Sugar gone...week one. Oh...and try oil pulling!

Sanitas:  Off Sugar and added sugar, going on a week.

And so, it’s harder than I thought.  I can give up straight up sugar…candy, cake, doughnuts, even chocolate.  That is not too hard, but the added sugar situation is much much more difficult.  In the grocery store, for example, standing in the bread aisle, not having enough time these weeks to make my own no sugar bread, I am struck by the fact that every single brand of bread has some form of added sugar.  I lament and buy a box of triscuits, no sugar.  Yeah.

Then, I am realizing that nearly everything we do to celebrate has sugar in it.  You know, birthdays, holidays, office get-togethers.  Even those times when you have a meeting and they decide to provide food…granola bars, trail-mix with M&M’s …you name it, there’s sugar everywhere.

This week, I was stunned to find that my consumption of food grew less and less.  I was eating tortilla chips (corn, oil, salt) and refried beans and salads…these are only going to get you so far.  Yes yes, I ate my green smoothie every day, sweetened with a banana and a couple of small dates.  But this is difficult stuff!

However, it is going well.  Today I ate a burrito from Moe’s for lunch and asked, beforehand if their tortillas contained sugar.  Their white ones do, their wheat ones do not.  Whew.  I just could not eat yet another salad today.  As much as I adore salad.

One thing I am really hoping to gain from this is better oral health…teeth and gums.  In a recent study released by the American Dental Association, there is a high cross-over rate between gum disease, heart disease and an increase waist circumference.  Sugars seem to be the key that links all of these because the plaques that cause heart disease increase so much in the blood stream when we eat sugar…fructose translates directly to fat because your body really cannot metabolize it and it does not signal the hypothalamus that you’ve had enough to eat and you are not hungry.  Anyway, I am hoping that I will see improvement in oral health.  http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/features/periodontal-disease-heart-health

Speaking of such, since I began my year of total health, I have been practicing something called oil pulling.  It’s simple, you get up in the morning, put a tablespoon of either sesame or coconut oil in your mouth, and swish it around for 15 minutes while you go about your business.  It attracts all the bacteria from your tongue and teeth, and then you spit it out.  You can also feel it draining your sinuses a bit as you swish.  Then, when you spit it out, you rinse with water, scrape your tongue with a tongue scraper and brush your teeth as usual.  Three things you will notice immediately…1)  improved energy in the morning, 2)  absolutely it takes away bad breath (so if you know anyone with chronic halitosis, lead them to this practice) and 3) your teeth will get really nice and white without chemical treatments.  Here’s a good website on the subject:  http://www.foodmatters.tv/articles-1/oil-pulling-the-habit-that-can-transform-your-health

Oh, and an added psychological benefit, it will keep you from saying anything to your teenage daughter in the first 15 minutes of the day that you might regret later.  It focuses the mind.  Try it…

Let's get really real....sugar is my drug of choice. I am joining the no sugar movement truly this time!

Sorry for my delay on getting this written….lots of stress and work the last couple of weeks, so things have not been going as I had planned.  In fact, this is teaching me that I need a more intentional and measured strategy to continue being really healthy even during the most difficult moments of life.

What has been going well?  OK, so I’ve continued yoga and exercise in general…running outside in the spring air too.  I have been eating my greens and taking care of myself, but I have let fall some of my meditative practice and my well-being journal.  Starting it again today actually.  So, it’s been a hit and miss couple of weeks.  The first blow hit me when my show got so busy that I just didn’t have time to keep on top of eating healthy.  I succumbed to a few meals with sugar in them just because they were quick.  I also ended up indulging in some chocolate and even some ice cream late at night because I was tired and in need of some comfort.

It strikes me that I want to take more of a personal approach to this blog now because I’ve been writing more generally, and not telling the stories of what I am going through.  For me, the hardest thing about living a healthy life is all the added sugar in everything.  I was just trying to buy bread at the store because I did not have any time to make any during my busy semester when I had A Midsummer Night’s Dream opening plus I had two Festival of Faith and Writing sessions that I was a part of…one of them the first reading of a new script.  Eating healthy, it strikes me, takes a ton of time and also enough money to buy all the fresh, good ingredients.

I’ve just finished reading The Year of No Sugar:  A Memoir and what I was most struck by in the narrative written by Eve Schaub, is that she spent the entire year writing about not eating sugar and then developing great food in her kitchen, but this is all she did.  She did not have lots of other jobs to do.  Yes yes, she was caring for her two daughters and teaching a writing course, but the rest of the time she could spend taking an entire day to make a meal of homemade spaghetti and meatballs or a homemade meal of gnocchi.  I would LOVE to do that, but the time is just not a possibility for me six months of the year. 

So…as I am now going to truly enter a year of no sugar added….and I mean it…I am going to scour the food labels and make sure I am eating nothing with added sugar, my journey is going to look quite different from Eve’s.  The wake up call for me came this past week when I went in to the doctor with a ton of inflammation.  Some of this is from stress from my job, but some is from the chronic fatigue syndrome flaring up.  My doctor asked me if I had seriously given up sugar or if I was still using it as a coping mechanism.  I confessed to her that yes, I was still using it to get by in stressful situations.  It was like confessing that I was using drugs…well…I guess I am.  I mean, I love the sugar high and then I even love the crash because it often lulls me into a nap for 90 minutes.  No joke.

