Archives for February 2011

I gave up sugar

“If you had to ask  my friends  to describe me the word “sweet” would be used for sure.  Unfortunately they might not say “Lana is really sweet” , in fact it’s far more likely they would say “Lana has a very sweet tooth”

And they ‘d be right.  I am the kind of person that can’t  sleep if there’s chocolate in the house because it calls me while I’m sleeping, wakes me up and forces me to eat it.  I am the kind of person that can drink Diet Coke for breakfast and jam with my toast and sugar in my tea.  I am the person that goes into the petrol station to pay for my petrol and comes out with a chocolate.

So what on earth would propel me to try and give up sugar?”

I’d been doing a bit of reading because I was feeling stale, de-energised and  like I was carrying too much weight.  But most worrying was that I was obsessed with food.  Food was on my mind all the time – recipes, meal ideas, chocolate/bread/noodles, what I could eat for snack/lunch/dinner/ just because I deserved it.  I loved and resonated with all the books on emotional eating and many times I sat in front of my fridge literally pleading with Geneen Roth, author of Breaking Free from Emotional Eating to help me. I understand my emotional issues with food – I even explained them to my open fridge but it did not help the fact that I spent too much time obsessing.

I came across David Gillespie’s book The Sweet Poison Quit Plan mainly because I was drawn to the delicious looking cupcake on the cover and then I opened it and I read his opening sentence “Sugar makes you fat.  It is converted directly to fat by your liver and it destroys your appetite control so that you want to eat more of everything.”

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I was hooked, I know that I always want to eat more of everything and I wanted to know why my appetite control was basically non existent and whether my sugar consumption was part of my obsession with food.  The book explains how sugar is metabolized and illustrates how sugar is added to almost every single thing on our supermarket shelves but it also offers a plan to give up sugar (and thereby regulate your appetite) and  I do so love a plan.  I planned to get over  my obsession with food.

Turns out the plan was simple.  I was to stop eating anything that tasted sweet and spend what seems like eons in the aisle every time I went shopping to check the sugar levels in packaged foods because there is sugar in almost everything you eat so you need to check the content is really low.  Like  really really low – less than 4gms per 100grams.

I have been off sugar for 10 days and it is as hard as David Gillespie told me it would be.  Well he didn’t tell me that as such but his book certainly suggests that sugar withdrawal is hard.  I feel exhausted, I am still highly emotional (this may just be me), I feel a little bit edgy and somehow unsatisfied – like I just want a cupcake with icing.  Lots of icing. And little silver balls .  But it is not hunger and I only feel this dissatisfaction after I have eaten.

But, there are pluses – heaps of people (well three) have mentioned that my skin looks clear, fresher, more vibrant (and I haven’t even asked them).

And there is this: the exact thing I was looking for.  I don’t think about food all the time.  I just forget to think about it.  I eat of course but more out of hunger and less out of habit.

I would still love to dip my teaspoon in a jar of nutella and inhale (Gillespie reckons it takes most people 3 to 4 weeks to withdraw totally and get over those cravings) but this desire for liquid chocolate is not knocking on my head all day long.

It worries me a little because I realise sugar was a crutch.  Just like nicotine was once.  Now I don’t smoke and I am not eating sugar I am not sure how I will deal with a crisis, but hopefully soon my sugar levels wont be quite so crazy and life will seem less crisis filled and more even keeled.

In the meantime I am discovering a new way of eating, not feeling fantastic YET but at least my focus is expanding (and hopefully my waist isn’t)

Sleepover 101

This weekend saw the Indian Wedding style festivities of Little Pencil’s  birthday.  I am pleased to report that I survived and I am writing to you from neither jail nor hospital.  This is a most unexpected but welcome outcome.

You see last night I bravely volunteered to let my son have three friends to sleep over on the night before his birthday party because:

  1. I am a complete sucker, especially for birthdays.  I have this ridiculous need to fulfill Little Pencil’s every desire and make his birthday perfect and he desperately wanted his friends to stay the night.
  2. I had said no to having them  sleep over the night before thinking that stretching it one day would somehow make it more bearable.  It didn’t
  3. I am insane

It all started quite worryingly with the parents of the friends constantly checking that I had not gone mad and then wishing me luck, in hushed and very serious tones.  I knew that I was onto a bad thing when people who weren’t even involved in the sleepover started wishing me luck.

But I persisted because my child was very excited, he was having three of his best friends to sleep.  Two boys and one girl.  Perfect, possibly because they are the naughtiest sweetest children you could ever hope to find. Perfect also because the next day was his party and after the party we were having 25 people for lunch.  Did I mention that I am insane?

It wasn’t ALL bad, in fact I learned quite a lot from my ordeal experience of having 4 friends over to sleep. Take note, my lessons may stand you in good stead:

  • When serving dinner to 4 children do not ask themwhat they want, because they will tell you. And it will not be consistent with what the others want.
  • If the children are allowed to choose a movie and there are three boys and one girl there will never be any consensus
  • If you ask the children if they want a treat while watching the movie they will roll their eyes at your stupidity.  As they well should.  Serving “treats” before sleeping is one of the signs of insanity that they check for in intense psychiatric assessments
  • They will all need the toilet at exactly the same time.  Each one of them will tell you that it is urgent and it cannot wait.
  • Nobody’s teeth will be properly brushed
  • There will be toothbrush envy
  • Someone will forget to brush their teeth at all and just pretend they have
  • One of the children will want the lights on, one will want the lights dim and one will want them off.  The fourth one will want a rotating combination of all three
  • The children will all ask for water as they get into bed even if they have just drunk litres of the stuff and even if they adamantly refused a glass 10 minutes before.
  • All four children will want to sleep on the top bunk
  • You will not sleep a wink because someone is on the top bunk
  • Someone will fart and the other three will become hysterical as a result
  • Someone will make an annoying noise with their leg
  • Someone will make an annoying noise with their mouth
  • Someone will make general annoying noises
  • Someone will end up lying the wrong way in the bed
  • As they are about to fall asleep one of the children, probably your own, will tell a really stupid joke
  • When everything is quiet and you can hear the regular breathing rhythm of two sleeping children someone will tell you that they cannot sleep. This is because they are sitting bolt upright in their bed and playing with a ball
  • Someone will snore
  • Someone will be scared of snoring
  • They will all wake up before 6am
  • They will all be in terrible moods the next day because they are over each other and they are exhausted

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The biggest problem is that the kids will forget the pain of exhaustion and want to do it again, they may even forget the shrill tones of your voice as you scream at them, beg them to go to sleep. You will be scarred and your defence mechanisms may be so low that you will have forgotten the intensity of it, in which case you will probably agree to do it again.

Don’t.