I am a sugar addict!
I come from an Italian family where food and desserts are just part of your culture. Every birthday, holiday, get together is centered around food and desserts. I also grew up where dessert was an every night thing instead of a occasional treat.
My sugar addiction really grew when I was 9 years old and candy, cookies and ice cream were my weekly reward for having a good piano class. I grew to associate sugary treats with a job well done.
When I got my license and a job OHHH Boy did we run wild. Ice Cream Flurry's, getting food here and there, celebrating with food, using food as a filler when we were bored, or if were upset. Later when more stress came into my life sugar seemed to help that too.
I never looked at food for it's purpose FUEL. Although I never had an eating disorder I definitely had some food dysfunction.
In college I had my first wake up call to what I was doing to my body. I suffered from allergies, insomnia, and headaches all of which my sugar addiction contributed to.
It was about my 4th trimester in Chiropractic School after spending over a year intimately understanding the human body and physiology I learned that sugar could be just as harmful as cigarettes or alcohol. YIKES. Tooth decay, pancreas, liver, and even brain damage, digestive stress, heart disease, obesity and the list goes on..
In 2009 the Journal of Nutrition published research showing sugar is addictive. It also showed that bingeing on sugar can cause withdrawal symptoms and cravings. The behavioral effects are similar to the neurochemical changes in the brain that also occur with addictive drugs like heroine and morphine.
Bingeing on sugar literally can increase your endorphins or happy hormones…. but it is short lived. Just like many drugs sugar will bring you high and then you quickly fall low and stay in a blood sugar low until spiked back up again by feeding the sugar monster. This process of up and down is extremely damaging to the body and actually makes you age faster than if you did not have these constant highs and lows. It is also a major cause of depression or what I like to call the Sugar Blues.
Once I understood what sugar was doing to my body I started to use Nutritional Supplements and Therapeutic Essential oils to break my sugar habit. One product that totally helped me get through the afternoon cravings was NingXia Red . I would take one or two ounces of NingXia Red and I had no desire for a cookie or candy bar. NingXia Red is a fruit juice that is fortified with natural vitamins and minerals plus it has 18 amino acids. Those amino acids helped me to maintain my blood sugar and not crave the sweets. Interestingly that today if I don't do my NingXia Red I will start to crave the sugar's again.
As I believe that Total Wellness is Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual I also addressed the emotional reasons for eating sugar, and had an amazing spiritual deliverance experience that helped me break the sugar addiction. Today even when I fall off the wagon for weeks or even months it no longer has the hold on me it once did.
My clients especially Fibromyalgia and pain clients do exceptionally well with a very low sugar diet. Spiking blood sugar also causes inflammation and pain in the body.
Today I know when I fall off my nutritional regimen and am not getting all the vitamins and minerals I need I will start craving sugar. Or if I let myself have sugar day after day it will weaken my body to the point I will want it every day again.
Right now, May 31st 2011 I am in that sugar cycle again but I have committed to release sugar for 90 days. Not an easy task. We will talk about in another blog all the hidden places sugar hides in your diet.
I am committed to quit. Now I will do natural sugars but I will limit those too. I know I will be successful because I have done it in the past. I have more ambition right now because there is a little life growing in my belly. It has been proven in women who eat a lot of sugar during their pregnancies their children will grow up to have sugar preferences too. I am not going to set my child up for a life of bad health. I am ready to take control of my health how about you?
Dr. Mary Starr Carter has worked with thousands of clients from terminally ill and chronic diseases to those who are healthy and want vibrant health. She has counseled hundreds of families who had given up hope find simple safe solutions. Known as the Total Wellness Doc she looks at all aspects of health to help someone overcome disease. She specializes in difficult cases like Fibromyalgia, Hormone and Adrenal issues, Asthma, Diabetes and Chronic pain.
If you are serious about releasing sugar or other food addictions I encourage you to visit Dr. Starr's website Wellness Coaching
and enroll in our Web Coaching program.
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