HEALTHY BODY: CHECKING IN ON THE SUGAR THING

Well, here I am on the cusp of March.  I started this blog on January 1 to announce I am avoiding sugar.  Then I decided to also talk here about other health-related issues and how they may link with saving the planet.  I note it's been a month since I've written.  I can explain.....it takes every ounce of available energy I have to drive by Starbucks.  Who has time/energy to sit down and write a blog post?!?

HAHA  Just kidding.  The truth is that it's been surprisingly EASY to drive on by.  It's been less easy, but still not terrible (no fingernails bitten to the nubs) to walk on by the dessert table at various events I've attended, to turn down free samples at the market, to gaze, but not buy at the pastry case.   I even said no thanks to birthday cake at my granddaughter's party this week.  This, my friends, is utterly unheard of!

So, still no cookies, candies, cakes, pies, apple fritters, donuts, mochas.  Am I perfect?  Nope.  I'm still eating a bit of my homemade raspberry jam occasionally.   I've developed a taste for Medjool dates (had to stop buying them).  I check labels for added sugars and find it's impossible to find much that has zero added sugar, so I will get if if it's less than 2 grams, which is like 1/2 teaspoon in a serving.  So shoot me.

I immediately lost 4 pounds but then stopped losing weight, which shocks me; I think  I should have lost more of course, so I must be compensating elsewhere.  Just not sure where that is.   New fitness goal is to really and truly commit to YMCA classes and walking the track there when I don't get out to my waterfront walk with Hub.  The waterfront trail we walk is about 4.5 miles and I get my whole day's allotment of over 10,000 steps in about 90 minutes. Efficient, but I'm a fair weather walker so on those drizzly cold days, I just blow it off.  (Spring is on the way!)

I'm reminded that as I grow older, this emphasis on eating well and moving more is a time-consuming proposition.  Some of my friends and I joke that staying alive at our age is a full-time job.  And it often feels that way for sure.  But we are not just trying to "stay alive" but to stay alive in the most healthy and active way possible.  And that takes some effort.

I'm so grateful for the "Sugar-free 2020" FB group, started by a local woman who I've now met and like.  We all log on and share our tales of success and setback -- encouraging each other not just to avoid sugar but to make healthy choices around food and activity every day.  We hold each other accountable and when we slip up we are there for a word of encouragement to keep going.  When we are on track, we get to report that too and the cheering section applauds.

So, on I go.  Determined, setting new goals, feeling positive if not perfect.  And in total amazement that my "avoid sugary treats" intention is taking root.  I'm all about the fruits and veggies these days.  Go figure.

Here's to health, for ourselves and our planet....©

HEALTHY PLANET: TOXIC ENVIRONMENTS

Bragging: My avoidance of sugar thing is going well.  Day 29 and no sugary treats all month!  No candy, no mochas, no pastries, no cakes, cookies, pies.  I'm busily reading labels and next up will be to avoid the worst of the "added sugars" in the food I buy -- like my very, very favorite poppyseed dressing!  😩

I've lost weight and I feel better.  Most of all I can drive on by Starbucks, and walk on by the bakery at QFC or the candy at the check-out counter and know I won't likely succumb.  That "should I or shouldn't I?" internal struggle is quieter.  (Not silent.) The chemical cascade of horror inside my body is, hopefully, finding its way back to normal equilibrium.  That keeps me on track.  

Too much sugar ingestion is toxic.  It just is.  It pollutes our bodies and causes all kinds of ill effects: Type 2 Diabetes is pandemic (5.5% of the world's population! - International Diabetes Foundation stat) mostly due the the enormous amount of sugar in our diets.  Once I get a better handle on the biochemical data, I'll try to translate it, but apparently my Snickers addiction in high school has left my brain in a state of science-understanding atrophy, so be patient.  Just know it's bad.

I've spent the past couple of days helping edit some writing my husband ("Hub") is doing for his various climate change activities.  He's taken this cause on like a part-time job, bringing his expertise in the medical field to the discussion.  He's focused on the health effects of climate change.  He's gone to nine climate-related meetings in the past two weeks .  Coming up this week are a series of public comment opportunities for which he's preparing his remarks.  Those, along with a Guest Commentary column for the local newspaper, are what I've been editing.  I'm learning a lot.

And I've begun to think of air pollution along the same lines of sugar pollution.  Burning fossil fuels to heat our homes, drive our cars, take long trips on airplanes seems as normal and as American as, well, apple pie.  But just like that apple pie, what goes on inside our 'home' (body and planet) reveals the deleterious effects being played out.  Breathing particulate matter from burning gasoline and diesel (air pollution!) has caused a dramatic spike in diagnosed cases of asthma -- especially for those who live near freeways (generally lower socio-economic communities), as well as increasing likelihood of cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, allergy-related ailments, diabetes, immunosuppression, impaired reproductive success, even dementia.  

Burning fossil fuels, like ingesting sugar, leads to a toxic brew of ill-effects, not the least of which is dependence.  We think we can't live without it.

And we can't as long as we look through the lens of the way things have always been -- at least in our lifetimes.  The rise of fossil fuel (coal, gas, oil) dependence came with the Industrial Age and has increased 1300 fold since 1800 (our world in data stat).   The rise in sugar consumption grew dramatically with the introduction into our food sources of high fructose corn syrup in the 1970s along with the demand for quick, highly processed convenience foods. We became "hooked" on sugar and oil and can scarcely imagine life without them, regardless of the health impacts.

