My Sweet Sugar Addiction
PART ONE:
I allowed myself to be bombarded, intentionally, with numerous articles and studies and insights that indicated that sugar is as addicting as cocaine. I sought these revelations out with much anticipation. Sugar causes cancer. Sugar causes diabetes. Sugar causes dementia. I was trying, essentially, to convince myself to give up added sugars in my diet.
Never would I try to compare my addiction to added sugars with that of a true drug addict, or alcoholic, or sex addict, or gambler. I do, however, think that added sugars (soda pop, cookies, ice cream, fast foods, white flour foods, candy) were slowly killing me. Not to mention the immediate benefits of enjoying added sugars: fatigue, brain fog, sluggish-ness, belly fat, jitteriness, short temper, and irritation, among many other wonderful effects!
My addiction to sugar looked something like this: cereal in the morning, white flour bagel and jam as well; snacks: chips or yogurt and a coke; lunch was fast food with a large coke and definitely, always, a large coke refill; snack: popcorn with a coke, or gummy fruit snacks; dinner was usually pizza, doughy under-cooked breadsticks and always a coke! A component of this sugar addiction included a severe lack of nutritious foods. Zero to little veggies, some fruits, barely any lean proteins, and basically no proper fibers and wheats and nuts and grains. My diet consisted of very little nutritionally-dense foods.
It would not be unusual for me to drive through and grab two donuts and a large frap a few times a week. I craved all things white: croissants, rolls, buns, bread, bagels, tortillas, noodles, dough, breadsticks, donuts, etc. It was palpable. Literally. This was wearing down my physiology and also my checkbook.
Eating sugar, drinking sugar - ingesting it and consuming it in any manner possible - was rewarding and fulfilling. Sometimes, when I was pretending to be "good and on a diet," even just the smell of sugar was soothing. And that was the problem. The emotional attachment.
Pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, sugar cookies at Christmas, chocolate bunnies for Easter, the little-crunchy-I-love-you-candy-hearts for Valentine's Day, CAKE, so much cake, on my birthday in July, and an entire sleeve of Oreo cookies sneakily eaten at midnight, while hiding in the closet, so I wouldn't have to share with my husband and son. The smell of cotton candy and carameled apples during the Halloween fair. Crispy, doughy churros at Disneyland.
All of it was enticing and desired and anticipated. And consumed. No matter the cost: monetarily or physically.
Whenever it was my turn to scoop the mint chocolate chip ice cream into two bowls for me and my husband, I always ensured I had the bowl with more and bigger scoops of ice cream. Always. I'm a middle child sooooo you know I'm serious.
Donuts on the way to work (cause I have to reward myself for even going to work), those crispy, flaky, warm cherry turnover pastries from Arby's on my way home from work (cause I have to deal with two kids under 4, and a husband, and two cats, and dishes and laundry and vacuuming, so I might as well pat myself on the back for a job well done), Starbucks when I'm running late for work (cause, well, I'm running late for work), and cinnamon twists from Taco Bell as dessert (cause, you know, there's always room for dessert).
-- it never stopped. Any chance I had, any excuse I gave, to feed the addiction. Physically and emotionally.
Lucky me, I'm what they call "skinny or thin." I'm 5'4" (5'5" on a good day), and holding steady at 128. You can see my biceps and I have a "thigh gap" (I hate that I know what that is). BMI is great, muscle tone is obvious, and after two kids I look damn hot. Most would say I'm pretty.
But I'm not healthy. My bones, my skin, my organs, my digestion, my hair & nails, and my brain are drying up and shriveling and shrinking and malfunctioning and dying. It's not pretty.
I'm 40 this year. Newly married. New car, new job. And now I have two little miniature versions of me running around, chasing after me, emulating me, loving me, missing me, admiring me, mimicking me, and watching my every damn move. I can't even pee alone for two minutes without tiny little toddler fingers slipping under the door, and a squeaky, mostly-adorable voice asking where am I? Am I done yet?
So you know they see. Everything. What I eat, they eat. What I crave, they learn to crave. My elder child recognizes the yellow "M" signpost for McDonald's. He yells "fries" and throws his hands up in the air smiling gleefully. He knows not to touch mama's Coke while we're watching a movie. The husband knows that if I'm buying cans of soda pop from a grocery store it must be Coke or Cherry Pepsi; but if we're dining out where there's a fountain soda machine it's always Cherry Coke (never just Pepsi, and never from a bottle - ever). They know and see and learn.
It's embarrassing and depressing and I feel immensely guilty. I'm exhausted. But.....enough to battle withdrawals and emotional emptiness inside to give it all up?
Not yet.
