Sugar, The 'Little White Lie'
If you haven't been been aware of the detrimental effects of excess sugar on your body by now, let me do the honors. Sugar might indeed be the biggest silent "killer" and secret ager of our mind and body.
I am grateful for the pioneers in the health field, who are standing up to expose the truth about sugar. For instance Dr. Robert Lustig, authored a well viewed lecture, "Sugar, The Bitter Truth" and recent book, Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease.
Moreover, the Atkins diet created the way for our discoveries of how eliminating excess carbs created quick weight loss.
In my own ebook, Pass Me The Butter Baby & Hold The ____!, I outline an intuitive strategy for resetting your body weight and optimizing your health. The foundation of this includes getting over our sugar addictions and limiting our carbohydrate intake. Yes, I said 'our'.
Although, I have demonstrated phenomenal success in losing more weight than I originally set out for, and found a treasure chest of turning back the aging clock, I still have moments; although few, where I crave sugar.
So with that being said, I like many of you, have found myself in 'negotiation' mode. Negotiation mode is characterized by telling yourself that, "A little sugar won't hurt". After all, I would still take all my anti-oxidant, and anti- inflammatory supplements.
Two weeks ago, I ate two homemade cookies - free of wheat & corn but with other flours such as quinoa & buckwheat and made with less sugar than the recipe called for. For the hours to follow, I found myself in a brain fog with sinus congestion.
No biggie, I figured it was probably the grains.
This past week I found some ice cream with 'organic' sugar and no maltodextrin or corn syrup. So, I ate just 1 cup. The following two days, I was emotional and in a brain fog. I found myself unable to focus to multi-task and my workload took much longer to complete. Finally by the third day the fog lifted, and I felt 'back on track'.
Whew! What was I thinking? I should have planned for these moments of weakness better. After all I know better. It just goes to show how you can have all the understanding in the world, but without a plan - you can still relapse into the abyss of the sugar dumps!
If you are shaking your head with doubt, check out these three articles on the effects of sugar on your brain:
1. Psychodiabetes: Sugar on the Brain, Daniel G. Amen, M.D., Mar 19, 2013 ; http://huff.to/145BbGo
2. This is your brain on sugar: UCLA study shows high-fructose diet sabotages learning and memory,
Elaine Schmidt, May 15, 2012
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/this-is-your-brain-on-sugar-ucla-233992.aspx
3. Why Half of America May Have Impaired Brain Function by 2030, Dr. Mercola, September 02, 2012
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/09/02/fructose-affects-brain-health.aspx
As for me and likely for many others; saying, "A little sugar won't hurt.", is the beginning of self sabotage.
Now that I can recognize how sugar took me back to my previous anxious, tearful, frantic, the list goes on self, I can see why so many relationships suffer. That's another topic altogether. More importantly, I can see personally, how sugar can be adversely affecting my children.
At this moment, for my children, I'm looking into substituting recipes that call for sugar with other sweeteners.
As for me, I'm back to making my pumpkin cinnamon hempseed 'cookies' that will include stevia, butter, coconut oil & cocoa butter- made by mixing, baking for just a little bit, and finished off with my food dehydrator.
When I eat these cookies, I get the 'comfort' feel minus the inability to control my portion size, and plus a mind & emotions that stay clear.
I love ice cream. So I plan to make some of my own with Land O Lakes whipping cream, dark chocolate unsweetened powder, butter, and stevia with my Ninja Kitchen Blender. - I'll keep you posted.
Until next week, be well & enjoy! -Aurora
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