was so surprised at how off my game I felt – and how much I wanted to walk into the local newsstand and buy something sweet the way an alcoholic might go hit a bar. (I didn’t.)
Odd as it may sound, I never realized that I used/needed candy to soothe myself. Now I know. I also decided to be more careful about who I choose to spend time with. It’s about accepting your own sensitivity – to other people as well as candy.
I stumbled across a great new sugar addiction site called First Ourselves. The title is just what I’m talking about. Karly Randolph-Pitman runs the site which has incredible resources having to do with sugar addiction.
I especially enjoyed her Ten Steps to Control Sugar Cravings.
So click on the above or check out the list reprinted below:
1. Add self care. Before you attempt to eliminate anything from your life – even something negative, such as food addiction – it’s important to add to your life, so that you are operating from an overflow, not a deficit. Eliminating sugar will create a vacuum; better to fill it with something positive – self-care – than something negative – self-sabotage. Have a good book to read, to fill the hours you might have spent eating ice cream in front of the TV; take on a hobby instead of baking.
2. Keep your blood sugar stable. Eat breakfast, eat protein with every meal or snack, eat low GI foods, and eat at regular intervals. Why? All of these things will stabilize your blood sugar, so that your moods and energy are at an even keel. Much of the time, I craved sugar because I was hungry (I was always trying to limit my eating because I was always trying to lose weight). Eat enough so that you feel satisfied, and regularly enough so that you feel stable, and you won’t crave so much junk.
3. Treat yourself like you’re in detox. The first week of sugar abstinence is hard, when the cravings are at their most powerful. Be kind to yourself: this is not the time to tackle a large project, to implement lots of changes, or to work overtime. Why do people go to a spa when they’re detoxing? Because they need extra support. Likewise, give yourself extra support. Go to bed earlier. Take naps. Cook simple meals (and don’t make the same mistake I did: don’t cook meals for your family that have ingredients in them that you are trying not to eat. Don’t make sugar abstinence any harder than it needs to be.) Spend time in prayer and meditation. Call on others for support and encouragement.
4. Don’t focus on weight loss. While weight loss is usually a natural consequence of giving up sugar, don’t make it your focus. It’s better to channel your energy towards one goal at a time. So put aside your weight loss goals for now and focus on getting sugar free. Then, when you’ve achieved sugar abstinence, you can work on losing the excess weight. Weight loss is the side effect of loving your body and freeing yourself from food addiction; not the focus. Furthermore, you might be delightfully surprised to see how much easier it is to lose weight when you’re not eating sugar in the first place.
5. Know your true value. While yes, your body may be sugar sensitive, and while, yes, you may gorge on sugar, you are not defined by your behavior. You are not your addiction. While I think 12 step programs have a lot of value and support, I don’t endorse the idea of “once an addict, always an addict.” Picture yourself free from sugar. Believe that you can live a life free from sugar addiction. Focus on healing; not on the problem.
6. Create a supportive environment. For the first month after I gave up sugar, I asked my family to hide the few sweet foods we had in the house: raisins, granola, and dark chocolate, so that I wouldn’t seek them out and eat them. I avoided certain aisles in the grocery store, movie theaters, and abstained from any baking. Later on, when I was in the habit of not eating sugar, and no longer physically craving it, I was able to be around sugar without succumbing to temptation.
7. Be a detective. Give yourself time to experiment. Use your body as a guinea pig: what foods make you feel good? What foods make you feel bad? How did I learn that dried fruit affects me in the same way that refined sugar does? By observing my body after I ate it. How did I learn that eating tortilla chips makes me crave sugar? By observing my body. How did I learn that legumes, lean meats, and nuts satisfy my hunger and give me stable moods? By observing my body.
8. Give up fake sugars. I know this is a tough one to follow: many women rely on Diet sodas when they’re craving something sweet. But in my experience, aspartame, Nutrasweet, Splenda, and even low carb sugar products (protein bars that are “low sugar”) don’t quell sugar cravings, but increase them. A study at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio found that a person’s risk for obesity went up a whopping 41% for each daily can of Diet soda.
