STOP FRETTING OVER FAT - SUGAR IS THE KILLER

Dr. Nancy Appleton, author of Suicide by Sugar, actually lists 146 reasons why sugar is ruining your health. Here are just a few of them:

(1) Sugar is a cancer cell's favorite food. Even without having cancer, we all have a few cancer cells floating around.

(2) Sugar creates glucose spikes that force the pancreas to produce insulin more often and beyond it's normal capacity. This wears the pancreas down, limiting insulin production that leads to diabetes. Type II diabetes is insulin resistance, which is preceded by metabolic syndrome at least partly attributable to high sugar intake.

(3) A depleted pancreas can't provide sufficient proteolytic enzymes to bust open cancer cell walls and render them defenseless from the immune system's killer cells.

(4) Processed sugar and fructose are stripped of all mineral content and wind up leeching minerals from our bodies, including our teeth. They also inhibit mineral absorption, including magnesium. Magnesium is a commonly deficient and vitally important for over 300 metabolic processes.

(5) Sugar is addictive. It stimulates central nervous system neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, giving you a pleasant buzz to crave more and promote overeating of processed foods.

(6) Many nutritional experts attribute the rise of obesity and cardiac problems to higher refined carbohydrate and sugar consumption. And the condensed fructose in HFCS is absorbed first by the liver, which cannot metabolize it all and has to store accumulated fructose as fat creating fatty liver.

Obesity, diabetes, and heart disease became epidemic after low and no fat diets were introduced while sugar and HFCS were increased in processed foods and beverages.

Chobani Blueberry Greek Yogurt

When manufacturers took out the fat from many of our foods, they added sugar to make up for the flavor and texture that was lost.  For example, (and this is a great illustration) read the labels on the non-fat yogurts we all think are so healthy.  They are full of sugar!  Just try to find a flavored yogurt on the market that has little or no sugar...

And honey?  That's sugar, don't let the name of the sugar fool you.  There are now dozens of names for sugars.  Read the Carb portion of the label to get the totals,  the ingredient list can be misleading.

THE PAST

"The past is obdurate"  is a recurring line in the book I am reading.  It is the new Stephen King novel 11/22/63 about a man who has found a way to go back in time to try to stop the assassination of John Kennedy.  In his efforts to make changes in the past, obstacles are placed in his way.  He has found that the past doesn't want to be changed, the past  is stubbornly set in place.

 I woke up during the night last night thinking that it is true in my life, not just in a time travelling novel.  The past travels forward with us every day, it is attached to our decisions and to our habits.  No matter how you think you have changed, it is still there.

I know that I need to make lifelong changes yet I 'm dragging along all kinds of beliefs and ideas and comforts from the past.  Even though they don't work for me anymore, even though they don't help me, they fight me to maintain their existence.

To leave the past behind, to make real changes going forward I need to outsmart the past.  So I will read Stephen King and see how things work out in the story as I start to craft my own way around the past.

FEELING GOOD

Last night I got home from work and was making my usual cup of decaf tea to unwind before going to bed.  I realized that if I knew how to whistle, I'd be whistling a happy tune.  I felt good.  I felt no pain.  I felt like myself again.

Now this may sound really lame, but part of it was because the back pain is gone and the tightness is going away - but it was also because I came home to a clean floor.  I took my time and didn't do anything strenuous, but I swept, vacuumed and mopped the floors.  The pleasure of the clean floors was equal to my pleasure of having no pain!