Two Weeks and Counting: Carbs, good or bad?

Thursday April 28

Today marks two weeks since I began this adventure. I'm thankful to have made it this far so that I could see that it gets easier, not harder. I still think the very first day was the hardest. It was like standing at the starting line before very long race and knowing that you still had the chance to back away. But once you are in full swing, once you find your stride, the danger of turning back is so much less.

This whole week I have not had the underlying sense of hunger and depravation that I felt the first week. The sugar addiction is gone and I feel great. I don't crave it in the least. Well, I should qualify that. I don't crave sugar just to eat sugar. But I do sometimes day dream about ooey, gooey cinnamon rolls, or chocolate chip cookie dough. But I can quickly snap myself out of such reverie.

But now that I've cut out sugar, which is unquestionably bad, I want to explore other carbs. Are they good or bad. How do they make me feel?

Although there are some nutrition facts that apply to every person, there also seems to be variety from person to person in how we process and react to foods. I think that carbs is one of those areas.

Since different calorie reduction approaches work better for different people, I decided that I was going to do an experiment where I would try a different approach for a week at a time and see how I felt and reacted at the end of the week. I'll spare you the blow-by-blow and give you the bottom line summary: low carb is definitely not for me.

I have heard some people say carbs give them blood sugar swings and when they cut out carbs they lose weight without feeling hungry at all. If that's true for their body type, they should run with it.

My experience is just the opposite. A low carb diet first of all makes me feel CRAZY hungry. Thanks to the explanation given by Sugar: the Bitter Truth I finally understand why this is. My brain gets glucose deprived which makes me feel starving, and it's very difficult and inefficient for my body to make glucose fast enough from either protein or fat. This slows my metabolism down and makes me feel like if I have to be on this diet for one more day I might die. I lost no weight the low-carb week while feeling horribly hungry, deprived, and miserable.

However, when I spent another week eating a balanced diet of complex carbs (no sugar of course), protein, and a small amount of fat, I hardly felt hungry at all even though I was experimenting with cutting at least 500 calories out a day. I lost 4 lbs in one week, while not feeling hungry. The difference is that whenever I began to feel a twinge of shaky, irritable, I-need-to-eat-or-I'm-going-to-die (aka "hangry"), I would eat a complex carb and immediately feel great again. On the low carb week, I would get that feeling but the cheese stick or the lunch meat or whatever low carb thing I ate did nothing to help with the horrible hunger feeling.

I really like the good old-fashioned count your calories method, although with modern technology, it's not really that old-fashioned anymore. My Fitbit tells me how many calories I've burned based on the exercise it's tracked, and so I enter what I've eaten into the Fitbit to keep the calories under my output. And the calorie value of every food on the planet is stored in the app on the phone so it's as easy as typing in the word: EGG.

But for those who don't have a Fitbit, there's many other free apps which will do the exact same thing for you. The most popular one I've heard of is My Fitness Pal. Entering food only takes about a minute after each meal, or sometime less.

But of course, I write all this down mainly for myself. I'm learning to be my own personal trainer, my own nutrition counselor, and customize a plan for me. Some people may hate entering food into an electronic device; they'd rather cut out a whole food group or follow the Paleo diet or South Beach, or Atkins. People are complex; personalities are complex. Everyone should do what works for them.

I'd much rather write everything down if it means I can give myself a little flexibility in what I eat. For instance, last night for dinner we ate a Mexican casserole that my family loves consisting of rice, black beans, corn, canned tomatoes and shredded cheese mixed together and baked in the oven. Because it has shredded cheese in it, I couldn't have eaten it if I was on Weight Watcher's Simply Filling, or South Beach. Because of the rice, I couldn't have eaten it if I was on Paleo or low carb. But I don't want to eat something different than my family every night or be super limited in what I can make them. Calculating the calories for this casserole was easy, we all ate the same thing, I felt full and satisfied, yet I ate 500 calories less for the day than I burned.