9. Just start over whenever you slip and fall. You don’t have to wait until the next morning, or succumb to the thinking that says, “I’ve blown it; I might as well have some brownies to go with it,” when you slip up and eat sugar. Giving up sugar is hard. It’s ingrained in our holidays, in our meals, in our society. Be kind to yourself when you mess up, and get right back on track. Create a positive affirmation to use: “I am resilient,” or “I am starting over,” when you make a mistake. Have some protein, make a cup of mint tea, and brush your teeth. Then remove yourself from your food source: take a walk, call a friend, go outside, go to the library. Do something to change your environment so you can switch gears.
10. Forgive yourself. I felt terrible shame about my sugar addiction. Releasing that shame was like lifting an enormous weight off my psyche. We are all imperfect. If you have food issues, offer yourself self-acceptance. All those times you gorged on sugar? Recognize that you were doing the best you could, and that as you know better, you can do better. Sugar addiction is not a character defect; it’s a symptom of a lack of self-care skills. Most of us aren’t taught how to care for ourselves in healthy ways, which is why we seek comfort in food. The good news? Healthy self-care can be learned. It’s something you get to practice, everyday. What a gift.
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Day 9: In Flight With Angela Lord and the Ruby-Encrusted Seagull
Angela Lord knows how to manifest. I won’t give any of her personal secrets away but I can tell you that one day she was in a certain situation – and it ended. And she told the universe how she felt and what she wanted next – and she got it the very next day. And what she got was very powerful and life-changing.Angela is a Master Hypnotherapist, an NLP Master Practitioner, a TIME Techniques Master Practitioner, an Emotional Freedom Techniques Practitioner and Master Success Coach. Whatever. Check out her site here. She’s also a close friend of a close friend of mine and she offered me a free hypnosis session to help me end my candy addiction.
It’s always weird to get on the couch – even when it’s just over the phone – with someone you don’t really know and whom you’ve never met. Weird, embarrassing – and also full of stuff that makes me feel rebellious while also trying people-please at the same time. (See also: candy addict personal traits.)
I resisted Angela. Not that she wasn’t utterly charming. “Great,” she kept cooing in this lovely voice after every question she asked me. Angela is not fazed by my candy addiction. She doesn’t think it’s that hard to overcome.
Angela is not a believer in the 12-step tradition in which you have to accept powerlessness over your addiction and spend the rest of your life in meetings.
“I’m a one-step girl,” she says.
In fact, Angela talked a lot about the work of Allen Carr, who has written a hugely popular book about the Allen Carr “easy way” to stop smoking and other addictions.
She suggested that I could become free of my sugar cravings overnight under hypnosis. She may be right. But what I told her was that I think it’s more complicated than that. I think my candy addiction has a lot more to do with things not involving candy addiction, if that makes any sense. I know I have a loyalty to my candy addiction which makes me wonder if one hypnosis session can really cure it.
No matter. Angela and I talk a bit more and then she tells me about how she’s going to put me under. This is when I start worrying – not for me but for her. See, my concern now is that I have to make sure this works for me – so she will be happy. (See also: codependent candy addict traits.)
Also, this worrying about other people and pleasing other people can ignite a real rage in me. Which is probably why I eat so much candy.
Anyhoo, back to the hypnosis session and the calming, dulcet tones of Angela who doesn’t sound as if she ever erupted in an inappropriate rage at anybody.
She started asking me a lot of questions as I slowly went under, even though as I was going under I was wondering if I was really going under or just imagining I was to please Angela.
She began asking me what my life would be like without a candy and sweets addiction. She wanted me to project a year into the future and tell her what I saw as I looked down at my body, what I was wearing, who was watching me, what I smelled — and who else was around.
I squirmed and inwardly rebelled, even as I was going under for real. It feels so much like submission, this hypnosis stuff. Ugh. I like to be in control. (See also: candy addict defects of character.)
I forced myself to answer the questions, even though I felt fake and forced and stiff. She kept cooing in this soothing, all-knowing cool girl voice.I did start seeing myself in my skinny jeans -which I have not worn since 2004. I did see a 4-year-old child near me in the picture. I did keep seeing myself at the beach in Santa Monica, which is 9000 miles from where I am now. And I did – sorta smell some vanilla in the air.