OK OK…I am going to seriously give it up now.  In fact, I am making Easter Dinner and it will be a no sugar affair, except for the carrot cake but even there I am cutting it way back for the sake of my guests.  And yes yes, I am going to have to learn to cook with no sugar and I am going to have to learn how to make myself healthy even during times of intense stress when I want to turn to this drug the most for help. 

Just a funny anecdote, I told my daughter Julia that come Sunday all sugar and sugar-added foods would be out of the house but I told her she could pick an exception, be it ketchup or what have you.  She picked her favorite barbecue chips, but I actually suggested that she pick jam or something so she could continue to have peanut butter and jelly.  She is thinking.  And then she asked, can I pick sugar…like just sugar sugar?  Funny.  Me:  “No….you cannot.”  Sigh.

If you are looking for an interesting read, take a look at Eve’s memoir.  I am going to read a new book or blog every month during my year.  Here are the rules I am following:

1)    Get rid of all products in house that contain added sugar, in all its forms, including honey and maple syrup.  Gulp.  My pantry might look bare.  I am giving it to our church food pantry.

2)    Stock up on bananas, figs, and dates to make sure you have the natural sweetening agents available for smoothies, etc.

3)    No artificial sweeteners allowed in any form at all – be it splenda, stevia, etc.  Stevia is my favorite.  That will be difficult.

4)    Only buy products that contain no added sugars.

5)    Pick one exception to the rule that you can have.  Mine is red wine.  Julia has not picked yet.

6)    Once a month we get a treat and I will make it from scratch and we (me and Julia) decide what it is together….unless it’s someone’s birthday…then they get to decide and that will be our treat for the month.

I am worried about holidays and family gatherings.  I am worried about whether or not I can do this.  That’s why I am writing about it so openly.  But I cannot take the kind of inflammation I am dealing with now in the form of headaches and intense joint swelling.  What I have is a pre-arthritic condition and cutting sugars entirely can really help to end this.  So here I go.  The year of total health just took a step up!

Get moving...for your brain and your breasts!

Wow am I late on this blog this week!  I have been in a week of stressful rehearsals and a return from our Spring Break that took me for a ride when I returned.  The piece of advice I want to focus on this week is daily exercise.  There have been a number of new studies that have pointed to the effectiveness of exercise for a HUGE number reasons.

But…before I do that, I just wanted to quick update on my last ten days or so.

What went well? 

OK, so everything is fine, but I came into Spring Break with a HUGE does of exhaustion and found myself ill the first two days of my little vacation.  This is a common physical reaction, emerging out of stress.  Healthy amounts of stress from good work and an active lifestyle will keep your immune system in tip-top shape.  Being OVERWORKED or OVER-stressed from too much exercise and a diet that is unhealthy will make you sick.  I was just a bit over-stressed during the week prior to Spring Break, so my body reacted by letting my immune system go lax for a moment and I caught a little cold.  So, then I just took a day of rest and recovered quickly.  In terms of eating and sleeping and keeping my health journal and well-being journal….it’s all going fine.  I have a few days here and there where I didn’t get enough vegetables and I didn’t maybe get enough probiotics or protein.  I am still having my struggle with salty foods – sometimes I just really crave tortilla chips or salty tomato sauce on pizza.  I have read that if you crave salt, you actually need potassium, calcium, iron and magnesium.  So, this next week I am going to work at getting more natural sources of these foods.  Beets, kale, greens of all kinds, hemp hearts, black beans, coconut, etc.  We’ll see how that goes.

What didn’t go well? 

Getting sick always takes me off track for a bit and I found myself depressed and this made it difficult for me to get moving again and I stopped lifting weights.  Then, I seem to have hurt my neck because I was not doing my normal routine, which gives a tremendous amount of core strength.  Do you know that you lose core strength and flexibility in less than 5 days if you are not exercising it?  Yeah…just five days.  So, I fell off the wagon on weight lifting.  I did do a lot of yoga, but the focusing in on specific muscle groups is necessary.  I’ll get it back this next week.  Promise.

Now, let’s get to the importance of exercise.  First, there is a new study that if you exercise, as a woman, for just one hour per day, you reduce your risk of breast cancer significantly.  Second, there is a study out that if you begin to exercise in your 20s, you significantly increase your chances of having a healthy brain in your 40s and beyond.  Now, of course, any time you begin exercise is good, so you should begin as soon as possible.  Even elderly people who have not ever exercised significantly do themselves a world of good by beginning to exercise.  Other studies recently released show an increase of brain health generally from exercise.  Exercise fights gum disease as well!  Yes…yes it affects your teeth and your oral health.  People who exercise regularly get fewer infections and are less likely to get communicable diseases such as influenza.  And the list goes on, but I do think that THE most significant feature is that it radically reduces your risk of cancer.  Here’s the most recent study on breast cancer:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/20/291894075/exercise-cuts-breast-cancer-risk-for-all-women-everywhere