We all have to find our own groove. Sometimes it takes experimentation. Books and blogs can be helpful, but in the end, I am the one who has to find a way to make it work, and find something I enjoy sticking with.

Day 12: Sugar, the Bitter Truth

Monday April 25

One thing that really fuels my motivation to keep this up is to arm myself with knowledge. I watched a lecture on YouTube (that's had 6 million views) called Sugar: the Bitter Truth by Dr. Robert Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology. Some of the chemistry in the lecture is technical, but the rest is easy to follow.

The most helpful information I gleaned was on the difference in how the body processes the carbohydrate found in bread, pasta, or rice (pure glucose) compared with how it processes both white table sugar and high fructose corn syrup (which contains some glucose with a lot of fructose). Without going into too much detail, here are some things to note:

1) Gram per gram, a much higher percentage of fructose ends up as fat compared to an equal amount of glucose eaten.

2) When equal amounts of glucose and fructose are consumed, fructose effects the body's endocrine system much more negatively than glucose, spiking insulin and taxing the liver.

3) Glucose is the natural fuel of every cell in the body and needed for brain function. It triggers fullness sensations in the brain which fructose does not. Fructose is not a natural fuel and must be processed in the liver to be used. Something which the liver has to process to use is also called a poison.

4) Despite the similarities in names, fruit does not contain large amounts of fructose, but has mostly glucose with small amounts of fructose. The large percentage of water and fiber contained in fruit offsets the small amounts of fructose, so the intake of fruit does not need to be limited.

5) And lastly, a real shocker: Soft drinks made with high fructose corn syrup are pretty much the worst thing of the planet that anyone could consume. Of course, we all knew they were bad for us, but perhaps few knew how bad. Since I've always had an interest in science, for me, there's no motivation in the world like knowing the facts behind something. A vague notion that something's bad for me is nothing like hearing a scientist say: THIS IS A POISON, and then explain exactly how it's a poison.

Day 9: Boys in the Boat

I have some advice for anyone who is about to undertake something difficult that will involve willpower: read Boys in the Boat.

I enjoy walking and jogging much more if I have a good book to listen to, but as I was recently on my library's site, looking for audio titles to download to my phone, each one I picked had one or two people in line ahead of me. I put several audio books on hold, but I wanted something to listen to now. Then I came across the title Boys in the Boat, and remembered that several people had recommended it.

It has turned out to be the perfect read for starting a new adventure like giving up sugar! One's petty little battles can seem insurmountable until you read a story like this. Here I am, jogging along on a lovely trail, under a perfect blue sky with the loveliest cool breeze, listening to a book about boys rowing for three hours every night in Seattle all through the winter in freezing rain, in the dark, muscles aching.

One's own challenges begin to be put into perspective.

But it isn't just the physical challenges in the book that make it so compelling, it's the true life story of boy named Joe Rants. After his mother died when he was 4, his father remarried and his step mom hated Joe. When Joe was 10, she demanded that he live on his own, so he had to sleep at the school house each night, and work at hard physical labor to earn his food. He was never allowed to come home. When he was 15, his dad, stepmom, and half siblings moved to another city but told him he couldn't come along, so he was completely on his own.

I don't normally gravitate to sports stories, but this one is truly exceptional. It's not just about some boys winning the Olympics in Berlin, it's about the endurance of poor western farm boys beating the rowing teams of eastern affluent Ivy League schools. The boys from Washington State won because of their courage and commitment. They had no advantages in their lives. They worked all summer at extreme physical labor to earn their way through college. They worked during the school year, on top of rowing for three hours every night and keeping up on their studies. And most importantly, they learned to depend on one another.

I finished the book today and I'm very glad those other books weren't available. I love to hear stories about self-discipline, courage, and overcoming hardship. Don't we all? It makes us realize our own challenges are well within our reach if we are determined.

Anyone going to join me on this sugarless journey? If so, leave a comment.