The more I learn about health and climate change, the more I see that there are multiple ways in which we've been snookered by industries, corporations and government to cling to the lie that these things are not harmful and are in fact 'good' for us.  Not true.  It's time to wean ourselves from these substances and create a new vision for our future -- one that removes us from living in toxic environments -- inside and out.

Here's to health, for ourselves and our planet...©

HEALTHY BODY: LEARNING AND CHANGING - MORE SUGAR BLUES

"Dear Body,
I'm sorry I've been so hard on you.  In your 20's you were slender and beautiful, with smooth clear skin and vibrant red hair.  Still, I criticized your skinny arms and hated your red-headed freckled paleness.  In your 30's and 40's, after the kids came along, I filled up all those sleepless nights, worries, frustrations, and exhaustions with cheese, pizza, and ice cream.  Then I hated what you had become -- overweight and out of shape; lethargic and perpetually tired.  In your 50's you found yourself the middle of a sandwich between acting out teens and failing elders, working full time, stressed to the max.  Hello Chardonnay.  And desserts.  And "fast and easy" anything.  And more pizza.  I was just trying to help!
I'm sorry,
Your Psyche"

Body: "I know.  I forgive you."

And I do.  Coping mechanisms are not always conscious, healthy, and intentional.  They are often detrimental, habitual, and often addictive.  In my case the food industry was in cahoots with my poor eating choices by actually making foods in laboratories with chemicals and ingredients purposely designed to be addicting to humans, ensuring a steady profit margin for the manufacturer of "convenience foods" for the busy, stressed, and overwhelmed working men and women, parents, teens, children, anyone really, who had one serving and said, "I want more!  That tastes good!"

The tail ends and early years of each decade is always a transition time. I look back at my late 50's as a time when I finally started to care for myself with intention and get smart about why certain foods issued a siren call to my cravings.  I went to my first (life-changing) yoga class at 58; in my early 60's I quit drinking alcohol.  I lost 25 pounds.  All those years of struggle with food and drink and the scale were fading into the past, mostly.  The scale is still a nemesis at times.

In my 60's I've been learning more and more about healthful living and how to have a strong body.  Aging will do that -- I can't stop the clock from it's inexorably ticking down, but I can choose to live every ticking minute as healthfully and happy as possible.

Now having just turned 69 and heading into my early 70's, I've completed Yoga Teacher Training and  I'm eating a 90% plant-based diet.  Most recently I have committed to giving up sugar in the form of sweet treats and desserts -- and as much as possible any added sugars in the foods I buy.  That part is super hard since everything (thank you processed food industry) has some form of sugar added to it.  I look at my favorite bread and see it has 2 grams of added sugar.  I still eat it, for now.  I look at my favorite salad dressing and see it has 6 grams of added sugar.  It's off the grocery list.

In my reading about the dangers of sugar, here are a few things the Beating Sugar Addiction for Dummies and Fat Chance books lists for deleterious effects of sugar on our health.  See which ones you you can relate to:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Obesity
• Diabetes (Type 2 is an epidemic!)
• Liver Disease
• Cholesterol imbalance (and attendent cardiovascular health deterioration)
• Metabolic Syndrome (chronic metabolic diseases may result in: heart attack, stroke, heart failure, diabetes, cancer, dementia, cirrhosis of the liver -- all travel with obesity, which is a marker of metabolic disease.)
• Hypothyroid Disease
• Chronic Fatigue
• Fibromyalgia
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Immune System Impairment
• Bone Loss
• Wrinkles

Does an overload of sugar alone cause each of these.  No, not all, but some.  Does an overload of sugar exacerbate all of these? Yes. There is rock solid scientific evidence demonstrating the biochemical cascade of effects, made worse with each sugar binge, that occur in the body when we "treat" ourselves to a Dairy Queen Blizzard or its equivalent.  

I am not a scientist or a doctor so I have to wade through the lay literature written for people like me and still I get confused.  But I am not so dense as to not see clearly that sugar is not a good thing for us to be ingesting in the enormous amounts we do.  There are real health consequences to our love affair with sugar.  I'm learning about them and making daily decisions around what I put in my mouth just because it tastes good, because the "tastes good" test is one the food industry has forced and fostered, our culture has encouraged, and my sad, addicted taste buds (and brain) craves for all the wrong reasons.  

The more I learn, the more I believe sugar is a toxin to be avoided.  This sounds extreme even to my own ears, so I've a ways to go, and OHMYGOD does this mean no more Costco Tuxedo Cake?  Say it ain't so....   (Yes, it is so.)

In checking my BMI (that marker of healthy height/weight proportion) on my apple shaped physique, I see that I am still one tick over the line into 'overweight'.   I'm determined to rectify that.  This is my year to do it.

Here's to health, for ourselves and our planet.  ©

Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com

SOME GREAT RESOURCES:
Beating Sugar Addiction for Dummies by Dan DeFigio
Fat Chance - Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease by Robert H. Lustig, M.D., M.S.I.
Salt, Sugar, Fat -- How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss