Sugar is sweet

Saying the word “diet” in January has become so commonplace, it borders on cliché (props to Leonard’s mom on the Big Bang Theory for such a great line).  Post January 1^st, friends flout their weight loss journeys on social media, the fat free/sugar free/mostly bags of puffed air aisles of the grocery store are empty, gym memberships soar, and everyone you know is engaged in the battle of the bulge. Collectively, all us fluffy people unite in an “I’m gonna DO this” mantra at the start of each year that sadly and usually wilts under the oily glare of a deep fried Super Bowl snack wonderland.   And, well, I’m no exception.  To quote the late, great writer Erma Bombeck, “I’vebeen on a constant diet for the last two decades.  I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds.  By all accounts, I should be hanging from acharm bracelet.”  

Amen, sister.

Of course hubby is a genetic freak who has never weighed more than 6.3 pounds over or below what he weighed in college.  Every so often, he will weigh himself, step from the scale, place his hands on his waist (he has no hips or ass to speak of), shake his head and mutter that he needs to lose ‘a few pounds’.  His ritual of losing weight involves looking very serious, closing his eyes for a few minutes, flexing all his muscles real hard, at which point 5 pounds drops from some unseen part of his body, where it lays quivering on the floor for a few seconds.  And then, like the crab creature in the movie “Alien”, it scuttles across the floor and attaches itself to my thigh, where it refuses to let go. 

Okay, this January, as I stared back at the chaos of 2014 – weddings – showers – graduations – funerals – as well as periods of just feeling like crud - I simply couldn't bring myself to pick from one of the A (Atkins) to W (Weight Watcher) diet programs that line my book shelf.  You could say I’m a diet program connoisseur – I’ve probably sampled them all.  But not this year.  So, the food scale sits dusty.  The Points book/Calorie Counter is still tucked away.  My gym membership key card is in pristine, underused condition.  And the great pantry conversion of chips and cookies to carrot and celery just didn’t happen.

Well, if you’re a woman over a certain age, say 50, extra weight messes with you in ways you didn’t expect.  Aches and pains settle in and refuse to leave, despite Advil and red wine.  Flexibility becomes non-existent – ‘Wait, you want me to TOUCH my toes?  How about I just glance in their general direction?’  Your fasting blood work resembles the Wall Street ticker after a crash – values that are supposed to be low are high, values that are supposed to be high are low, and you’re in a coffee-less, cruller-less stupor from the required fasting that takes hours to recover from.  You find yourself marking “X”s on the calendar, counting down the few years left until you’re exempt from the Lenten fasting requirements.  And lastly, courtesy of MENopause, fat takes on that stubborn, bitchy, lack of sleep attitude you have after “sweating because you’re oldies hot flashes” night after night.  Extra chubbiness now just sort of looks back at you with an insolent “What? Leave? Make me.” cheekiness when you pick the ‘fat burning’ program on the Exercycle. 

But when during that glorious, painful, yearly checkup known as the physical the doctor begins to look at your chart, look up at you, look down at your chart, and back up at you, while muttering increasingly concerned “hmmms”, you realize he isn't worried about making his tee time and you slowly understand the hammer is coming.  Despite your best efforts to distract your doc - "Look, a wart!" - its that awkward time to talk about your weight. Blech.

So, while at the GI doc’s office, I spotted an article on sugar, processed food, and obesity.   Nutritionists tell you that the average American consumes 20 added, unseen teaspoons of sugar in their diet every day.  Ever wonder what 20 teaspoons looks like?  (I didn't either, but here you go anyway)

Hidden sugar?  It’s in everything.  Don’t believe me?  Check your pantry and labels.  What the…what fun is it if you can’t actually enjoy the sugar you’re eating?  To quote my kids, ‘that’s not fair!’  The American Heart Association recommends women eat no more than 6 added teaspoons of sugar every day.  Big difference.

And so I started some simple steps to begin carving extra sugar out of my diet.  Notice I did not say I stopped consuming any piece of sugar anywhere.  We all know how well cold turkey works…it simply doesn't.  And it turns out that real food contains sugar – fruits, vegetables, dairy products and dairy replacements, eggs, alcohol and nuts contain a certain level of sugars.  No fruits or veggies?  No wine?!? Um, no.  But me, like probably everyone else in the Western Hemisphere, has become conditioned to the taste of over sweetened food.  Splenda is 300 times sweeter than sugar. 

Well – light bulb time.  Maybe I should just eat real food and drink real water.  And exercise more.  OK, maybe more isn't the right word in describing exercise; maybe ‘start’ is more truthful.  Sounds easy, right?  Simple math.

           

            Healthy Eating + Regular Exercise = Healthy Weight

Except I suck at math – and added sugars, particularly in processed food is in every part of my diet – pretty much like every American’s diet.  Maybe this ain't gonna be so easy, after all.

But, the doctor’s look at my last physical spurs me onward (fear can be such a motivator), so I started with a simple rule: don’t drink calories or more specifically, don’t drink ‘empty calories/empty sugars’.  Farewell fruit juice, so long Diet Coke and Crystal Light.  Wait, Diet Coke…Crystal Light - they’re sugar free, right?  Yes, they are.  But there are recent studies that show large consumption of artificial sweeteners MAY induce a glucose intolerance response by messing with gut bacteria in certain people.  And it would just go figure that I could be possibly be one of those certain people. 

So honestly, it was time to reintroduce my taste buds to the taste of same old, plain old water.  DAY-UM.  No lie, this has been hard.  It turns out that while I was drinking a lot of fluid, very little of it was just water.  And let’s not kid ourselves, peeps – association eating is everything.  You know what I mean – a slice of pizza, even a healthy slice of homemade pizza SCREAMS for a fizzy soda product to wash it down.  I had also been conditioning myself to think water has to have flavor, hence the craving for Crystal Light.  Sometimes breaking through those mental connections can be the hardest part of any diet.  And yes, peeps, I’m owning the word diet.  Everyone is on a diet – some healthy, some not.  But no more shying away from the word.

OK, it’s February now.  The hoopla surrounding January/resolution/diet craze has faded.  It’s even past Groundhog Day, for which the movie of the same name could sort of describe my past failed weight loss attempts – reliving the same diet, again and again.  But it’s been 4 weeks, and I’ve made and maintained some changes.  Have I lost 50 pounds?  I wish.  Am I alternating high impact aerobics with a spinning class and some YOGA tossed in?  Not hardly.  But I AM thinking more about what I’m eating, and I’m even thinking more about exercise.  And I’m thinking – hoping – planning that this time, and maybe only this time, simple math might just be the answer. Can't believe I said math was the answer...