After about 15 minutes, I guess I really was under, despite my hyper self-awareness. My eyes were closed. I felt totally relaxed.
Because I became aware of just one thing: Angela’s voice. There didn’t seem to be anything else there.
Until the next moment.
In the universe-sky inside my closed eyes, I saw something distinctly fly by:It was a soaring seagull with a vivid, red ruby-encrusted coat.
Not 10 seconds later I heard the wail of a real seagull, the ones that fly up from the Bay of Angels here in Nice and alight upon my terrace.
I told Angela. She wasn’t surprised. She told me about other people, places and things that her clients have manifested while under her ether — and later come true in real life.
“How do you feel?” Angela asked as she brought me out of my seagull-adorned trance.
“I feel good,” I said. “I feel lighter. As if I can already feel myself without this extra weight.”
And I wasn’t saying that just to please her.
I don’t know if I’ve been cured of my candy addiction overnight – but I do feel as if it’s never going to be quite the same.
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Why I'm Giving Up Candy For a Year
Reprinted from the Huffington Post one week ago
Is there a less-sexy addiction on the planet? Or a more infantile one?
Doubtful. I live in one of the most sophisticated places on earth — France — but my vice is more suited to Sesame Street.
I’m a candy addict. And even though I live in France, I’m still as hooked on cheap and delicious American candy like Hershey bars, Junior Mints and candy corn (bite it, dessert snobs) as I am on creme brulee, moelleux au chocolat and tarte tatin.
I’m also partial to to a chewy French caramel called a Carambar and the German Haribo candies.
I’m guessing I’m not alone. Statistics vary but the average American consumes about 130 pounds of sugar a year — an increase of about ten zillion percent since before the 18th century. Our bodies are not designed to process such a load of sugar — there were no Snickers bars on the savanna, remember?
There are no 12-step groups just for candy and dessert addicts. Maybe the boredom factor? At least in AA you get the rollicking drunkalogues — like the time George from Scottsdale woke up in Berlin with Hector and Heidi and had no idea how he got there.
But you don’t swing from chandeliers or run naked down the Champs-Elysees when under the influence of a York Peppermint Patty.
Still, we’ve got that monkey on our back. How to get it off?
Don’t even suggest “moderation” — like my well-meaning friends and even worse, family members, who don’t share the same sugar jones gene. They’re probably like the same people who kept mouldering bags of stale Halloween candy under their beds for days as kids (see my cousin Catherine) and display dishes of the same untouched candy in their homes today (see my cousin Kathleen.)
If I had enough self-control to allow myself just one dainty piece of dark chocolate per day — like Audrey Hepburn – I wouldn’t be writing this.
Moderation is also a difficult option for the 23.6 million American adults and children who have diabetes. For them, candy and desserts are potentially fatal.
I don’t have diabetes but I was recently tested for it because two relatives have it. I’ve lived abroad for almost five years and just two years ago noticed what an epidemic diabetes has become in the U.S.
When I was back in New York City one day in 2007, I walked into a Duane Reade drugstore near Columbus Circle. For the first time, I saw signs pointing to special “Diabetes Management” areas. They were usually located right near the endless shelves containing jumbo-sized candy bars.
Coincidence? I think not.
Diabetes is on the rise in many places around the world, but it doesn’t get much worse than in the U.S.
Have you heard of the corn connection? Check out Michael Pollan’s entertaining and exhaustively-researched book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. It details how the American industrial food chain is largely based on corn — whether placed in foods directly as corn syrup, one of the most evil “foods” invented, or force-fed to animals like cattle who aren’t even designed to eat it, or processed into chemicals like glucose and ethanol.
According to USDA statistics, annual corn sweetener consumption increased to 79 pounds in 2003, up 400 percent from 1970. Just sayin’.
So what’s a candy addict to do? I have a friend who has been sober for 29 years with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous. “Never give an alcoholic a choice,” he says.
I’d argue that’s true of sugarholics too. Meaning abstinence is usually all that works for real addicts.
So I’m attempting to give up candy — and desserts — for at least one year. I’m not giving up everything that has sugar in it — like, say, peanut butter, ketchup, yogurt and pretty much everything except detergent. I’m giving up what I’m addicted to: sweet treats.
And yes, I’m chronicling my effort. You’re free to join me. Candy-free misery loves company.
Check out my site: A Year Without Candy.
I began A Year Without Candy on February 28, the day after my birthday. I’ve chosen similar special days to start afresh and candy-free many times — and failed.
I did give up sugar once, for almost two years, from the beginning of 2002 to the end of 2003. My Candyloo came when I was climbing Mount Roraima at Christmas in 2003. Our Indian guide offered us a big yellow box of Brazilian chocolate to help us up the last three-hour slog through big boulders.
I reached the summit, no problem, but I was emotionally already back down the slippery slope of candy addiction.
My body didn’t like returning to sugar. I’d never had a weight problem before. But going back on sweets after a two-year absence screwed up my metabolism. I put on 15 pounds in 2004. Fifteen pounds that’s been impossible to get off with my renewed candy habit.
Self-help gurus abound these days, but I like to turn to one of the originals when I need motivation to kick candy.
Jack LaLanne was preaching no sweets when Arnold Schwarzenegger was still in short pants in Austria. Jack, by the way, is going strong at age 95. He calls sugarholics like me “soft and weak.”
Check out the this video of Jack exhorting us to get off sugar but don’t miss this fantastic interview with LaLanne in Outside magazine. I love him because he admits he’s just as bad as any of us – he just has ferocious discipline. Here’s how Jack responded to the interviewer asking him if he ever, God forbid, snacked before bedtime.
“Never!” he snarled. “You don’t get it. I am one runaway son of a bitch! I am an animal! I want to eat everything! I want to get drunk every single night! I want to screw every woman there is! We are all wild animals. But we must learn to use our minds. We must learn to control the bestial and sensual sides of ourselves!”
I don’t know if I have enough Jack in me to last without candy, ice cream, cakes and cookies for a year. Am I soft and weak or can I be strong like Jack Lanne.
I’ll know a year from now.
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Day 8: How to be a Hard-Core Candy Addict: Lamar Odom
LA Laker star Lamar Odom is known as the “Candy Man” on his team. He’s an open and unrepentant candy addict. No Year Without Candy for him — yet.
See his new Power Bar (sugar filled) TV commercial on his website.
Watch hilarious video of Lamar, his teammates and his personal assistant (who has to make sure the boss has a sweet stash available at all times) talk about his massive sweet tooth.
By the way, Lamar’s father was a heroin addict.
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Day 8: How to Commit "Suicide by Sugar"
Bonjour! I love starting Week Two with the scary stuff!
(When I was a kid, my dentist showed me a model of a person’s mouth and teeth who never flossed. The teeth had all grown apart and deformed in the mouth. I have flossed almost every night since!)Nancy Appleton is an anti-sugar pioneer.
You can check out her website here.Her latest book is called Suicide by Sugar and the you can see the accompanying video, “Sweet Suicide,” below:
146 Reasons Why Sugar Is Ruining Your Health
Nancy Appleton, Ph.D.1. Sugar can suppress the immune system.
2. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in the body.
3. Sugar can cause hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.
4. Sugar can produce a significant rise in triglycerides.
5. Sugar contributes to the reduction in defense against bacterial infection (infectious diseases).
6. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function, the more sugar you eat the more elasticity and function you lose.
7. Sugar reduces high-density lipoproteins.
8. Sugar leads to chromium deficiency.
9. Sugar leads to cancer of the ovaries.
10. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose.
11. Sugar causes copper deficiency.
12. Sugar interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.
13. Sugar may make eyes more vulnerable to age-related macular degeneration.
14. Sugar raises the level of a neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine.
15. Sugar can cause hypoglycemia.
16. Sugar can produce an acidic digestive tract.
17. Sugar can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline levels in children.
18. Sugar malabsorption is frequent in patients with functional bowel disease.
19. Sugar can cause premature aging.
20. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.
21. Sugar can cause tooth decay.
22. Sugar contributes to obesity
23. High intake of sugar increases the risk of Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis.
24. Sugar can cause changes frequently found in person with gastric or duodenal ulcers.
25. Sugar can cause arthritis.
26. Sugar can cause asthma.
27. Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections).