Day 8: The World's Best Omelet

Thursday April 21: Day 8

It’s official! I made it one week without the tiniest amount of refined sugar. I woke up this morning feeling great. But I have some challenges today: first a brunch with my ladies’ Bible study at 10:00 and the a dinner at On the Border this evening. But there’s something to be said about momentum. I’d be embarrassed to tell how many times I have woken up in the morning determined to cut back on sugar and made it only a few hours (or minutes.) I think starting is the hardest part. But I’ve made it this far so I don’t feel too much danger of quitting just yet.

I’ve noticed something interesting. I was having one slice of whole wheat toast each morning with my eggs (I found a brand with no added sugar) but the last couple of days I ran out and have felt less of that underlying hunger. I don’t know if the lack of flour or the amount of time since I’ve had sugar, accounts for the change. When I add it back in, it will be interesting to see how I feel. 

[Later in the day] I survived the brunch like a champ! I ordered a create-your-own omelet and here is what I asked for on it: bacon, gouda cheese, artichoke hearts, roasted tomatoes, fresh spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, and fresh avocado on top. Everything I love! As I ate it, not one part of me wished I could be eating anything else. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And, I felt very, very satisfied afterwards.

Day 7: For the Love of Running

Wednesday April 20: Day 7

I had a funny dream last night. I dreamed that I was walking along and suddenly had a sickeningly sweet taste in my mouth. “Oh no,” I thought in my dream, “I’ve ruined my sugar fast!” In the dream, I had no recollection of eating anything, something sweet just appeared in my mouth!

When I woke up, at first I was greatly relieved to find that it had only been a dream. But then I realized that if I do somehow slip up and forgetfully lick a finger with brownie batter on it, take a sip of the wrong cup of coffee that has sugar in it, something of that sort, I’m not going to scrap this whole sugar fast for the sake of one absent-minded moment. If I do mess up, I’ll still feel honest saying I went for one year without sugar without feeling the need to say: “I went for one year without sugar except for a lick of batter at 3:41 pm on Tuesday, May 17.” If someone questions me closely, I’d be happy to admit any failures. But I’m not going to feel the need to qualify every time.

Having said that, there is no way I going to allow myself any deliberate licks or sneaks. A conscious decision to take one big lick of brownie batter would lead to a conscious decision to take a spoonful, and then another spoonful.

But isn’t that just like life? Whenever we set ourselves to some sort of discipline, a kind of extreme perfectionism haunts our every step. We tell ourselves that if we can’t do something absolutely perfect, we might as well not try at all. One mess up that could have been easily overlooked becomes our downfall.

And yet, as soon as we ward off perfectionism, next we have to watch for the danger of slacking. I really want to go a year without sugar, not a year with less sugar.

Today I felt significantly less of the niggling hunger that I had felt the last 5 days. Just a tinge of it remains. Also, today I thought: how silly that I was expecting my body to adjust immediately to running without the primary source of fuel it had been used to. Of course this is going to take time. But that the body is able to adapt, I have no doubt. I just need to be patient.

I’m sure my body didn’t appreciate all the sugar I was pumping into it, but it had to learn to cope with is as best it could. Now that the sugar is gone, my system is probably afraid to make too many adjustments to its burning style too quickly, in case the sugar assault comes back at any moment. But over time I plan to coax it to burn fat, to train it that the sugar really is gone, and it can switch things up.

You may be thinking that I was a complete sugar freak, but I think my intake was well within the average for an American. It may have been lower, because I’ve never been one to drink soda regularly. I’d have a teaspoon of sugar in my tea each morning, a teaspoon my coffee mid morning, a couple small pieces of chocolate after lunch, and a cookie or occasionally a bowl of ice cream before bed. I wasn’t eating bon-bons all day people. Not all day. But it’s amazing what just a little bit of something harmful can do?

I’ve been jogging a 5K for the last couple of weeks but today I felt much less sluggish than I had been feeling. I’m not a natural runner at all. I only got to this place by following the couch to 5K free app that trains you. I don’t have goals to run even a half marathon partly because of the time it would take. Also, I have to admit, I don’t really like running. To make matters worse, I’ve been making myself run uphill for the first half of my jogs. Here in Colorado where there’s less oxygen, this feels brutal, but today I felt as though maybe just maybe my lungs are starting adjust.

I don’t have lungs with a naturally high capacity. I’ve noticed that the state of some people’s bodies when they don’t exercise is decidedly more fit than other people who get the same amount non-exercise. My own sedentary state is not a positive one. For instance, when a kind and generous friend bought me a Fitbit as a present just after my husband had lost his job, I found out that my resting heart rate was consistently around 91. So although I was not a complete couch potato--I walked around a lot more in a typical day than someone with a desk job would--this was not a healthy resting heart rate at all.

Six weeks later, after jogging three times a week, recently uphill for half, and walking the other three days I wasn’t jogging, my resting heart rate has consistently dropped down to around 71.

Looking at the resting heart rate graph on the Fitbit screen, is just about the most motivating thing to exercise that has ever happened to me!

It sure is more motivating than looking at the scale, which actually didn’t move one spec until this week that I gave up sugar. I must have been eating more to make up for the extra calories I was burning walking and running.

I sometimes hear people say something along the lines of: "there was once this lady who drank only Coke, smoked 2 packs a day, and lived to 110." Often, the implication seems to be that it doesn’t matter what a person does. Or worse yet, some people want to claim the Coke and cigarettes made her live that long. But that’s not the moral that I get from the story. The moral I get is that lady had incredible genes that allowed her body to somehow survive horrific abuse. But not for a second do I think that either myself, or 99.99% of Americans, can apply her story to our experience.

On my mom’s side of the family is cancer. Her two parents had breast cancer and prostate cancer. Then, all three of their daughters had breast cancer. The four ladies survived breast cancer, my grandpa died of prostate cancer.

Then on my dad’s side, we have type 2 diabetes and heart disease. So there you have it. Put the genes together and you have cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, all in one person. I wouldn’t make it till 40 on cigarettes and Coke.

But the fact that I would have a higher resting heart rate, lower muscle content, higher body fat if I never exercised than other people who also never exercise, doesn’t get me down. I just figure my role is to simply do the best I can with what I’ve been given.

And plus, I said that I don’t like to run. But I actually do like some of it. When I’m sitting in my house, nice and cozy, I have to fight with myself to get out the door.

But once I’m out there, I’m quickly overcome by the brilliance of the azure Colorado sky. Today I felt like I could stare at the loveliness of that color forever. A smattering of the puffiest white clouds formed a stunning contrast. The sun was bright, but the air had just the right amount of coolness for my intense workout. Redwing blackbirds chirped and sang on the rushes lining the stream I ran alongside. The sound of the bubbling spring water made the world seem alive and fresh. There was no place that I wanted to be more than outside, filling my lungs with air, and moving my legs.

I often think while I run, there will come a time, if I’m blessed to live long, that I’ll no longer be able to run. But today, what a blessing that I can run, even if not very fast. I do not have a MS, or Parkinson’s, or bad knees, or arthritis...yet. And, I’ve been free from sugar slavery for very close to a week. Yes, it’s been a very good day!

Day 5: In Love with Fruit

Monday April 18

We’re having friends over tonight and my husband went to the grocery store to get a few things for our dinner (there are advantages to having your husband laid off work that you may not have considered.) One of the things on the list was to pick out any dessert for our guests tonight. He came back with ice cream AND a huge fresh fruit plate for me overflowing with melons and berries. I was ecstatic. I set to work on nibbling on it right away. He really gets this idea that saying no to one thing will only work if you say yes to something better. But I hadn’t talked to him about that and he didn’t read what I wrote yesterday. He was just being thoughtful.

Did I mention that I’m allowing myself to eat fruit? Some Atkin’s diet enthusiast who picks carrots out of salads will likely corner me at some point and tell me that this whole experience will be “fruitless” because I’m including fruit. I intend it to be a very fruitful experiment; full of fruit and still productive. And picking carrots out of salads is just...weird.

Here’s the thing. I know that fruit has natural sugar in it, but this is my experiment and raw science doesn’t know everything. If some study claims there’s not that much chemical difference between the white stuff I’m avoiding and the natural sugar found in fruit that I’m still eating, I think that the study left something out. The world God made is complex; my body is complex. The awful experience of addiction that I have with the white stuff simply doesn’t happen with fruit, not to any degree. Whether or not science has a full explanation, I have the experience of how my own body works.

After taking a bit of cantaloupe, I don’t feel like I’ll die if I don’t have more. I am able to delight in it in moderation. I might eat another piece, or I might put the rest in the fridge for later. Maybe this how the non-sugar addicts feel about cookies. With fruit, it's pure delight without any unwieldy cravings for more. It’s a freeing experience.

Day 4: The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

Sunday April 17: Day 4

The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. It’s a sermon that was delivered by Thomas Chalmers and it has been referenced by many modern day preachers. The idea behind it is that when we are reconciled to our creator, we have new desires, such as desires to please Him, desires to see other people happy, desires to be a noble person and do right to reflect His goodness. Only when these new desires become stronger than the desires to do wrong, can someone have any true victory over sin. We don’t just tell people not to smoke and not to chew and not to go with girls who do. A desire for something bad has to be replaced with a higher desire for one to be truly sanctified.

If this is true on the high and cosmic level, it seems it can also be reflected in the little, mundane things like giving up sugar. The only way that I’m going to be successful at knocking this sugar habit is if I replace sugar with something better.

For instance, in “the old days,” these were the days from about 5 years ago to 15 years ago, I had myriads and myriads of toddlers roaming the premise (5 to be exact, although of course they weren’t all toddlers at once.) But every good mother of toddlers has one ultimate goal everyday, and that is to get all napping children to nap at the same time every day. There was a time when I had a 6 month old, a 2 year old and a three year old. This can be tricky with the different ages, but I somehow made it happen nearly everyday. And when those three were sound asleep, I felt like the champion of the world. Heck, I was the champion.

And that’s when the chocolate came out.

I mean, come on, every woman champion deserves chocolate. Those were crazy-busy days: two in diapers, nursing one while the other emptied the contents of a kitchen cabinet, etc. There were fights to break up, snacks to be divvied, and lots of lots of messes. I was exhausted by nap time and chocolate was my reward.

But then children grew older and the work got less intense, the habit of having a little chocolate after lunch never quite went away.

So I was talking to my sister today about this and we landed on me having a little “avocado” time every afternoon instead. Mmm boy!

Day 3: I'm hungry

Saturday April 16

I’m still feeling the same nagging hunger that I experienced yesterday despite eating nourishing foods. But it certainly isn’t anywhere as strong as the pull to sugar when I’m eating sugar. We shall see how long it takes to get over this underlying feeling of being a little hungry.

But I've noticed something about coffee with only half-in-half: I'm beginning to like it so much that I actually feel like putting sugar in my coffee would be a different drink altogether, like drinking hot chocolate. I don't want sugar in my coffee anymore. Who'd a thunk?

Day 2: Called to Freedom

Friday April 15: Day 2

"But for freedom you were called. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh."
Galatians 5:13

I’ve made it 24 hours which is harder than one may think. I can’t say yet that I feel exactly great. I’ll say that I feel better. I’m not thinking about sugar like I was two days ago when I was still eating it, but I feel a nagging, underlying hunger. I’ve felt this before when I’ve gone off sugar (the longest has been a week) and I’ve heard nutritionists talk about one’s body transitioning from being used to always running on carbs to learning how to burn fat. Oddly enough, I’m eating plenty of healthy calories like eggs and whole wheat bread. So I know what I’m feeling isn’t true hunger; I think it’s sugar withdrawal. I’ve used up all the glycogen stores in my liver and my body is trying to figure out how to run without sugar. I think I can, I think I can...