28. Sugar can cause gallstones.
29. Sugar can cause heart disease.
30. Sugar can cause appendicitis.
31. Sugar can cause hemorrhoids.
32. Sugar can cause varicose veins.
33. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraceptive users.
34. Sugar can lead to periodontal disease.
35. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.
36. Sugar contributes to saliva acidity.
37. Sugar can cause a decrease in insulin sensitivity.
38. Sugar can lower the amount of Vitamin E (alpha-Tocopherol) in the blood.
39. Sugar can decrease growth hormone.
40. Sugar can increase cholesterol.
41. Sugar can increase the systolic blood pressure.
42. High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs)(Sugar bound non-enzymatically to protein)
43. Sugar can interfere with the absorption of protein.
44. Sugar causes food allergies.
45. Sugar can contribute to diabetes.
46. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.
47. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.
48. Sugar can cause cardiovascular disease.
49. Sugar can impair the structure of DNA
50. Sugar can change the structure of protein.
51. Sugar can make our skin age by changing the structure of collagen.
52. Sugar can cause cataracts.
53. Sugar can cause emphysema.
54. Sugar can cause atherosclerosis.
55. Sugar can promote an elevation of low-density lipoproteins (LDL).
56. High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in the body.
57. Sugar lowers the enzymes ability to function.
58. Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson’s disease.
59. Sugar can increase the size of the liver by making the liver cells divide.
60. Sugar can increase the amount of liver fat.
61. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney.
62. Sugar can damage the pancreas.
63. Sugar can increase the body’s fluid retention.
64. Sugar is enemy #1 of the bowel movement.
65. Sugar can cause myopia (nearsightedness).
66. Sugar can compromise the lining of the capillaries.
67. Sugar can make the tendons more brittle.
68. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraine.
69. Sugar plays a role in pancreatic cancer in women.
70. Sugar can adversely affect school children’s grades and cause learning disorders.
71. Sugar can cause depression.
72. Sugar increases the risk of gastric cancer.
73. Sugar and cause dyspepsia (indigestion).
74. Sugar can increase your risk of getting gout.
75. Sugar can increase the levels of glucose in an oral glucose tolerance test over the ingestion of complex carbohydrates.
76. Sugar can increase the insulin responses in humans consuming high-sugar diets compared to low-sugar diets.
77. A diet high in refined sugar reduces learning capacity.
78. Sugar can cause less effective functioning of two blood proteins, albumin, and lipoproteins, which may reduce the body’s ability to handle fat and cholesterol.
79. Sugar can contribute to Alzheimer’s disease.
80. Sugar can cause platelet adhesiveness.
81. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalance; some hormones become under active and others become overactive.
82. Sugar can lead to the formation of kidney stones.
83. Diets high in sugar can cause free radicals and oxidative stress.
84. High sugar diet can lead to biliary tract cancer.
85. High sugar consumption of pregnant adolescents is associated with a twofold-increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant.
86. High sugar consumption can lead to substantial decrease in gestation duration among adolescents.
87. Sugar slows food’s travel time through the gastrointestinal tract.
88. Sugar increases the concentration of bile acids in stools and bacterial enzymes in the colon. This can modify bile to produce cancer-causing compounds and colon cancer.
89. Sugar increases estradiol (the most potent form of naturally occurring estrogen) in men.
90. Sugar combines with and destroys phosphatase, an enzyme, which makes the process of digestion more difficult.
91. Sugar can be a risk factor of gallbladder cancer.
92. Sugar is an addictive substance.
93. Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.
94. Sugar can exacerbate PMS.
95. Sugar given to premature babies can affect the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.
96. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.
97. The rapid absorption of sugar promotes excessive food intake in obese subjects.
98. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
99. Sugar adversely affects urinary electrolyte composition.
100. Sugar can slow down the ability of the adrenal glands to function.
101.. I.Vs (intravenous feedings) of sugar water can cut off oxygen to the brain.
102. High sucrose intake could be an important risk factor in lung cancer.
103. Sugar increases the risk of polio.
104. High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.
105. Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.
106. In Intensive Care Units, limiting sugar saves lives.
107. Sugar may induce cell death.
108. Sugar can increase the amount of food that you eat.
109. In juvenile rehabilitation camps, when children were put on a low sugar diet, there was a 44% drop in antisocial behavior.
110. Sugar can lead to prostrate cancer.
111. Sugar dehydrates newborns.
112. Sugar can cause low birth weight babies.
113. Greater consumption of refined sugar is associated with a worse outcome of schizophrenia
114. Sugar can raise homocysteine levels in the blood stream.
115. Sweet food items increase the risk of breast cancer.
116. Sugar is a risk factor in cancer of the small intestine.
117. Sugar may cause laryngeal cancer.
118. Sugar induces salt and water retention.
119. Sugar may contribute to mild memory loss.
120. The more sodas a 10 year old child consumes, the less milk.
121. Sugar can increase the total amount of food consumed.
122. Exposing a newborn to sugar results in a heightened preference for sucrose relative to water at 6 months and 2 years of age.
123. Sugar causes constipation.
124. Sugar causes varicose veins.
125. Sugar can cause brain decay in prediabetic and diabetic women.
126. Sugar can increase the risk of stomach cancer.
127. Sugar can cause metabolic syndrome.
128. Sugar ingestion by pregnant women increases neural tube defects in embryos.
129. Sugar can be a factor in asthma.
130. The higher the sugar consumption the more chances of getting irritable bowel syndrome.
131. Sugar can affect the brain’s ability to deal with rewards and consequences.
132. Sugar can cause cancer of the rectum.
133. Sugar can cause endometrial cancer.
134. Sugar can cause renal (kidney) cell carcinoma.
135. Sugar can cause liver tumors.
136. Sugar can increase inflammatory markers in the blood stream of overweight people.137. Sugar can lower Vitamin E levels in the blood stream.
138. Sugar can increase your appetite for all food.
139. Sugar plays a role in the etiology and the continuation of acne.
140. Too much sugar can kill your sex life.
141. Sugar saps school performance in children.
142. Sugar can cause fatigue, moodiness, nervousness and depression.
143. Sugar is common choice of obese individuals.
144. A linear decrease in the intake of many essential nutrients is associated with increasing total sugar intake.145. High fructose consumption has been linked to liver disease.
146. Sugar adds to the risk of bladder cancer.
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Day 7: To Live and Die on Donut Holes
First, I doubt I would have gotten to Day 7 without you. Merci.By you I mean the collective You to whom I am writing every day. Since we’re all One, I guess this is a complicated way of addressing myself.
Hence, success – so far. And no I am not feeling any of that cloying brand new me high a lot of magazine articles etc. promise you post-sugar. I continue to be irritable – especially wherever there are other people. I am currently pricing vacations in the northern Yukon and the Australian Outback.
Given some stress this past week, I normally would have thrown in the towel around 9:30 p.m. on Day 4 and made a trip out for a Magnum ice cream bar in the messy back freezer at the Epicerie Centrale across the street.
But no, I’ve kept going because my digital conscience required it. In fact, I’ve become so conscientious that I even skipped something I’d ordinarily consider OK even when on a no-sweets regime: a raspberry smoothie from the new Zest Juice Bar.
This place advertises sans sucre ajouté. No added sugar. But I know they use frozen yogurt. So I asked the guy if there was truly no sugar in the yogurt. I explained I was giving up sweets and writing a blog about it so I had to know. For You.
He denied there was any extra sugar, until I asked the question three different ways (he’s French) and he finally admitted he put “just a little” in the frozen yogurt before mixing it up
Smoothies don’t rate as something I crave, exactly. I crave candy – and to a lesser extent cookies and ice cream. Pies and cake come last. So under my own personal dietary no-candy laws, smooothies are allowed. But given all the focus that’s come up as a result of me writing this journal, I decided to have pure juice, sans sucre ajouté, instead.
I’m being extra-strict with myself because I know full well how eccentric my own no-candy dietary laws can be once I get past the first week or so of giving up sweets.
Once when I was in my 20s, I gave up sweets for about nine months or so. But for the last few months, my dietary laws got more and more…flexible.