Day 1: The Beginning of it All

Thursday April 14

It's a weird day to start something so monumental. It’s not New Year’s day; it’s not the beginning of a new season or a new month. It's not even the beginning of the week. There is no reason to start a sugar fast today other than the pure and simple reason that I’m tired of living with constant sugar cravings and don’t want to do it for one more day. 

And...there’s the reason that here in Colorado Springs the bright sun is bringing temperatures in the 60s and 70s. It’s time to be outdoors again, hiking and swimming. I put on 10 wopping pounds over the holidays (which eating-wise went from Thanksgiving to Easter), and I feel sluggish and bloated. All the sugar I consumed over the last 6 months is sticking to me. It left the shelves of the pantry and I carry it with me wherever I go.

But what I really want more than dropping some extra pounds is to feel free from bondage to something, free from constantly thinking about sugar, free from its relentless pull on me.

I read an article today titled The Sugar Conspiracy by Ian Leslie. The thing about science that never ceases to amaze me is how little is set in stone, even when it is pretended to be. This article documents how long-standing evidence has been suppressed showing that sugar not saturated fat is far more dangerous to a nation's overall health, including heart disease, diabetes and obesity rates. It claims that serious evidence is lacking to support the long-standing belief that the fat that clogs arteries is the result of eating excess saturated fat.

What comes to me as a surprise is that there is actually a debate about what foods cause fat to accumulate into our arteries! They've been acting like there was no question it was from saturated fat consumption. It turns out that sugar consumption could be the cause.

But this has been a lesson to me that much can be learned by simple observation of one's own body. I don't mean that I'm going to have someone look inside my arteries after a year of no sugar, but that I can learn some things through observation that science would never be able to tell me. Even if there were a study about how 100 people felt or reacted to a year without sugar, that still would not be as accurate for my own body as doing it myself. I have a unique metabolism and body make-up. So here it goes my own study...

Giving up Something Good for Something Better

Why would anyone want to go a year without sugar? Isn’t that like going through a year without happiness? Actually, in deciding to go a year without sugar, it’s really happiness that I’m in search of. Let me explain.

For some people desserts, soda, cookies, pies, and ice cream are all things they enjoy but not things that they obsess about. But for other people, and for myself in particular, I’ve found that sugar can act on me exactly like a drug. While I’m standing in the kitchen inhaling the delicious aroma of chocolate chip cookies, I have a desire to eat one. But that desire is not all-consuming. I can walk away without obsessing about it. But once I take a bite, something inside me goes hay-wire. My entire world seems to become reduced to the thought of eating another cookie.

The reason I decided to try to go for a year without sugar is that I came to realization that this wasn’t first and foremost an issue of self-control. It was first an issue of addiction. After finishing one cookie, whether or not I allowed myself to eat another and another and another was an issue of self-control. But that fierce, all-consuming, world-narrowing desire I was feeling, the inescapable pull, the unsatisfied lure that I felt, was something that I was experiencing apart from self-control. It's not a feeling that I enjoy

I don’t think this is a pull that every person will understand. Whether or not science has isolated a sugar-addiction gene, I have seen the genetics of it at work within my own children. Between my two youngest daughters, Abigail will take a few bites of her dessert and declare herself full. Her sister Naomi will then proceed to eat her own dessert and the finish Abigail’s.

This may not strike a chord with everyone. The propensity to be addicted to sugar seems to be built in genetically and those who have felt the pull will relate to what I write here. Others may think it silly.

I believe in enjoying life and the good gifts that God has given us. I believe we should feast--not everyday, every meal, but on occasion. However, shouldn't the point of feast be to lay back and feel satisfied afterwards? Sugar doesn't allow me to do that. I feel much less satisfied after I've had it than before.