For example, at the time I was a newspaper reporter in California. There was a Winchell’s Donuts right outside where I worked. I love Winchell’s Donuts. Unlike the sickening 40-pound hockey pucks that pass for doughnuts at Dunkin Donuts where I grew up in the Northeast, Winchell’s doughnuts are to me, fantastic delicacies baked by ethereal chefs wearing angel wings and perched on the highest clouds.(Yes, idealistic Francophiles who think if it’s French it’s gotta be better than anything in America – I’d take Winchell’s over French pastries.)
By the by, Winchell’s had an excellent selection of doughnut holes in addition to the main doughnuts. (Can I say I just left this page to go to the Winchell’s website to review my old favorites – chocolate iced buttermilk bar, bear claw, maple iced French donut – and thought, forget it. This no-sweets deal is the silliest idea I’ve ever had. I’m going to fly to Santa Monica tonight and head for that dirty Winchell’s with the homeless people near the Third Street Promenade and eat every doughnut I want. And then go over to See’s candies on Wilshire…)
Anyway, I’m back. I’ve got some healthy chicken cooking on the stove. I’m sure that’ll be just as good.
Back to the Winchell’s doughnut holes. So way back in my 20s, I’d start buying a few doughnut holes every afternoon because what you may not know is – doughnut holes are not really doughnuts and therefore not really sweets.
I continued to eat doughnut holes well before finally admitting that I was eating sweets when I said I wasn’t.
Among other things I’ve considered non-sweets: whipped cream. A can of whipped cream (which tastes way better in France than the synthetic Reddi Wip you buy in the U.S.) clearly has sugar but since it is not classified by the general public as a dessert by itself…then to me it is allowed per my innovative, no-sweets dietary laws.
Also: jelly beans or other tiny candies taken from someone else’s glass jar on someone else’s desk are not really candies nor do they contain calories. Tiny stale chocolate Easter eggs found underneath a cousin’s son’s nightstand in a suburb also do not qualify as candy.
My dicey dietary laws are not my only worry as I face the remaining 268 days without candy and sweets.
I know that right about this point, Day 7, the novelty, what little there was, has worn off. And the addictive part of my brain will be seeking substitutes.
Normally – during other failed no-sweets attempts – I stock up on peanut butter and honey right about now.
Peanut butter and honey become my candy. I have a little spoon – and I start beating a path to those jars as if they were lines of coke on the kitchen table. Just one more spoonful. No, wait, just one more. This is going to be it. Really. OK, just one more.
Honey has always been allowed under my dubious dietary laws. But when talking to Connie Bennett of Sugar Shock the other day, I heard her mention that she considers honey to be a sugar to avoid.
So I did not buy honey today at the 8 à Huit.
But I did buy peanut butter.
What did I eat this afternoon? A few spoonfuls of peanut butter and raspberry jam, which I always have in the house. The jars are still there and basically full. Peanut butter and jam are totally allowed but that’s not the point. I know me.
Funny thing is, the more I write this journal, the more I toy with the idea of going farther and trying the whole sugar-free thing. Not just candy and sweets. I mean no raspberry jam, no muesli for breakfast if it’s the muesli with sugar in it.
But I didn’t do it today.
And right now I’m not craving anything. The chicken was actually quite good!
Notice I didn’t say pork.
That might hit a bit close to home.
Ta,
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Day 6: "Sugar: The Bitter Truth"
Watch it and weep sweetfreaks. You can watch it in chunks if a 90-minute lecture is not your cup of sugar-free tea. But it’s good and the kind of eyeball-glazing info I gobble up when I want to be MOTIVATED! to get through this first week without candy.
We’re all 25 pounds heavier than we were 30 years ago, Dr. Lustig says.
Why? One clue, “It ain’t the fat, people.”
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Day 5: Cue the (Real) Sun
I planned to ask the questions when Connie Bennett, Queen of all that is Sugar-Free in the Universe, and I spoke on the phone tonight from her Manhattan hq at Sugarshock.com. Connie, if you don’t know, is Martin Luther King of the kick-sugar world. Connie has a dream – and that is to help everyone who wants to – get off sweets.She wants to help me. Theoretically, I want and need help. I think.
But it’s strange and awkward to be the one being asked questions when you’re the one who does the asking. (See also: entire career.)
Connie knows how to ask questions (she’s a former journalist) – as well as help (certified life coach.)
“What is your goal in giving up sugar?” Connie asked me.
Here’s the thing. Today I’m not so sure I want to. Had another stressful day – four hours at post offices tracking a lost painting my cousin mailed me from the U.S. – or was it stressful because I wasn’t eating candy along the way?
So I didn’t want to talk goals to Connie. I wanted to ask her what is the point, really, of doing this.
Quitting sweets is a great idea, sure, the night before you actually start doing it.
I couldn’t escape Connie’s questions, though. It reminded me of how I ask people questions. Lots of things about Connie reminded me of me.
“Where do you see yourself three months from now?” Connie pressed.
“This is where I have conflict,” I said.
“Tell me about the conflict,” she said.
Hey, what am I doing on the couch?
Plus, I’ve interviewed so many people that when I’m being interviewed, I feel a false self come up, as I’m parroting some of the more canned responses I’ve gotten over the years.
It was hard to explain the conflict because I don’t really understand it myself. I love candy, I think, but I don’t love being a slave to it.
Connie listened. She wanted me to think about what my life would be like in a year from now if I gave up sweets.
Well, I said dutifully. I’ll probably lose weight. I’ll probably be calmer. I’ll be healthier.
But I don’t know if I want to do this, I said.
The more questions Connie asked, the more awkward and fake I felt answering them. The more uncomfortable I felt, the more feelings came up. Paging Dr. Phil.
Every cliche in the book came up. Like I didn’t want to say goodbye to things. I didn’t really want to move on. I like the past.
“Perfectly normal,” said Connie. “There’s often an emotional attachment to sugar.”
“Ugh,” I said, or something like that. This sounds corny, I told her, but it’s as if I give up, sweets, well yay for me – but it’s going to be as if every day from now on is going to be cloudy.
There won’t be any sun. Maybe some organic peanut butter but no sun.
Connie suggested what I thought of as sun might be fake sun.
Connie was driving along Pacific Coast Highway one day after she had kicked sugar, she said, and she realized that she felt as if she was seeing the sun for the first time. Really seeing it.
“You have to trust me, the sun will be out,” she said.
I do trust her.
She gave me four assignments:
1. Write about a typical day and how much candy and sweets I eat. (Ate?)
2. Write about my resistance to this. (Easy!)
3. Write about the benefits to your life a year from now if you stick with this. (A year seems like a long time from now.)
4. Write about what you can do instead when you feel like reaching for something sweet. (Lie down in the middle of the street and scream?)
Forecast for tomorrow in my neck of the woods: rain.
Sun to come out on the weekend.
If you’re interested in being coached by Connie, click below:
Read Connie’s March 2 AOL piece here about Ellen De Generes and Jeff Garlin kicking sweets.
More on Connie to come.
Keep paddling. I hear there’s real light at the end of this.
Ta,
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Day 4: Jeff Garlin Too? Kicking Sugar Hot New Trend!
“Curb Your Enthusiasm’s” Jeff Garlin was on “Regis and Kelly” Wednesday talking about, what else? Quitting sugar!
Garlin is overweight and a diabetic so he was super-motivated to go on an overall drastic diet – which included cutting out sweets.
See story and video here
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Day 4: Why is Ellen DeGeneres Copying ME?
Oops, I guess living in France has its drawbacks. I must be the last to know that Ellen De Generes started a “sugar cleanse” for the entire 2010 TV season. She started on Feb. 2 – which only makes me one month behind U.S. pop culture news.
Ellen is doing it the hard-core way,giving up everything that has sugar in it which as you know is just about everything. Here’s a clip from her TV show on Feb. 2 talking about giving up sugar. Check out her video diary about her sugar-free journey here and watch the clip from her TV show on Feb. 2, the day she kicked it all off.
About
Recent Posts
- Day 365: Tell the Women of Congo You Love Them!
- Day 364: What If the World Did End in 2012?
- Day 363: Twilight of the Dictators, Twilight of No Candy
- Day 353: Howl of a Candy Addict
- Day 351: Self-Deprivation Sucks
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